Why did we get the Lib Dems wrong?
May 4th, 2007
Was Ming’s party the big loser in yesterday’s elections?
The above instant “poll” was taken on Tuesday amongst visitors to the site and shows how people were perceiving the possibilities for Britain’s third party earlier in the week.
On the face of its things were looking up for Ming and his team. In the three previous national opinion polls, albeit on general election voting intention, the Lib Dems had shown significant improvements.
Yet with about half the results from the English councils still to come in it is clear that the 7% in our “poll” who predicted Lib Dem losses of more than 150 seats are the ones who got this right.
This surely is the big shock from Thursday and could it have lone-term implications.
Mike Smithson
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Mike - it may also suggest Tory visitors trying to ramp Lib Dem expectations in the hope they’d fall short!
The overall losses are not a national problem for the Lib Dems (though I’m sure the local parties will be upset). The only problem is where they occur in places the Lib Dems need to win at the general election. News from Lib Dem marginal seats is, in the main, pretty positive.
When the LDs win the defeated party is like rabbit with a headlamp in its eye. they go blind and think they can never recover. DC has reversed that light.
BBC confirm C gain Blackpool
The LD’s (at least on this site) have long been in a state of denial about both theur own party and the effect of Cameron. Hope it stays that way!
how is the BNP going?
They have failed in Sandwell this time. Are they going well somewhere?
With 15 out of 32 Scottish councils declared:
SNP 150 councillors
Lab 126
Con 74
LD 69
oth 83
NOC: 13 councils (+6)
oth: 2 councils (-1)
Lab: 0 councils (-5)
Lab lost Clackmannanshire, East Ayrshire, East Lothian, Midlothian and South Lanarkshire.
Ind lost Moray.
3 - more grim Tory news from the wastelands of the North then. Shame, as Blackpool has two former Tory seats they could do with winning back. What a dire performance in Lancashire then.
Cameron out!
For those of us old enough to remember the Liberal ‘winter’ of 1977 Mike this election is like a balmy spring day.
Yes some places like Woking and Torbay have gone down but there have been a good number of places like Eastbourne and Caradon to balance the scales.
All in all, quite a good night to be a Lib Dem when a mid term wipeout would have been expected in the past.
In my view, it was a horrible night for the labour, could be worse?yes, but it wasn’t, so lets see what was, and not what could be, and labour scored badly, the liberal democratas have had a horrible night too, what a poor perfomace!, and the conservative, good gains, but not enough.
7: if the Tories have won Blackpool then they must have done well there as they previously had just 13 seats in a council of 42.
It will be ignored by Nick Robinson et al…
NOC HOLD Dundee City Council
Dundee is now the 2nd Scottish city to declare (Aberdeen was quite early on this am)
SNP 13 (+2)
Lab 10 (n/c)
Con 3 (-2)
LD 2 (n/c)
oth 1 (n/c)
Fascinating! It was previously a Lab-Con-LD Unionist ‘grand coalition’. Same again?
Blackpool - Possibly a reaction to the Casino issue?
Manchester was one of Labour’s better performances, but it may just be a coincidence.
http://www.stoke.gov.uk/elections - so far in Stoke on Trent the BNP have won seat - yuck - they held 5 before the Elections - the local website does not say if this is an additional seat or not
11 - It may not be this time as the Tories lost seats because of it.
NOC HOLD Scottish Borders Council
Con 11 (n/c)
LD 10 (+2)
SNP 6 (+4)
oth 7 (-6)
14 - How do you know, what with the change in voting system?
26% when the best poll says 22% (and some recent ones 15%) shouldn’t be considered too bad but inevitably the loss of seats looks bad and is for the councils concerned. In England 755 councillors compares to Labour 874.
Locally won Hinckley - waiting to hear about Harborough.
8 that’s an interesting set of scales you’ve got there! There’s only 2 sets of activists who are going to be happy and motivated and that’s the tory and SNP ones. PC’s will probably squabble as to what went wrong, Labour ones will pretend to each other that it could have been worse and the LDs will start throwing darts at pictures of Ming. Him standing on Eastbourne beach pretending everything was OK was rather sad.
It was a bad night for the Lib dems nationally and the agonised pretence at anything else by posters on here won’t do.
Why is it not possible for the Orange Ones to just accept that they had a disappointing evening?
I am genuinely surprised, I expected gains for them from Labour and more holds from us: I really did believe the polling in recent weeks that had shown a small but significant LD surge and a falling back in Camerons support.
1. Joe FairW - “it may also suggest Tory visitors trying to ramp Lib Dem expectations in the hope they’d fall short!”
Aye right! Pull the other one
With rampant Lib Dem rampers like Mark Senior, the Tories and Labour did not need to bother.
Menzies Campbell does not need enemies when he has ‘friends’ like Mark Senior.
LOL
Sorry if this is off thread, or if the news is already known, but we now have to refer to COUNCILLOR Rik W. His majority in Peppard Ward, Reading, was about 500. More spectacularly, SBS scored 225-or so votes in his contest. The Lib Dems in Reading have immediately declared it to be a Target Seat, and are insisting that he visits the Ward at least once next year.
SNP lose Angus to NOC although I think that was predicted anyway due to STV.
7 - “more grim Tory news from the wastelands of the North then”
Wastelands? The Tories now control more councils in the North-West than any other party. Its easy to cherry-pick individual areas where one party is not winning, but the overall picture is one of a Conservative resurgence - including in the North.
