Steady on before you leap in to the comments and cut my head off straight away - it’s a question plenty of people will ask, and it needs an answer. This is my personal attempt. First, let’s look at where we are at the end of Friday. According to BBC statistics we’re down two hundred and fourty two councillors, and four [...]
Today's House Points column from Liberal Democrat News. See here for more on Bradshaw's fish-tracking ambitions. Fishy news Last week I wrote about fish and David Maclean's bill to exempt MPs from the Freedom of Information Act. In the event the bill was not debated on the Friday but held back until 18 May. This was a tactical move to give it a better chance of progressing, but Norman Baker and the rest of the awkward squad are pledged to see that it does not do so. So maybe I should have written more about fish. Certainly, ...
Well, by now if you have seen the election results you will know that Labour bucked nation trends and gained seats in Nottingham, largely at our expense. A good friend and colleague lost his seat in Aboretum by about 40 votes. Recounts for that seat took up a lot of the night. We failed to regain [...]
This time it is Greens getting all the biased reports. Yesterday it was all about them being "set to become the opposition in Norwich". Today, having failed in this ambition it is all about "How sad it is that they failed to win by one vote in Thorpe Hamlet". And who gets the TV interviews ? Of course, it's the Greens. What about the winning Lib Dem ? No, not a word. Come on BBC, show more balance.
I have been sent this information about the fiaso which is the counting of votes using electronic means in Breckland. To describe it as catastrophically bad is an understatement. This needs as wide a coverage as possible. "You may be aware of the fiasco in Breckland regarding the counting of votes, the whole process has now been abandoned until Tuesday when it is hoped all votes will be counted manually, not electronically. Some seats have been declared, e.g. Dereham Central and Dereham Humbletoft, I think the results speak for themselves - Dereham - Humbletoft - DISTRICT - ...
A great way to end the day - hearing my old stomping ground has turned gold! Going from 17 to 26 councillors to take the Council from the Tories is a fantastic achievement - a massive well done to everyone involved. From what I’ve seen the campaign team was very well organised with a good manifesto. “The [...]
Liberal Democrats Leader Menzies Campbell, commenting on the local election result in Northampton where the Liberal Democrats took control of the council with nine gains, said: “Congratulations to the Liberal Democrat team. This tremendous result is a testament to all the hard work of the Liberal Democrat group over the last few years. “It is clear that [...]
Visiting Eastbourne, where the Liberal Democrats have taken control of the council from the Conservatives, Liberal Democrat Leader Menzies Campbell met with new Liberal Democrat councillors and supporters. He said: “Our success in Eastbourne shows that the Liberal Democrats are a party that remains able to fight and win against the Conservatives here in the South of [...]
These are certainly interesting times in Scotland. Personally, I am currently intrigued by Lib Dem policy in the region. When asked whether the Lib Dems would consider entering a coalition with the SNP if the latter insisted on a referendum on independence, Sir Menzies Campbell allegedly replied: "Absolutely not ... We are against independence, that's our position and it ain't going to change." (BBC) I am a card-carrying Liberal Democrat, but I must say it seems profoundly illiberal to deny the Scots even a referendum on their self-determination, especially when they have (apparently) voted in a ...
Northampton only started counting at 4pm this afternoon, but the count is looking good for the Liberal Democrats who may well just snatch control of the council latter this evening. Update: A win, a pulpable win! Nine seats up, taking control. Tories down five. Makes Northampton North a good prospect for the next general election.
I am in election detox mode (EDM) - i.e long walk in the country this morning, three pints of Marston's Pedigree, Bangers and Mash at a canalside pub with the missus and a nice sleep this afternoon. Perfeck! However, I think I can safely suspend EDM to say well done to all the candidates in the West Berkshire and Newbury Town Council election. I am sorry to the ones who were not elected. Well
Election Day started for me, along with Heather, Ryan and Ross at 5.30 in the morning. we got up early to go and deliver good mornings and come 6.10 we were on our way, each with a budle of leafletts and two of the walks ryan has worked out and begun to deliver. we had finished our first walks by 8 and had a surprisingly large number of leafletts left. we stayed at heather and ryans for a bit until there was a phone call from an officer at the council...their was a possible problem in carholme on ...
Well, most of the results across England, Scotland and Wales are now in. As Arkwright would say... It's been a funny old day. There have been some bad results for us, with heavy losses in places like Bournemouth and Torbay - but we have still taken seats off the Conservatives (as well as Labour) around the country. Staying with the south coast, that includes taking control of Eastbourne. Looking through all the results, there are a number of places where Labour have increased their majorities (although, of course, their general trend has been downwards) or where we have taken ...
