Whose mandate is it anyway?

The media have repeatedly raised questions about today's strike action because of the level of turnout in the strike ballots. They are not the only ones: Vince Cable has also commented that the unions "don't have a very strong mandate" due to the turnout (or lack thereof)

At first glance this is a fair criticism. I voted in the NUT ballot where 92 per cent voted "yes" to strike action, but with a turnout of only 40 per cent. Doing the maths, this means that actually only 36.3 per cent of those balloted voted in favour. Everyone else voted "no", spoiled their ballot, or didn't vote at all.

When the majority of your peers do not explicitly agree with your view, perhaps you need to think again. Cable is right to say that the unions, such as the NUT, really didn't have a great mandate for today's action.

Except mandates become quite problematic if we do want to take turnout into account, and as it turns out, Cable really shouldn't be throwing stones in this particular area.

Why? Well, in 2010 Mr Cable was elected in his Twickenham constituency with an admirable 54.4 per cent of the vote. A rare clear majority; a clear mandate. Except, if we do insist on considering turnout, Vince starts to run into problems...

According to the BBC the turnout in Twickenham was 74.8 per cent. When we factor in the people who did not vote, Cable's share of the vote drops down to 40.7 per cent. Just like the NUT "yes" vote, this is some way short of the majority of people agreeing that Cable was the right man for them. His mandate is only 4.4 percentage points stronger than the NUT's.

It's even worse for his buddy Nick Clegg, who won 53.4 per cent of the votes in Sheffield Hallam on a turnout of 73.7 per cent, so only 39.4 per cent of registered voters in his constituency backed our now Deputy Prime Minister.

If it's OK for these guys to sit in cabinet with mandates like that then I don't think they can really take issue with the NUT.


The numbers in full

NUT: 218,370 teachers balloted. 79,259 voted "yes".  79259 / 218370 = 0.362957 = 36.3 per cent.

Clegg: 51,135 votes cast in Sheffield Hallam on 73.7 per cent turnout => 69,383 registered voters.  27,324 voted Clegg.  27324 / 69383 = 0.393814 = 39.4 per cent.

Cable: 59,721 votes cast in Twickenham on 74.8 per cent turnout => 79,841 registrered voters.  32,483 voted Cable.  32483 / 79841 = 0.406846 = 40.7 per cent.


Sources

NUT: http://www.teachers.org.uk/docs/files/pr86-2011-pension-ballot-result.doc

Clegg election result: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/election2010/results/constituency/d96.stm

Cable election result: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/election2010/results/constituency/e80.stm

What's next?

In the past, I've not been too sure about blogging, but now I think I might be a convert. Let's see how it goes, eh?

I've decided to start so I can get some things off my chest, and if other people turn out to be interested, well that might be nice. It's going to be about my stuff, which these days means education, particularly schools, even more particularly school improvement and the role of data in today's secondary provision. There might be some stuff about teaching, the ICT curriculum, and education policy. I will probably stay away from cricket.

So... what's next?