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Very brisk turnout for both elections in my ward, I’m told, and more or less all of the 15 standing parties (barring the Animal Party, by the looks of it) shovelled leaflets through my letterbox; so the lack of effort on both sides alluded to above thankfully doesn’t appear to be replicated everywhere.
Mind, with the – predominately Conservative – local council having presided over some hugely unpopular events in the last couple of years, such as the systematic closure of amenities and an ongoing attempt to sell off the market area to a supermarket, the local populace was always going to be exercised to voting to some extent anyway.
gc
Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.
49% turnout for the County elections here (1805 voters) and the Lib Dems won with 45.2% of the vote
Labour came last with 44 votes, 30 more than the Spolied Papers on 14
Local authority election in Bristol covered 23 wards, of which Labour held 10 up to yesterday. They lost eight of those, four to each of the other main parties. One of the two they held was with a majority of nine (814 – 805), in the other the majority was less than 100.
Some interesting figures on the council website – the same 23 wards voted on May 1st, 1997, when Labour achieved 41% of the vote in those wards.
Yesterday their share had fallen to 19%.
And their problem is that in a first past the post system, 19% is not much better than 0%.
.. I live in a Labour/SNP area . the turnout is going to be low, very low here. The Labour party are in bigger trouble than they realise, the Euro vote could be a disaster for them.
I’m going for Labour to return 10 – 12 seats, down from 18, seems a fair bet to me. I think UKIP will get more seats than Labour and the BNP will pinch a seat.
Looking forward to Sunday ..
Looking forward to Sunday ..
Have you been in the shed this weekend knocking up your own Swingometer ready for tonight?
For any saddo’s like me wondering how this PR voting system works here’s a link VOTING SYSTEM[/color:2cefsk58]
Looking forward to Sunday ..
Dave
I thought we had to wait until Monday up here on the basis "The Western Isles willnae count the votes on the Sabbath!"
Rob
Turnout 12% in my area according to some very bored girls in my polling station. They all kind of jumped to attention when I walked in around 9pm. I was asked my street name at the entrance and while one girl punched the air the others groaned.
Quite sad really that these important elections have been hijacked and skewed by the media hype on expenses and constant attacks on Prime Minister Brown. Looks like we will get a load of non representative parties voted in on the PR vote.
Hard to believe we are supposed to be in a major financial crisis and nobody cares about policy or what we are to do. All lost in the frenzy of press sound bites.
I think the press coverage over the last period has been quite scandalous. If I was Brown, whom I think is a decent bloke trying to get on with his job, I would say stuff your job
IMO although the newspapers have done their usual sensationalist ‘proverbial ‘stirring job over the expenses issue ,this time the ends have justified the means because the corrupt use of taxpayers money which has probably been going on for decades is a very important issue to resolve and the drip drip effect of the Telegraph coverage has had the effect of campaigning journalism in that we are now promised change.
I would like to see the campaign move on to all uses of taxpayers money which we probably would not be happy with if we knew about from MEPs,to overpaid leaders of local councils right accross the board to overpaid BBC presenters.Its time to see the books regarding everything tax and rate payers are responsible for.
Expenses aside I agree that generally the media have turned politics into a shallow popularity contest about who has the nicest smile etc with little or very hard to find discussion of policies and even less regard for doing anything other than hyping events of no importance or plain untruths……s**t stirring is all it amounts to but it seems to be incredibly effective and powerful.
Jacqui Smith resigned months ago and Blears resigned because she was going to be fired anyway.A junior minister deciding to resign and slagging of the PM as he went is really no big deal and Flint went in a huff because she wasn’t promoted.The shameless hyping of all this into a Government meltdown resulted in the poor election results which will in turn result in what is starting to look like the end of the Brown government.
I am no Brown fan and far less so Cameron but the patronising dumbing down of politics by the media when clearly they know better is a damaging disservice to the country and I can’t help hoping Brown and Mandelson can face them down and make the debate about the real issues.
"Interesting" that the BNP manage to claim two seats – much as most of us find this distasteful it is unfortunately a by-product of democracy and, of course, the PR system.
However a couple of observations.
Firstly we need to seriously look at why the BNP is attracting so many votes. It is all too easy to say it is a protest vote. If that were the case they would be attracting a high percentage across the country. It is worrying that the areas where they seem to be attracting the most support are areas where there is a high immigrant population.
What has driven 916,424 people, not an insignificant number, to vote BNP?
It is OK asking the question – but finding the answer is a great deal more difficult.
Secondly, and this goes back to a point I made earlier, these extremist parties rely on voter apathy.
As, I think Mo, pointed out – Hitler came to power because the majority of people did not bother to vote.