When I was seven I remember going down to Plymouth Hoe to watch Sir Francis Chichester come in on Gypsy Moth IV after becoming the first person to circumnavigate the world solo from West to East via the Great Capes. It was a wonderful day, made all the more remarkable by the fact that Sir Francis was 65 and in remission from lung cancer. I am currently cleansing myself from elections, so
Okay, I admit: the Scottish results have got me stumped. It was the list results that did it. My expectation was, and the polls appeared to back me up, that the Greens were on course to get about the same share of the vote that they had before. Instead, they were wiped out. [...] 
Though the party has done well elsewhere in Somerset (especially Taunton), the local elections in North Somerset have proven to be unmitigated disaster for the Liberal Democrats. Its cadre of councillors has been reduced to five. This can partly be pinned on the Conservative strategic withdrawal from Council Executive in order to go into the election with ‘clean hands’. Not very honest, but the smart thing to do, as it left the Lib Dems limping along propped up by the handful of truly appalling Labour councillors. The main reason for the demolition however, is that a lot of the councillors ...
A massive congratulations has to in today to NorthNorfolk Liberal Democrats for their astonishingly good results in the local elections. What the results dont actually show is that the one seat the Lib Dems lost was by just three votes and they actually did better last night than they did four years ago when the Lib Dems won only 28 seats. The 30 seats won today include two seats won in by elections including St Benet, which had been described by the Tories as being 'on loan' to the Lib Dems. Why have I included a picture of ...
I noticed people are listing defeated leaders of other parties on various Lib Dem blogs. Here's another. Labour Leader on Newcastle John O'Shea went down to defeat in Newburn where the Lib Dems stormed to victory. He was only leader as the previous Labour leader and deputy lost their seats in the 2004 Lib Dem landslide that ended 30 years of Labour rule.
I have now published my predictions for West Berkshire and Newbury Town Council elections, made on 27th April. They appear to have been a little too pessimistic. I still have the sealed envelope intact, in which I sent the predictions to myself for postmarking through the Royal Mail on 27th April, if anyone wants to check that my published post is the same as my prediction.
You may have seen last week that Iain Dale and Con Home were getting rather excited about this video put together by the Eastbourne Conservatives for this years local elections. It was the future of campaigning, 'simple and effective' and showed how 'in touch' the grassroots of the Tory party in Eastbourne were with their local community. So in touch that they got massacred. Reduced to a rump of
So after a disturbing night last night and late night I get up and head into Warwick town square for a cooked breakfast at one of the local cafes. I had been running on adrenaline and then shear exhaustion yesterday and really needed the boost. I then headed back to Leamington Town hall for the next attempt at the count. I was dismayed to find the machines still in place and after being assured the technical difficulties had been resolved were told that the electronic count would proceed again. I spent two hours verifying rejected votes with one ...
I would like to thank those who elected me last year, and voted for me this year. However with the boundary changes and all-ups unfortunately both Heather and myself are no longer the councillors for Park Ward. The Liberal Democrats did avoid a complete wipe out with Helen Heath taking one of the Labour seats [...]
Some vote share figures for key seats for the Liberal Democrats, based on the local election results. I’m afraid this is a bit of an info dump. In Stephen Williams’ Bristol West, we scored 40% of the vote, with the Conservatives on 15% and Labour on 21%. In David Howarth’s Cambridge seat, the Liberal Democrats got 37%, [...]
Congratulations to Douglas and Doris Reynolds on their 60th Wedding Anniversary! Douggie was Deputy Mayor and later Mayor of the Royal Borough and both of them have actively supported civic events for as long as I can remember.
The Liberal Democrats have bucked the trend of Tory advances by taking three seats from them in Wycombe District, while Labour have lost four seats. In Ryemead, Trevor Snaith and Ray Farmer have won Ryemead with a massive swing from Tory to Liberal Democrats. This is a testament to the hard work Trevor and Ray have [...]
Fair’s fair - I owe the Tories a semi-apology. They have clearly had a very good set of elections, in England at any rate. The minimum benchmark for success they needed to clear was 750 net gains. They’ve chalked that up. Yesterday, I suggested 900 net gains would be more of a demonstration of their strength. They’re probably not going to quite manage that, but they’ll be within touching
One of the party’s lines on the results has been that in many key Westminster seats we have done well, even if we have made some losses just around the corner. Here are some handy examples, based on rough constituency boundaries as there is a lack of coterminosity in some places. In Alan Beith’s Berwick, we gained [...]
Pictures! We’ve got pictures!
