First thoughts on initial election results from last night
The table below comes from a tweet from the BBC with council gains and losses last night. It's a net picture so, for example, the figure of minus 78 for counservative councillors indicates that we have lost rather more than seventy-eight council seats but we have also gained some to take the overall change in councillors to that number. This was before any of the results which were counted this morning were declared.
The first thing which needs to be honestly recognised is there is obviously a backlash from many voters against all the established parties including the Conservatives. A lot of people are sending a message to the main Westminister parties that they are not happy with us. Well, I get the messsage, and I'm pretty sure that most of my Conservative colleagues do.
There is no getting away from the fact that it was a good night for UKIP, and all the more surprising given the sort of fortnight they've just had. But not good enough to be within light-years of the support they would need to form a government or even win a large number of parliamentary seats.
Having said all that, I am giving an honest opinion and not just spinning when say that this was not that bad a night for the Conservatives and must have been a disappointing one for Labour.
For a party in government to win council seats in excess of 80% of the number it was defending four years after a good result and one year out from a general election, and be that close to the number of councillors elected by the main opposition, is not a disastrous result.
We've lost many good councillors last night, and will lose more today, but our vote share is up on last year and we have had good results in many places such as Birmingham, Kingston-upon Thames where we gained control of the council, and Swindon (where I think all politicians will have to memorise the name of the Labour opposition leader Jim Grant, and of David Rennard, still the Conservative leader of the council with an increased majority.)
Labour did not make the sort of gains that an opposition looking to go into government in a year's time would normally expect to make.
There is a very interesting analysis of how vote shares have been moving by Steve Fisher of Trinity College Oxford which you can read here.
There is everything to play for in 2015.
We could still see anything from an outright Cameron win (a landslide is not on the cards but a win is possible) to a Miliband win (a landslide is looking increasingly unlikely but in theory he could sneak in with a third of the vote) and very different shades of hung parliament in between.
Nobody should take the electorate for granted.
The first thing which needs to be honestly recognised is there is obviously a backlash from many voters against all the established parties including the Conservatives. A lot of people are sending a message to the main Westminister parties that they are not happy with us. Well, I get the messsage, and I'm pretty sure that most of my Conservative colleagues do.
There is no getting away from the fact that it was a good night for UKIP, and all the more surprising given the sort of fortnight they've just had. But not good enough to be within light-years of the support they would need to form a government or even win a large number of parliamentary seats.
Having said all that, I am giving an honest opinion and not just spinning when say that this was not that bad a night for the Conservatives and must have been a disappointing one for Labour.
For a party in government to win council seats in excess of 80% of the number it was defending four years after a good result and one year out from a general election, and be that close to the number of councillors elected by the main opposition, is not a disastrous result.
We've lost many good councillors last night, and will lose more today, but our vote share is up on last year and we have had good results in many places such as Birmingham, Kingston-upon Thames where we gained control of the council, and Swindon (where I think all politicians will have to memorise the name of the Labour opposition leader Jim Grant, and of David Rennard, still the Conservative leader of the council with an increased majority.)
Labour did not make the sort of gains that an opposition looking to go into government in a year's time would normally expect to make.
There is a very interesting analysis of how vote shares have been moving by Steve Fisher of Trinity College Oxford which you can read here.
There is everything to play for in 2015.
We could still see anything from an outright Cameron win (a landslide is not on the cards but a win is possible) to a Miliband win (a landslide is looking increasingly unlikely but in theory he could sneak in with a third of the vote) and very different shades of hung parliament in between.
Nobody should take the electorate for granted.
Comments
The point though here (lets look at the local elections) is that if the 36% is accurate (it may rise, it may well fall, but lets just assume for now its accurate) well what does that say. It says to me a council seat can be had for approx 40% of 36% of the eligible voters which is of course 14.4% of eligible voters.
Does that not speak volumes, only 1 in 3 people care about who is elected to the local government, as the local government does not matter? as mentioned in an earlier comment, are local elections a way of electing the correct council for a local area? - or are they simply a glorified poll of opinion on the central government.
Even you yourself Chris seem to think they are the latter "A lot of people are sending a message to the main Westminister parties that they are not happy with us. Well, I get the messsage, and I'm pretty sure that most of my Conservative colleagues do."
It shows how the top down structure we currently have is so ingrained, on so many people they just sort of accept it, without question.
And that Chris, my friend, that, is why we need Harrogate, and that is the purpose of Demand #2
However, we have to recognise and accept, as democracy means that is their choice and their right, that many people do.
There was a time when I used to support a law to impose severe fines on every journalist who encouraged voters to use a local or European election as a referendum on the government with moronic lines like "the next big test of the government's popularity is in Thursday's election."
Then I decided that this is contrary to free speech and it would be better to have a first question on every local election ballot paper which says something like "On a scale of one to ten, how happy are you with the performance of the current government)?" (Possibly the opposition as well.) Count and publish it, and then move on to the actual election with the ballot paper rubric saying something like
"Now you've got that off your chest, which of the following people do you believe would make the best local councillor for your area?"
I agree that turnouts are disappointing. But other than having a "Re-Open Nominations" option, which I would support provided the original candidates are are allowed to stand again, I have yet to hear a solution which wasn't worse than the problem.
I am still thinking about the Harrogate declation. Some of it I like: some I am not sure about.