20 - Stuart, merely questioning Mike’s rather touching belief that all those who voted in his site poll will have taken an entirely objective and impartial view of Lib Dem prospects…
21 - Well done Rik!
And can anyone confirm this for me. If a councillor in a Scottish ward steps down/dies/dissapears etc do all the existing councillors have to recontest the seat at the subsequent by-election?
South Wales Central regional seats:
Con 2
Plaid 2
No change
22. Max
Yes, very much so. And the only other non-Labour council, Inverclyde, is also a ‘Nominal’ NOC as well. In fact, only about 4 councils are not Nominal NOCs.
Tayside North: SNP hold by 21.4%
SNP hold Perth and Tayside North with increased majorities.
Mike - Any news on your Mayoral election yet?
29 thanks for this - I was worried about Perth.
After 63 Scottish constituencies, on total national vote share SNP lead by 1.4%:
SNP 33.8%
Lab 32.4%
Con 16.6%
LD 15.4%
7.2% majority for Roseanna Cunningham
NOC GAIN from SNP: Angus Council
SNP 13 (-4)
Con 5 (+3)
LD 3 (n/c)
Lab 2 (+1)
oth 6 (n/c)
25. No Max, they don’t.
Burnley Council final result: Cons, Lab and LD each gain one seat from BNP - Labour winning their’s on a draw of lots! BNP continue to wither away in Burnley then, down to 4. Tories up one to 6 - as far as they can get in Burnley with only 2 winnable wards of 3. I expect the LibDem/Tory joint administration will continue.
SNP HOLD Perth
SNP 39.4
Con 32.3
LD 13.7
Lab 13.0
FSP 1.6
2.4% SWING from CON to SNP
32: so the predictions of a Tory squeeze down to 10-11% looking unfounded then…
38. Yep Scottish polls rubbish again
SNP HOLD North Tayside
SNP 51.6
Con 30.2
Lab 9.2
LD 9.0
4.0% SWING from CON to SNP
Labour has unseated Jean Turner
There’s a bit of (not unexpected) excitement about these results, but actually they are to be expected (other than the Lib Dem poor performance in Scotland).
I said a few days ago that anyone expecting Lib Dems gains in council seats was deluding themselves (unfortunatley including Mark Senior). I said keeping the losses below 250 would be a good result for the Lib Dems. Why? Because the seats that were up this time were those last fought when IDS was leader - and his result was so bad the Tories decided to get rid of him. A minimum of 750+ gains for the Tories in council seats is the benchmark and I think they’ll get them.
Scotland (and Edinburgh in particular) is a dissappointment - Central should have been a easy gain (particularly when you look at Dunfermline). And the result in Roxburgh and Berwickshire (hat tip to Max) was not entirely unexpected was down to laziness and arrogance from the outgoing MSP.
Given the circumstances Gordon and Inverness weren’t bad results for the Lib Dems, but again with a bit more work from the previous incumbent in Gordon Salmond would have found it tougher.
While not being happy with these results they are pretty much in line with what Ming and the parliamentary party was expecting.
And I’d be interested to see what the results are going to be in the seats that matter - the Lib/Tory marginals in the south rather than the safe Tory areas. We know about Eastleigh, Eastbourne and Torbay, but I suspect the other areas with Lib Dem MPs challengers will prove a whole lot closer than the Bournemouths of this world.
Oh and I was one of the 7% who voted for 150+ losses…
LAB GAIN from Ind - Strathkelvin & Bearsden
Conservatives hit the 400 mark - with nearly half the results still to come.
Is the BBC including the Scottish local results in the “locals” scoreboard, or just the English ones still?
Isn’t it virtually impossible now for Labour to win most seats? Who is putting the money on Labour? Very strange. Simple addition and subtraction. The current seats change on last time means its virtually impossible for Labour to win most seats. They have lost too many FPTP seats, and are doing far too badly on the list to make up for this.
Someone correct me if I am wrong.
That is why the BBC and Sky have ben hinting the SNP have won most seats for over an hour.
SNP have won the consituency vote, list vote and most seats now almost certain.
45: 400 gains that is
NOC GAIN from Labour: North Ayrshire Council
Lab 12 (-8)
SNP 8 (+5)
Con 3 (-2)
LD 2 (+2)
oth 5 (+3)
Broadland - LDs wiped out!!!
Jean Turner finished thrid beated also by SNP.
LD (part of the seat is in Swinson’s constituency) a poor 4th outpolled by the tories
31 - Marcia - very parochial question! - but which wards did the Tories win in in Dundee?
Also I think I’ve just spoken to the only unhappy SNP member in Scotland - oh the dangers of standing for the council as a ‘paper’ candidate!!!!!
50. ops, LD 5th
#46 Will L -I hope you are right but the voting system has a deliberate in-built bias to the Labour Party. They created this in built bias and now cannot even run the election properly-if a party ever deserved to lose, it is Labour
According to BBC Lib Dems have lost all their councillors in Broadland (Norfolk)..can this be true??
Utterly appalling Liberal Democrat result in Strathkelvin. What on earth have they been up to during the last few months???
46 - 5 Areas still to declare - West Central Scotland list - SNP have one one constituency seat in that area so should gain a couple from this. Lothians count very slow but SNP stacking up votes there compared to last time.
Green elected in Glasgow in Partick West.
46 Will L - I would very much expect Labour to gain several seats on the lists north of the central belt, none of which have been declared so far. So there is a very good chance that they, not the SNP will come out ahead.