To help take your mind off today’s “mixed bag”, how about “A rather lazy piece of union bashing” by way of light relief. The Times reports today that Eleven Merseyside firefighters who were dismissed from their union for joining a scheme to give first aid to casualties during call-outs were not treated unlawfully, an employment panel ruled. The Fire Brigades Union is opposed to “co-responding” schemes in which firemen are asked to support paramedics. While I do not question the right of a free association to exclude members if it sees fit, I think that this reflects poorly ...
It's been a great day for us in Rochford. After a few years of feeling like hunted, small, endangered , furry mammals, we're finally starting to hit back. We easily defended two seats (getting 73- 74 percent of the vote), and then wonderfully gained an extra seat, defeating the Tories by just 30 votes.(This was in Sweyne Park in the west of Rayleigh) This was no fluke - a years preparation, an 
Yesterday St John's Wood tube station was littered with Good Morning leaflets resembling the Lib Dem design but produced by Labour: imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. They featured a "doorstep survey" stating that the by-election "is a straight fight between Labour and the Conservatives", with a bar graph showing Labour just behind the Tories, with support for the Lib Dems as minuscule. The actual result in both of yesterday's City of Westminster by-elections was that the Tories held the seats (not a surprise on past figures), the Lib Dems were second and Labour were a ...
At least that is what it says on the back of my envelope. (now correct!)
Oh dear. This vlog experiment isn't going well, is it? To fail once is excusable, especially when you're ill. To fail twice is certainly pushing it. To fail a third time is unacceptable. The excuse this time: technical problems. I recorded the vlog, but for some reason the video and the audio are out of sync, and I can't fix it. It also looks as if I'm doing something rather dodgy with my left hand, although I assure you this is merely a cruel trick of the camera! To top it all, I'm out of battery, and I'm out ...
Notwithstanding the understandable effervescence emanating from the party’s results service, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that, overall, the elections yesterday were not very good for the Lib Dems. With over a hundred councils still to declare (at least according to the BBC), it is hard to conclude anything much from [...]
Sometime LibDem blogger Chris Ward, who’s been using Facebook as a campaigning tool, has won his election to Guildford Borough Council. Congratulations to him and his successful ward colleagues Tony Phillips and Steve Freeman, who’ve gained a seat from the Conservatives in the process.
We have won the Labour group leader’s seat on Gedling Borough Council - sadly, the Tories won the council overall.
The riders are under starter's orders......and they're off. But Conservatives and Labour in my ward of Whickham South and Sunniside forgot that there was an election. The result was a bit of a one horse race. No literature from the Conservatives and only one from Labour, and that went out 2 weeks ago. Size matters so for all of you who like to get your teeth into something big, here goes: I
It has been a lovely day with lots of phone calls and e-mails from residents pleased at the West End Ward result yesterday - many thanks to you all. I paste a few of these below : 'Congratulations on your re-election! You deserve a wee holiday now i think... ;-) ' 'Warm congratulations, Fraser! Already I've heard from several people who are as delighted as I am that you are back in. Well done topping the poll! We really do appreciate how hard you work for the West End. ...
Spoilt ballots The result in Edinburgh Central last night: Boyack (Lab) 9155 Mathers (LD) 7962 SNP 7496 Con 4783 Majority 1193 Spoilt ballot papers 1501 Now I am not saying that 1193 of the spoilt ballot papers would have been for Siobhan. But there have to be serious questions asked when: 1. The number of spoilt ballots is 16.4% of the winning vote. 2. The number of spoilt
I am pleased to see, possibly as a result of Sam Younger being in Edinburgh last night, that the Electoral Commission are to investigate the e-counting last night. Of course some of us have been here before, in the London Assembly elections of 2000 and 2004. Same systems, same company, same problems. The 2000 Bexley & Bromley London Assembly count was a particular disaster, with us ending up
I hade been told that Electoral Reform Society Chief Executive Ken Richie would be at the Edinburgh count last night as an observer. On seeing him enter the room and crossing my path I stopped for a chat. Ok this was the middle of the night, but I couldn’t understand why our conversation was a bit confused. A bit later it sunk in. In my tiredness I had been talking to Sam Younger, Chief
Liberal Democrats gained 1 from Conservatives (Compton & Otterbourne) and 2 from Labour (St Luke and St John). Conservatives gained 1 from Liberal Democrats (Owslebury & Curdridge). New council: C 29, LD 23, Ind 4, Lab 1 So the Tories retain overall control by one seat, having scraped home in Whiteley by 19 votes. From a Lib Dem perspective a great improvement on last year and a firm base for
Election results are in and the Tories have taken control of lincoln city council, for the first time in a long, long time. the tories won a total of 17 seats, a net gain of 6 to take full control over lincoln. Labour lost 5 seats to take them down to 15. yesterday morning the lib dems had 2 councillors Ryan & Heather. they along with me were standing in park ward, up against 2 other labour councillors. Unfortunatly Labour took all 3 seats in the ward, with Heather coming 4th, Ryan coming 5th, and I came 7th out ...
