What does 2011 offer for political nerds?

On 13 January there will be a by-election in Oldham East and Saddleworth to fill the seat left by Labour's Phil Woolas. Like every by-election, it is a key test for the three main parties and their leaders, but Ed Miliband and the Nick Clegg have the most to gain - and lose.

Then on 5 May there are so many elections and referendums, political commentators will find it difficult to keep up. There are elections for councils across the UK, the Welsh Assembly, Northern Ireland Assembly and the Scottish Parliament are all up for election on that date as well, and there is also a referendum in Wales on whether to give the Assembly law-making powers.

Of course, the main attraction on 5 May will be the referendum on changing the voting system in the House of Commons to AV. The vote (only the second UK-wide referendum in British history) will be a somewhat bizarre as most Conservative MPs are opposed to AV, while most Liberal Democrats will support the change. The result will have lasting repercussions for the Coalition, but also for the future of British politics. If the people support the change, there may never be a majority government again.

More inner conflicts in the Coalition are bound to appear over the next year, it will be interesting to see how the two parties hold together, if they do at all. If the Coalition does fall apart it will mean a general election, which none of the main parties want at the moment. 2011 will probably be a troubled year for the Euro and a difficult time for those who experience the government cuts.

Beyond Blighty and across the pond, the candidates for the 2012 Presidential election will declare their intention to run in the next few months. Most will be Republicans, but given President Obama's recent difficulties, a few Democrats might emerge - though they are unlikely to be notable or successful. As for the Republicans, Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin are the ones to watch, but American politics has a tendency to bring up surprise candidates. The first presidential primaries are just 13 months away - they'll be here before we know it!

Mutiny in Labour!

In my last post I commented on the brutality of Labour's suspension of Phil Woolas. Today Labour MPs, in their own words, mutinied against their own leadership as a result. In a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) the Deputy Leader, Harriet Harman, was heckled by her own MPs who were angered at the treatment of Mr. Woolas.

The thing is, Labour MPs don't normally do things like this. Unlike the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, Labour is boringly loyal to its leadership - for most of the time. Of course, Ed Miliband is on paternity leave following the birth of his son on Sunday. Meaning, Macavity-like, Mr. Miliband wasn't there to face the resentment of his party.

Although Mr. Woolas is still fighting the decision to remove him from parliament, there will be a by-election in his constituency as that decision cannot be overturned. All that Mr. Woolas can hope for is that the three year ban from standing for parliament, imposed on him by the court, can be lifted. If he wins on this point, Labour will have to make a difficult decision as to whether to readmit Mr. Woolas into the party and allow him to contest his own seat as a Labour candidate.

The problem for the leadership is that they'll look foolish if they let Mr. Woolas back into the party, but their own MPs will mutiny again if they don't.

What does this mean for the future of UK politics?

It's not uncommon in the United States for the results of close elections to be determined in court. Who could forget the 2000 presidential election, which in the end was resolved by the Supreme Court - not the voters. But things are different in the UK, or so I thought.

I hadn't bothered to blog about the election court, convened to decide whether Phil Woolas' election literature was lawful or not, because I had thought the result was a foregone conclusion as no UK court would overturn the decision of the British voters. Clearly Ed Miliband had come to the same conclusion as me, otherwise he wouldn't have recently made Mr. Woolas the Shadow immigration minister. However, Mr. Miliband and I were completely wrong.

Today the election court found Phil Woolas guilty of deliberately making false statements in his constituency of Oldham East and Saddleworth during this year's general election campaign. As a result, Mr. Woolas has been banned from standing for Parliament for three years and the election result in his constituency has been overturned – meaning there will now be a by-election to fill the seat.

The Labour party quickly suspended Mr. Woolas, and Harriet Harman forcefully condemned his actions, even though they had been serving together in the same Shadow Government just yesterday. It all felt a bit like Labour was over compensating. Of course, as a result of the verdict, Labour (along with the other parties) is now in election mode.

It is easy to forget that, even though the government has a comfortable majority, there is still technically a hung parliament, and every seat counts. The by-election will also be the first real chance to gauge the public's opinion of the new politics and to see how the coalition parties cope with fighting against each other in an election campaign.

One thing that worries me about this case is the precedent it sets. In years to come, as a result of today's decision, will close elections be determined by the courts instead of the people?