Max - 2 in Broughty Ferry (Ferry) and one in the Riverside (WestEnd) ward.
yes, all LDs defeated in Broadland and Labour has apparently gained 9 seats there. Or maybe BBC is drunk
C gain Braintree
Strathkelvin & Bearsden
Lab 31.1% (+1.2)
SNP 21.9 (+8.2)
Ind (Turner) 18.4 (-12.7)
Con 14.2 (+2.8)
LD 12.7 (-1.3)
SCHP 1.7
So much for the Lab Dims “rising star” Jo Swinson MP. What on earth…..
59 - Thanks Marcia. Couldn’t really see us winning any where else in Dundee!
Broadland
LD -11, Ind -2, Lab + 9, C + 4
New council: Ind 3, C 35, Lab 9
It also looks like the SNP have won a landslide in the Councils.
If the Labour lose a net of 8 FPTP seats, and gain only 3 list seats (which is extremely optimistic for Labour) then their total is only 41. Vice versa the SNP have a strong chance of totalling 50 seats. It is virtually impossible for Labour to win most seats.
65 - I think they’ve picked up two in Mid-Scotland and Fife.
57 Bill Kidd elected in Drumchapel was also elected as MSP as the 5th List Member for Glasgow. By-election?
SNP now taken the lead in FPTP votes with 9 to go
SNP 33.6
Lab 32.4
C 16.5
LD 15.3
after 3 regions the Greens are only on 3.5% so it’s looking near wipeout. PtP I hope you got your 6 Greens or fewer bet on.
BBC Radio Scotland: Seats thus far:
Lab 36
SNP 33
LD 12
Con 10
Grn 1
Sarko now has the same chance of winning as Gordon Brown!
Both at 1.09.
BBC interview with Robin Harper: “It is just going to be Patrick and me.”
So: Greens to get 2 seats (-5)
John Reid very coy on Sky. Refusing to rule himself out of the leadership. Will make an announcement next week!
re 46. Will I wouldn’t say it’s entirely cut and dried yet. Despite being in second place in the FPTP votes Lab still lead the SNP in FPTP seats by 33/18. It’s still touch and go that the SNP can make up enough list seats to correct this imbalance.
Now if even the BBC are saying the SNP have probably won most seats, then the current odds are very strange. Who on Earth is laying the SNP?!! Back them before it’s all gone.
74. Will L
I am not a betting man. And this is why!
I think it may well be a dead heat!
Are you all going to lose your money?
Poor Greens
65 Will L, are you considering that constituency seats are effectively deducted from list seats? Therefore constituencies don’t matter, unless a party wins more constituencies in a region than their share of the list vote entitles them to, like Labour did in Glasgow. The +/- will be skewed because so many constituencies have already declared while most regions are still missing.
Stuart. I notice that an Electoral Commission spokesman was saying that the voters had no significant trouble with STV but had screwed up on the voting for the Parliament even though this is the third election with this sytem. Was there a particular error which voters kept making? If they ranked candidates 1234 then surely the vote for the first choice would be acceptable if, as is supposed to happen, the electoral officers tried to determine the intent of the voter? As for the failure of postal ballot papers to arrive in time, that is an absolute disgrace. Heads should roll but of course won’t.
73. Haven’t the SNP already made up the balance.
And if we extrapolate the current list results then the SNP should hit 50. Labour hasn’t lost a lot of seats - only a net of 9. But the SNP are gaining far more than expected, and required, from the list - which should put them on a total 50. We forget that the small parties have given greatly to the SNP, dramatically increasing the SNP total - from an expected 43 seats to perhaps 50 seats. It just doesn’t seem like Labour have any chance on this.
Just trying to be objective.
73/74. With 9 constituency seats left, SNP leads national vote share by 1.2%. But if you look at the 9 seats to come, very few look strong for SNP. So looks likely SNP will win national vote share by around 0.5%.
If this is the case are they really guaranteed most seats?
Both list and constituency were on the same ballot in opposing columns, and the instructions said you have two votes, so apparently lots of people placed two X’s in the same column.
74 Will L - I imagine the people backing Labour are the ones that have looked at the available list totals for the Highlands, NE Scot + Mid Scot & fife and have seen that its Labour who will be gaining the most list seats from these areas.
Highland Council results coming through here
Chris A
Thanks for the enquiry but no, I passed on the Greens bet. Too obscure and risky.
How you doing? Up on this election generally?
The silence of Mark Senior, ColinW, Zebedee etc is unusual. As for Dan (Kingston Dan) just re-read his entry as polls closed last night. The “informed sources” about Salmond losing in Gordon, the Lib Dem sweep in Woking. Denial and Hubris all mixed together, but nine decades of consistent defeat breeds something.
Apart from that most contributers from Lab and the Cons are being restrained and quite interesting.
One final point, before I join Heat and Kitchen to have a good weekend, from which of his three addresses did Roger vote? It would be interesting to see if he made a difference
Its seems clear to me that nobody knows yet for sure which party will win the most seats in the Scottish parliament. If you were certain of the maths then there is £100 at 1.46 SNP or else £100 at 1.7 Labour. Free money if its all over one way or the other.
Chrisco So people voted for two candidates instead of one candidate and one for the Party?
I’m now worried about an SNP/Lab TIE ! All green on both - who collects on betfair if equal ?