Stay up to watch the election results. Lib Dems start brilliantly by gaining Hull - stealing a Labour heartland first thing bode well. But as the evening or should I say morning rolled on - the results were clearly more mixed. The good news for us was in many of the seats that we’d be hoping to gain or hold at the next general election – with good results in many of them, raising hopes for more
Last night's local elections in South Gloucestershire created some real cliff-hangers. Two wards that are both in my current Northavon constituency but not part of the new 'Thornbury and Yate' constituency were held by the Lib Dems by 19 votes (Pilning & Severn Beach) and by 5 votes (Bradley Stoke N). It is close results like that which make you feel all the effort that goes on during the campaign is actually worth it. From the point of view of the 'Thornbury and Yate' constituency, the results were pretty good - 15 Lib Dems elected ...
Robin Lawrence and the Liberal Democrats have won in Park Ward, the full result is as follows:
Just three hours sleep and an hour and a half to go before the Regional count resumes in South Wales West. I don't yet know whether I am back or not. It looks like the Welsh Liberal Democrats will be unchanged from the six seats they have held since 1999. This is not healthy and it is clear that we now need a fresh approach and a radical re-think as to where we are going and how we sell ourselves, our policies and our philosophy to the Welsh electorate. More on this later. In the ...
This year's been a much better year for the Lib Dems in Manchester than 2006, with us holding all the seats where our councillors were up for re-election, and gaining one seat in Chorlton - congratulations Paul Ankers! Lev unfortunately did not get elected in Northenden despite being a wonderful person (with the best campaign slogan). Over in Stockport, where I work, we gained one seat, consolidating our majority there. Chris Walker, another great guy, also narrowly failed to take Brinnington off Labour. Things did not go well for the Tories as usual in Manchester with them failing to ...
At the end of a long night, what are the scores on the doors? Labour: an object lesson in how to manage expectations. So pitifully low has Labour sunk in popularity that the BBC’s projection the party will score 27% is hailed as a relative triumph. There was a sort of doomed inevitability to the excuse-mantra parroted by Labour’s talking heads yesterday: “after 10 years of a government”, “at
I am back in. Got 2043. Labour on 570 and Cons on 327.---Sent via BlackBerry
Oh dear, there is a pickle over the mechanics of voting in Scotland’s elections yesterday that is being admirably covered on the blog of BBC’s Brian Taylor’s. And this comes on top of concerns about additional security features added into the postal vote system in England this year. The UK has conducted elections in the [...]
I didn't win, but thank you to all the people (all 87) who voted for me.
So, after weeks of hard campaigning, and a year of big issues across the ward, the people of St Mary's put their faith in us yesterday. I am immensely grateful to everyone who voted, and all those who helped in the campaign - Councillors, friends and family, community volunteers, neighbours and others who gave their free time to help us over the last few weeks. I haven't slept much for the last
Last night's election results were fantastic for local Lib Dems. After a hard-fought and tough campaign, I was elected Councillor for St Mary's ward, with a majority of 322. In Sedgley, Steve Wright won the seat for us, pushing Labour into third place. And we held Holyrood with another large majority. Here in St Mary's, the result was as follows: Richard Baum (Lib Dem) 1424 Keith Grime (Lab)
We were very pleased to win Hodge Hill and move into second place in Tyburn. This means that our sitting Councillor in Tyburn will be able to hold her seat in 2008. We were also pleased to hold Springfield (a seat we lost last year). Notwithstanding the framing of our candidate in Bordesley for postal vote misdirection he still won 2,628 votes against Labour's 3,908. Sadly we lost Dilawar
Last night was a bit of an anti climax. Warwick District were trialling a new electronic counting system. Chaos did not ensue as many had predicted, chaos would at least created some excitement. There was nothing to see for hours and the whole thing seemed to be progressing very slowly. Many people were starting to get bored and after the excitement of the day the adrenaline was wearing off. When the system eventually failed at around 2:30 with no results declared there was a noticeable lowering of the mood. I sensed a cross party rebellion forming. Credit to Chris Elliott ...
The Winchester local election count is taking place this morning and the council will be updating the results live on their website. Look here for the latest news.
