Milliken wins

Peter Milliken was able to pull a rabbit out of his Speaker's robes and was re-elected yesterday though it took him five ballots. I was partly right, at least, since I thought that if Milliken faced a Tory on the last ballot he would win. I still think if he had faced another Opposition MP at the end he would have lost but what I overestimated was Tory craftiness since I thought enough Tory MPs would vote for Comartin for tactical reasons - reasoning that he'd be better placed to beat Milliken than one of their own. What seems to have happened though is that most of the 143 Tory MPs voted for one of their fellow Tories - so much so that Scheer and Tweed both received more votes than Comartin on the fourth ballot knocking him off and on the fifth ballot the Opposition MPs consolidated behind Milliken to keep a Tory out of the Speaker's Chair.

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