So far in Canterbury:
3 Tory losses to LibDems (Little Stour, Barton, Heron)
1 Labour loss to Tory (Marshside)
Is Douglas Alexander’s head going to roll over this election fiasco? People are very, very angry indeed.
ahaha, an handful of people have transfered from Solidarity to Conservatives in a Glasgow ward
Good Lord! Has the Viscount’s lady wife been elected in Thurso?
Blackpool confirmed 13 con gains
Well nearly right on Vale of Glamorgan. But should not sleep easy. THe momentum is now clearly very Tory. Rioght on CW&SP. I knew Plaid didn’t have the manpower to mtach the Tories there and in Aberconwy as well, especially outside North Wales. Cardiff West, well I predicted Rhodri’s majority would be halved, but I though Lib Dems not Conservatives. A first clas result for them. Maybe they could dream of the seat again one day. Lib Dems, Cardiff South, build on 2005 progress. I think they’ll be in second at General Election, next time with potential to win when Michael retires. Great result in Newport Eas Lib Demns well on their radar now, and Newport west Tories, Paul Flynn watch out I think.
Overall though having pushed Labour hard in many and taken key seats you have tosay the Conservatives are back with a bang in Wales.
78 - I’ve heard that the main error was to vote twice on the list vote, because the ballot said “You have two votes” and people didn’t read the instructions closely enough to realise that that meant one for a party list on the left, and one for a constituency on the right. Last time the votes were on separate ballots.
SNP gain Livingston - OMG
That is John Smith not sleep easy.
Prob is stjohn theres still the W of Scotland and Lothians list due as well so although I’d say the chances of Labour coming out ahead are good, they’re not good enough for me to put money on
88. Jamie. Usual dead heat rules. You win and lose half your bet on each outcome.
23 - Philip Thompson - my post at 7 was sarcastic! I should have put a winking smiley on it perhaps…
Aren’t the list totals extremely bad for Labour in the NE?
re 84. Ptp not bad thanks. I seemed to go the right way on most results last night - and as a resultthe green numbers kept getting bigger whoever won. Paying for it now though, I’m going to be in need of matchsticks before too long.
OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG
SNP gain Livingston.
Angela Constance. IIRC I liked her during the byelection
Labour get 3 top up seats in Mid Scotland and Fife.
What’s going wrong for the Tories in South Lakeland - this is true-blue Tory territory, but since the LibDem’s shock narrow victory at the GE, they’re slowly wiping out the Tories on the local council. I spend a lot of time in that area, and it depresses me to see it becoming a LibDem heartland!
Remember Labour are doing much worse than expected in most areas outside Glagow. South of Scotland Labour in meltdown, with evidence the situation is the same in NE and Highlands.
By losing Livingston and most probably Edinburgh East Labour are almost certain to have George Foulkes elected on the list - possible future Labour leader?
SNP GAIN Livingston
SNP 39.6% (+8.0)
Lab 37.0 (-6.6)
ASJH 8.5
Con 8.4 (-0.9)
LD 6.5 (-2.4)
7.3% SWING from LAB to SNP
Thanks Nimble. So the over vote couldn’t count because there was no way of determining the first choice and the under vote couldn’t count because there was no mark at all. Why on earth change the design of a ballot paper with which voters had some familiarity?
Mid Scotland and Fife regional seats
3 Lab
3 Con
1 SNP
21 - thanks a lot!!
I had a 458 majority over the Lib Dem deputy Leader.
Across Reading East constituency Labour only managed to win ONE seat (Abbey ward by 83 votes).
Reading is now:
Labour 25 (-7)
Cons 14 (+6)
Lib Dem 7 (+1)
BBC “SNP dropping very heavy hints about making gains in Edinburgh.”
Lib Dems have just slipped through the -150 mark. Get in!
Tories powering towards 500 gains now with 130 councils still to declare.
Why did the Lib Dems get it so wrong?
-Their leader,Ming needs to be replaced with someone that at least looks in touch with the new millenium
-With the emergence of Respect,Greens ,UKIP and BNP,the Lib Dems have lost their monopoly of being the the protest party.
-Lib Dems always do badly when the Tories do well.
-Labour vote in northern England it seems would prefer to stay at home than switch to the Lib Dems.
-Harrogate annoucement earlier this year that a vote for the Lib Dems is a vote for Labour.
“South of Scotland Labour in meltdown”
they held all their seats in South of Scotland!
1. Not guilty. I really thought the Lib Dems would break even, and perhaps gain slightly.
5. V. mixed. They’ve gained, I think, 3 in Stoke, 2 in NW Leics. 1 in Charnwood, 1 in Bradford, and 1 in Staffordshire Moorlands, and seem to have won about 5% of the Welsh vote, and nearly won an assembly seat. But their vote is down in a number of their target areas, and they’ve lost 6 of the 8 seats they were defending.
LAB HOLD Eastwood
Huge Tory disappointment there!!
Hertsmere, Con gain 1 from Labour, and lose 1 to Lib Dems. New council Con 28, Lib Dem 7, Labour 4. Frank Ward lost his seat, but still won 20% of the vote.
112 - an extra seat with Prof Chis Harvie
113
Well done Rick,are there more seats up for election in Reading next year?
2.2% majority for Lab in Eastwood
123: shame, only 900-odd votes in it. Never mind.
17. Correct, Labour held 3 S of S FPTP seats. However, in relative terms SNP gaining much ground via the list vote. So overall Labour down markedly RELATIVE to SNP. This is all they need to win more seats, as mentioned above.