For those of you who don’t believe anything until the Returning Officer says it on the web, here’s the official declaration of the results (pdf file).
While most of Britain was voting yesterday, the UK National Commission for UNESCO hosted a debate at parliament’s Portcullis House in London, on the motion ‘World Media Freedom in Retreat’. A poster displayed calling for the release of the BBC’s Gaza correspondent, Alan Johnston, was a poignant reminder that journalists operate in an increasingly dangerous environment, [...]
Video of me punching the air in celebration at the count last night can be seen here.
You can keep up with the election results from yesterday’s voting at the Liberal Democrat and the BBC websites.
Can I thank everyone in the West End who voted for me yesterday! I am delighted to have topped the poll in the West End Ward, ahead of Labour, SNP and Conservative (who got the 2nd, 3rd and 4th slots in the ward representation). A few more thank you's if you don't mind! Firstly to Janet who was (as always) my superb agent (wife also!!) and campaign organiser; to all Dundee LibDems who helped as well as the many local residents who lent their time to help me on a personal basis; and to ...
I waxed lyrical a couple of months ago about e-voting. Swindon elections were to be conducted using touch-screen systems in polling stations, or voters could opt to score their ballot paper (sic) by logging onto a computer at home. Well it all went disastrously wrong. The systems crashed, the machines would not work, it all went rather embarrassingly wrong. And to add pain to the complete mess up... Swindon Borough Council was awarded beacon status for it's electoral services this year. Should we give the award back? Still, at least it was not quite as bad as Scotland where ...
Well, the turnout was up about 4% in both constituencies, but still less than the figures recorded in the first Assembly election (46.8% in Aberavon, 47.9% in Neath). Our vote yesterday increased in both constituencies, as compared with the 2003 result. Thanks to all the people who put in work delivering our message, without whom we might even have slipped back. Congratulations to Plaid on their well-run campaign which enabled them to recover all the votes lost in their plunge in 2003. Congratulations, too, to Gwenda Thomas in holding on to the Neath seat in the ...
A good result for the Tories - we are finally seeing them reach the kind of levels where they can feel confident of winning the next election but not yet of gaining an overall majority. 41% is good, winning Lincoln & Plymouth was good news but they should have won places like Bury & Crewe as well, and be pushing their overall vote up higher into the mid 40’s. None the less being 14% ahead of Labour is a genuine reason for Cameron to be smiling this morning. While in Scotland, the Tories have held their own well, gaining Roxbergh ...
…though I suspect I’ll feel worse rather than better after 2 hours’ sleep…
Southport Liberal Democrats celebrated late into the night after their stunning results in the local elections on May 3rd. The highlight of the evening was undoubtedly Carmel Preston gaining a seat in Cambridge ward from the Conservatives, unseating the sitting Mayor of Sefton in the process. In the four seats retained by the Lib Dems their majorities ranged from 584 to a whopping 1,128.
er....um....it's not going to set the world alight is it? And Cameron is shiny and new at the moment. Wait 'til he suffers a few hard knocks and actually stumbles up to the microphone and mumbles the odd policy.
It is marvellous to see that Portsmouth LibDems have held their own in the election and remain the largest party on the council, despite a ferocious Tory campaign onslaught. It is particularly cheering to see Gerald Vernon-Jackson being returned as councillor for Milton ward. The Tories put up their golden girl, Sarah Dineage, against him, complete with heavy campaign artillery. Gerald is a
As some of you may recall a couple of weeks ago, I was advised by someone in my comments that I needn’t bother canvassing in my election as I was going to get thrashed. This morning, I discovered that Castle Ward was one of the Green Party’s national targets, with activists coming from all over to [...]
Just back from the count at Tipton Sports Academy. Congratulations to Labour’s Steve Eling who held Abbey ward - although I’m very pleased with a second place finish from a standing start. It’s something to build from over the next 12 months. Keith Allcock took the Great Barr with Yew Tree ward, wiping out my worry that [...]
Liberal Democrat campaigner Carmel Preston has seized a seat in Southport's Cambridge ward from the Conservatives. Her stunning victory at the expense of the current Mayor of Sefton takes the number of Lib Dem councillors in Southport to 14 out of 21.
Having just heard the result of Jack McConnell in Scotland, I was astonished to hear that there were 970 rejected votes. I know that in Scotland they are "pioneering" using counting machines and the astonishingly high 970 rejected votes would indicate that if counting machines are being used, they are doing something badly wrong. Update - Glasgow Kelvin has 1170 rejected papers. What the hell is going on in Scotland ? | < | May 2007 | > | ||||
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