Those who did not bother to vote need to look in the mirror before bemoaning the "success" of the BNP. Had even half of those who stayed at home bothered to turn out, I doubt the number of votes the BNP would have received would have increased significantly, however their percentage share of the vote would have been significantly less and we would not be discussing them having two seats in the European Parliament.
I would contend that those who did not bother to vote are, indirectly, just as responsible for the BNP success as those who put their X against the party name.
Years ago I used to be a party activist, door knocking and canvassing, whenever someone said they were not going to vote I would implore them to use their vote. I would even say "I don’t care if you vote for the other parties, but please use your vote."
I’m going for Labour to return 10 – 12 seats, down from 18, seems a fair bet to me. I think UKIP will get more seats than Labour and the BNP will pinch a seat.
.. that was pretty well spot on ..
On another note, it was quite funny last night watching all of the usual suspects moaning that the BNP had got a seat and were looking to get another one. I personally don’t understand why it’s a problem. UKIP was voted in the last time and we are still in the EU, it hasn’t really made a difference. Having two BNP members on the EU gravy train doesn’t mean we’ll be bricking up the channel tunnel, unfortunately.
This is what happens when the general public start to think the all of the politicians are cynical opportunists and every other word that comes out of their mouths are lies.
Bob – David Cameron is proud to be a family man and has shown he has considerably more political savvy than Gordon Brown.
I disagree.
Brown is in deep sh*t (largely of his own making, it has to be said) and all Cameron is doing at present is sitting back and throwing stones. Indeed, there’s a case to made that Cameron’s political antenna has let him down, because Brown cantered all over him at PMQ’s last week, despite having been harpooned by two of his own ministers the day before.
As for the BNP, I agree it’s too easy to write them off as a protest vote. Many people obviously have real concerns about the level of immigration – or at least, the complete lack of control over immigration levels – in this country, and I’d say that the BNP vote is a reflection of this, rather than any attempt to simply bloody the nose of the Goverment. It’s something which the major parties will need to address in the general election, if they are to neutralise the BNP.
A million people voting BNP is certainly not something to ignore or get hysterical about but equally nobody should be afraid of a proper discussion about immigration which in my view the media make the politicians and the general public terrified of doing for fear of being branded racist.
Putting aside the unique set of circumstances that politics in general is in at the moment in this country, If the 3 main parties aren’t ‘brave’ enough to tackle particular issues either at national or local level ( and they aren’t) there can be no suprise when those that can be bothered to vote turn elsewhere.
The BNP want to make the debate about the old National Front hobby horse of skin colour which is really something different and factually speaking is not a factor in the vast majority of current immigration cases which is directly attributable to the opening of EU borders between EU countries.
Talking about the effects of immigration is a legitimate debate in my view whereas prejudice and racism should be kept out of the political mainstream.As said before,politics needs to be an honest debate about issues not personalities.
If nothing else, hopefully this election will kill off any ideas about having PR for Westminster elections.
I know first-past-the-post is in many ways unfair, but it will stop the Nazis getting seats and that’s good enough for me.
I actually heard someone on a phone-in say "my grandad beat the Germans for this country and I’m voting BNP". It’s the problem with democracy, morons get to vote too... nobody should be afraid of a proper discussion about immigration which in my view the media make the politicians and the general public terrified of doing for fear of being branded racist
.. the government don’t want a debate about immigration, their immigration policy discriminates against poorer countries (doctors and nurses) and brings in cheap labour to compete against low paid workers in this country and undercuts existing agreements to force wages down. It’s the government that call everyone a racist everytime immigration is brought up.
If the government engage in a proper debate they will lose it, that’s why there’s no debate and that’s why we have the BNP sending MEPs to the EU.
Where’s the referendum we were promised on the Treaty of Lisbon? Or was that just another lie .. Mmm, who do you vote for if your against the Treaty of Lisbon?
My take is I want Brown to remain PM as long as possible.
He cannot do any more damage to the country – but every day he remains PM he digs a deeper grave for the Labour party and, with luck, they will be so damaged they will be unelectable for a generation.
Although Cameron is calling for Brown to call an election he also knows the longer Brown is there the more it will play into his hands.
So Mr Brown is personally responsible for everything wrong in the world. I don’t think so. I thought we voted in a government not a president.
I would also like Brown to stay. I cannot see any natural successor and for labour MPs to change leaders now would be like Turkeys voting for Xmas.
Who knows maybe given a few more months the economy might start to recover due to the PM action. Maybe approaching a General election the Press might start focussing on real policies or asking the serious political questions on what the parties will do instead of distracting the populace with drivel and unbalanced reporting.
The Conservatives took the largest share of the vote in these Euro elections. Does anyone know what their policy on Europe is? Not sure where the Tory policy fag packet is at the moment. The poor Liberals who are the only consistently pro-Euro party languish back in fourth. The world is going mad and we all deserve what we get.
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