113 Congratulations Rik!!
Can we look forward to even more exclamation marks now??!!!!
Con gain Uttlesford.
Will L - I hope you are right. I got SNP at 1.48 and 1.7 ages ago and have held on until now…
Maybe more !! from Rik but not from Uttlesford LDS - another one down
Eastwood
Lab 35.8% (-0.1)
Con 33.6 (+7.3)
SNP 18.9 (+6.7)
LD 8.5 (-4.5)
Ind 3.2
3.7% SWING from LAB to CON
124 - Very dissapointing. More so as the independent Conservative polled over 1,000 votes.
Including Eastwood, SNP now only lead national vote share by 0.7%.
SNP 33.3%
Lab 32.6%
Surely this is the best indicator of final result?
Many congratulations to ,well now,Councillor Rik Willis:wink:
Council latest
Cons +476, Lab -225, LD -167 Others -85
(186/312)
Others had a bad night too !
Nottingham Evening Post reporting bad news, BNP gain a councillor in Broxtowe, a sad day for Nottinghashire in that respect.
128. Why are you replying to yourself?
Tories thrash Lib Dems in Uttlesford and S Norfolk - Ming’s problems deepen…
111 blue moon, yep. I guess they could have counted them as half votes for either party.
The previous design had the constituency vote as the “first” vote, even though the list vote is much more important. (That’s why the small parties did so well previously, because people thought, why not give the second vote to the Greens etc.).
So they decided to change that, and presumably they thought might as well put them on one sheet of paper, to have one ballot for the Parliament and one for the council. The two votes should have been clearly distinguished using different background colours, but I can’t remember now whether they actually were.
So who will be largestSNP or Labour. Goodnight or not for the Conservative Party Max.
128. Haha it’s Will L trying to convince himself…
I actually meant to sign that Will E! Sorry for the confusion..
113 a stunning victory Reading will go blue at the next GE I’m sure, now that you’ll be around to do the leafletting! - I’m sure Mark Senior will pop up to congratulate you soon.
South Norfolk - c gain 20 from LD…
500 Tory gains achieved. LDs very close to -200 - will Ming even make it through the weekend?
Prof Arbuthnott saying that Scottish council elections MUST be held on a separate day.
Things changing quickly Cons now +515, Lab -237, LD - 195 (190/312)
Applying the swing in the regions so far declared to those yet to declare and using the FPTP votes already eeclared as a basis for those results I reckon the list %age should come out as
SNP 30.5
Lab 29.2
C 14.4
LD 11.9
Gr 4.5
and putting thse into my calculator I’m going to stick my neck out and say the final result will be
SNP 45
Lab 44
C 20
LD 18
Gr 2
If this is right remember you read it here first!
136 Brit Spin
He sometimes forgets to change the name before posting.
139 - I would have said good if we’d won Eastwood. It’s OK though. Not as bad as some had predicted.
I think if we hold 18 seats we’ll have done OK. Have to see how the council results go too.
There have been some amazing CON LD battles Uttlesford must have been dire for the LDs (the BBC are getting very slow at putting up figures)
On the councils themselves Con +22, Lab -5, LD -1 (NOC - 15)
Conservatives win Elstree and Borehamwood Town Council for the first time ever by 9-4. When this was Borehamwood Urban District Council, Labour managed to hold it even in 1968.
Why still no result in last Welsh list region?
Broadland correction
Ind -2, LD -2, C + 4
New council: Ind 3, Con 35, LD 9
146 Chris A, does your seat prediction take into account the bonus seats that Labour won in Glasgow by winning more constituencies than their share of list vote allowed for?
146 Chris A
Looks about right to me.
And pretty damn close to my prediction yesterday
:) 
(I got Greens a bit wrong though - I think I said 8!!)
144 - They definately have to. He recommended it at the time.
A complete lack of suitable information given to voters as well WRT how the system works.
LDs hit -200
Is “No Zing” Ming still out there?
151 hopefully my stepsisters vote helped there -that’s a real standout result.
Re The original post. We were all focussed on Labour doing badly and totally took our eyes off the Lib Dems who really when you think about it have nothing going for them these days.
128, 140. I rest my case.
85 - Pot and Kettle - all I said about Gordon was that Slamond ‘would struggle’ - I think the Lib Dems were too optimistic there and in the end he won relatively easily - but if you are looking at figures that mean your vote is up, then it’s not often that you lose (unless you’re Rik in Sutton
).
Woking the Lib Dems appear to have wiped out Labour, but lost one more ward than they gained. And compared to other results in Surrey the vote held up well.
I notice you haven’t commented on my previous posts that say talk of Lib Dems gains was ‘deluded’ in this round of elections.
I invite analysis. How do others project the remaining seats?
Only people offering predictions agree SNP will be ahead. No one saying Labour have clung on. Surely the BBC and Sky can’t both be wrong.
Lab lose Sheffield to NOC
Greens hold Central ward
‘Tory gains achieved. LDs very close to -200 - will Ming even make it through the weekend?’
I hope so as he’s now proven to be a major electoral asset for the Tories!
159: at this rate, and as we are presumably left with a lot of rural/southern England battles now, could the LDs overtake Labour as the big losers? They’re catching rapidly…
Where are the BBC predicting that SNP will have the most seats?
Is there any good website that brings together the constituency and list results for each region, including the results from last time? The BBC thingy is just too slow and bothersome.
Based on the current figures on the BBC of lab 37 SNP 34 and looking at the results still to come and making some guesses on how the constituencies and top ups will work out ( constituency losses and gains are often balanced out by the regional seats )
High & Islands
Lab 3 more
SNP 2 more
Lothian
Lab 3 more
SNP 2-3 more
NE
Lab 3 more
SNP 1 more ?
West
Lab 0 more
SNP 3 more
on this basis this would give Lab 46 SNP 43. I might be being too generous to Lab but even so it does look very close not likely to be more than one seat in it either way
Winchester so far:
3 LD gains from Con
1 Con gain from LD
162. Will L:
National vote share (7 seats left):
SNP 33.3%
Lab 32.6%
The 7 remaining seats are mainly not SNP.
With Glasgow giving bonus seats for Labour this must still be a toss-up.
166. Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells
The SNP have won seats all over the country. broken out of their heartlands.
(I used to live in Royal Tunbridge Wells!)
165. Latest is Lab -239 vs LD 208 ….
Lab hold Linlithgow, according to Sky.
Looks like Lib Dems have held Vale of White Horse in Oxfordshire. Tories will be disappointed.
http://www.whitehorsedc.gov.uk/council_and_democracy/election_results/default.asp
Lab has gainged Luton fron NOC
re 154 yes my calcualtor calculates the list seats exactly as the reutrning officer would
167 - Ah, just had to click on “Parliament A-Z” on the BBC site instead of the map thingies.
Labour favourites again on Betfair.
I actually have no connection with tunbridge wells - just liked the handle.
Have the BBC explicitly said that the SNP are expected to win the most seats? I haven’t seen that anywhere.
I’m also all in green on the scotland result, i don’t really understand the dead heat rule - what does it mean?
Let me venture my prediction then Chris:
SNP 44
Lab 45
C 19
LD 18
Gr 2
Not too diferent from yours and it could go either way.
And on that not I’ll say goodnight from Aussie and will see you all + the final result hopefully tommorow.
Conservative losses to LDs in Mendip (Somerton and Frome constituency)
173. Linlithgow swing under 2%. Result very odd.
Net Lib Dem gains from Tories in Winchester is pretty impressive!
3.9% Lab majority in Linlithgow. Just 1.7% swing to SNP
Final results in Stoke - the BNP gain two seats, and are now larger than the Conservatives and the Lib Dems
New Council
Lab 24 Others 18 BNP 7 Con 6 Lib Dem 5
Yikes
Reid on BBC TV again. He is on TV almost continuously! Any implications - will he go for leadership?
3 Lab gains from LD in Newcastle
168. just seen lab hold Linlithgow which changes the maths slightly Lab seats still to come in Lothian 2-3 Lab total 44 -45
176 - So how are the SNP making up for Labour’s bonus seats? I think Labour are getting quite a bit more than they deserve in the Central and West of Scotland regions as well.
168 - if your calculations are correct, what coalitions are possible?
Looking at the edinburgh seats, is there any chance Labour could gain Edin South from LDs? It was very close last time, and the LD results have been very odd. I ask genuinely as I’ve no idea if it’s a ludicrous possibility or not. At this stage weird possibilities become very important.
Well as one of those who predicted considerable Lib Dem losses overall, I don’t know if I can join this thread…
But locally the LDs lost two seats to Tories, The Tories lost one seat to Labour and 3 to Independents, Labour lost one seat to Independents but took one from the Tories.
With one exceptionally good LD defence over a Tory, they were basically wiped out everywhere they stood this time. Next year could see them reduced even further.
Labour gained votes in nearly every ward locally, including some big jumps in some wards, including one where they more than tripled their vote.
No meltdown here - and we’re in the supposed heartland of Tory revival in Kent!
Morning y’all. Still going on, and still interesting! It seems to me Salmond could try and claim the moral right to govern if he has the plurality of votes cast but there’s a dead heat in seats, or he’s just one behind..
On the other hand: if he’s only one or two seats ahead it’s difficult to see how he can claim the moral right to try and break up Britain. The large majority of Scots voted for Unionist parties.
He may have to scrap his referendum plans to get a coalition going. How will that play with the fundies? Stuart?
191 - I don’t know it’s definitely possible bearing in mind the Lib Dems very poor night north of the border.
I’m rather pleased that Stuart Dickson doesn’t bet as it looks like the Nats have gained Edinburgh East, while the Lib Dems failed in Central.
141 Reading East already has a Tory MP
If the results are as is forecast from now on, then the only coalitions are surely going to be SNP+Lab or anything involving the Tories! Or am I missing something?
Congratulations to the hundreds of Labour councillors given the boot by the electorate. You must be absolutely delighted at your “good springboard” to winning the next general election, as your glorious leader described it.
As for the Lib Dems, maybe the time has come to bring back Charlie. Bringing back a previous leader worked for the SNP.
Just noticed the great Lib Dem results in Salisbury - +10 seats in total! 8 seats gained from the Tories, another 2 from Lab. Tories lose control of Council.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/vote2007/councils/html/46ud.stm
193. Ming Campbell last night resolutely ruled out the possibility of agreeing to an independence referendum, whatever tag-ons the SNP may propose to include.
194 Dan - “I’m rather pleased that Stuart Dickson doesn’t bet”
You got lucky there!
The results are in from Penwith District Council in the far west of Cornwall.
The Conservatives have gained three seats, two from the Liberal Democrats (Goldsithney and Morvah, Pendeen & St Just) and one from an Independent (St Erth & St Hillary). The Liberal Democrats have gained Hayle North from an Independent.
(As a caveat, the Morvah seat is a split 3-member LD/IND ward. I don’t know if it was an LD or IND seat being defended. I think it was an LD seat but not 100% sure).
Turnout ranged from 35% in Penzance to 55% in Marazion
The split is now CON 17 (+3) LD 11 (-1) IND 7 (-2) LAB 1 (subject to above)
The issue for 2008 is whether the Tories can take overall control of this authority for the first time. Since its inception in 1973, Penwith has either been Independent controlled or NOC. The LDs have never controlled it although the constituency is solid LD with Andrew George as MP.
Number of insolvencies hits new record.
30,000 in Q1 (England & Wales only).
198 - Every cloud has a silver lining hey Joe!
Further to my thoughts on Lib Dem/Tory battles Solihull, Taunton and South Lakeland all produced good results for the Lib Dems suggesting Tory gains at the next general election are going to be difficult…
Oh yes - we took 4 seats of the LDs in Cotswold and 4 off the Independents.
198. Keep em coming - youre doing great work for the Samaritans…
196 - With ChrisA’s numbers, a rather unlikely SNP/LD/Green would have a one-seat majority. With Gallowglass’ numbers, a Lab/LD/Green traffic light coalition would be a possibility.
After 220/316 we have Cons + 555, Lab -272, LD - 205.
Tories hold Winchester:
The results of this year’s district elections are now all in. Overall the Conservatives have retained power, though the Liberal Democrats gained two seats.
The new make-up of the Council is:
Conservative: 29
Liberal Democrat: 23
Independent: 4
Labour: 1
Personally I think Labour have ‘done it’ - which annoys me something awful. Unless the SNP can unleash an Argyll surprise!
NOC GAIN from Labour: West Lothian Council
Lab 14 -4
SNP 13 +2
Con 1 n/c
oth 4 +2
The Lib Dems are doing almost as badly as the Labour party, even proportionately. I suppose the point is that they were the beneficiaries of most of the mid-term discontent in 2003 as a result of Iraq and otherwise, so this is just a reversion to before. Compared to, say, last year, we’d expect the Lib Dems to be gaining from Labour and losing to the Tories. What seems to be happening is the Tories gaining from everyone and if anything more from the Lib Dems.
2005 showed a pattern of either the Tories out-campaigning the Lib Dems in marginal seats, or Tories doing disproportionately well relative to Lib Dems in marginals for some other reason (e.g. most of the Lib Dem increase might have been in local seats). that’s because the Tories made some gains at the Lib Dems’ expense, even though on a uniform national swing they’d have been 2% down and should have lost maybe 5-10 seats to Lib Dems.
Are we witnessing an overall pattern of Tory out-performance vs Lib DEms in the ground war? Or just reversion from the 2003 Lib Dem high, plus the Tory recovery since then?
198 that’s what happens to greedy councillors who waste money on self-aggrandising schemes.
209 yeah, off Labour; great progress there
I see that the number of Tory net gains has surpassed 550. Are there many more Councils still to report, and thus could the final total be closer to 700?
Ps the greens have done really badly in Scotland despite the polls. they’ve lost two out of three seats. I had no idea they’d managed to win a constituency seat last time! But they’ve lost it to Labour in Strathkelvin. A big blow.
I guess people felt the SNP / Lab result was too tight? Would that have squeezed Lib Dems too?
215. +556 with 91 out of 316 left to report. 600 is a possibility.
214. Are you 12 years old?
The Lib Dems are gonna be crushed in the south at the next GE. What’s the point in voting for Lib Dems who will never gain power, when you can vote for a Lib Dem who will gain power- i.e. Dave Cameron? Especially when he has ditched the one deeply unpopular Lib Dem policy - ardent europhilia?
Cameron can win the next election from here - sweep the south, the east, the midlands, make gains in the west and north, a few seats in Scotland and wales - bingo, he’s in, and quite comfortably.
88 Still to report John O, so 700 sounds attainable.
Looking at the seat distribution in a bit more detail, Labour have done a good job of gerrymandering the system. In their strongholds in and around Glasgow, constituency seats outnumber list seats by more than elsewhere, thereby skewing things by two or three seats in their favour.
Looks to me like Newark and Sherwood will be a Conservative gain from NOC
Brighton
Tories 6 gains so far
Greens 3 gains so far
My source tells me looks like a Con gain
220. Thanks. Let’s hope so.
Brighton and Hove:
Brunswick & Adelaide: 2 LD hold
Hove Central: 2 COn hold
East Brighton: 3 Lab hold
Goldsmid: 1 Lab hold, 1 Con hold and 1 COn gain
Hangleton & Knoll: 2 con hold and 1 con gain
Honnovery: 2 Green hold and 1 Green gain
Hollingbury & Stanmer: 3 Lab hold
North Portslade: 1 Lab hold and 1 Con gain
Patcham: 3 Con hold
Rottingdean Coastal: 3 COn hold
St Peter’s and North Laine: 3 Green hold
South Portslade: 1 Con gain, 1 Lab hold
Regency: 2 Green gain
Stanford: 1 con hold and 1 Ind hold
Wish: 2 con hold
wetbourne: 2 con hold
withdean: 3 con hold
Woodingdean: 2 Con hold
216. Strathkelvin was an independent, not a Green.
Does anyone have a clue if there are going to be legal challenges over the spoilt votes. There are at least half a dozen seats where the majority was less than the number of void ballots. If, so we may not know who has won for weeks….
216 - Strathkelvin was an independent seat. Very poor for the greens I thought they would do slightly better. Also thought that the Tommy Sheridan would get in too.
204 In the new Leeds North West, Greg Mulholland’s seat, Lib-Dems won three out of four wards and increased their share of the vote in the fourth.
One of the things I find most depressing about the results of the Blair years is the cynicism displayed in 221.
I think these are fairly good results for the Tories overall, although I they would like to see their vote increase a bit further over the next two years to give themselves a good chance of winning government in 2009.
There is definitely potential for large gains in England based upon the Council’s they hold compared to seats in Westminster. I thought the result in Wales was quite positive too, there’s definitely potential to win close to 10 seats there if the vote can increase.
Scotland remains a disappointment though. The result in Roxburgh was unexpected, although I thought the party would be in with a better chance in seats like Dumfries and Eastwood. I guess the increase in the SNP vote would always have made it difficult to win seats north of the central belt. I think there’s only really the potential for 2-3 gains there in 2009. It looks difficult to see the number of Tory seats there ever returning to the level 25-30 years ago.
If the Tories return to government in 2009, I think it will largely be based on gains in the south of England and the midlands. While there’s some potential for gains elsewhere, they would probably be a smaller percentage of the total.
216.” had no idea they’d managed to win a constituency seat last time! But they’ve lost it to Labour in Strathkelvin”
erm, they didn0t wint it. Strathkelvin was held by a “save our hospital” candidate
Nimble Sky showed the Parliament ballot paper which clearly displayed arrows pointing to two different coloured parts of the same ballot paper. You have two votes it said but some people thought that meant two votes for each section. With two overvotes and no indication of ranking it meant no votes for either list or constituency!
226. Can anyone really be ar$ed though, to challenge, even when spoilt ballots outnumber majorities? The chances of nearly ALL the spoilt ballots going to the 2nd placed candidate are virtually zero. Theoretically possible, but practically nil. What’s the point in challenging, unless you think would get a rerun of the election (surely impossible)?
A small comfort for the Lib Dems on what has been an admittedly disappointing set of results is that we are currently only 60 seats behind Labour.
Is there another distortion due to very small electorates in Glasgow?
Seats comparison:
Total:
Scottish Parliament 73
Westminster Parliament 59
But for Glasgow:
Scottish Parliament 10
Westminster Parliament 7
Westminster boundaries far more up to date.
So Glasgow has too many seats (should only have 8 or 9, not 10).
212 no, I’m not 12 years old, but you are in imbecile
great result in Brighton, has been Lbour ever since Brighton Joined with Hove, Deep joy!
219 - “The Lib Dems are gonna be crushed in the south at the next GE.”
Erm, like in Eastbourne, Salisbury, Eastleigh, Winchester, Lewes and Oxfordshire, y’mean - where the Lib Dems made net gains from the Tories.
Linlithgow is a very strange result.
233 SeanT
I agree. Seems pretty pointless. Unless of course one set of voters are a lot … erm… “less-gifted” than the others
Great result for the Lib Dems in Vale of White Horse - have held the Council, gaining 4 seats. The Tories have lost 3.
http://www.whitehorsedc.gov.uk/council_and_democracy/election_results/default.asp
No BNP in Bishops Stortford if anyone remembers that from yesterday! Glad to say they weren’t even that close.
236 212 children children go to your rooms
LIB DEMS HOLD Edinburgh South
LD hold Edinburgh South.
Looks like the English results are heading towards:
Con +600
Lab -300plus
LD -200plus
Others -60
Don’t see how that can be anything other than “better than expected” for the Tories and for Labour (but still bad for them), and an unexpected disaster for Ming and his LDs.
With 18 out of 32 Scottish councils declared:
SNP 184 councillors
Lab 154
Con 83
LD 74
oth 98
NOC: 16 councils (+7)
Ind: 2 councils (-1)
Lab: 0 councils (-6)
SNP: 0 councils (-1)
Lab lost Clackmannanshire, East Ayrshire, East Lothian, Midlothian, North Ayrshire, South Lanarkshire and West Lothian.
Ind lost Moray.
SNP lost Angus.
Pleased the Lib Dems have held Edinburgh South; still on a knifedge though.
As the debate switches onto who is half empty and who is half full - can anyone explain how the last 6 months of news could have been worse for Labour activists or been better for the tories. The political environment for cameron was outstanding, but the tory results haven’t been…discuss.
Funnily enough Sky’s extrapolation of these results shows the LDs on 62 Parliamentary seats. I notice Chris Huhne mentioned that despite losing seats in St Albans they outpolled the Tories in the Parliamentary seat. No doubt a highly selective example but what matters is not taking mountains of council seats but where you take them. I look forward to a proper analysis of how these results changed the balance or otherwise in the marginal seats.
hey the lib Dems might have done ‘badly’ compared to 2005, but it’s starting to look as if they might end up the second party in seats, for the first time in a decade or so. Labour have lost a lot of seats in the last few minutes. Is it still true that rural seats tend to declare later? If so, there aren’t going to be many more declarations in big Labour areas.
Mind you, of course these seats aren’t representative, and presumably the Lib dems are still behind Labour on other years’ elections.
How come I’ve never heard of “Babergh”? I thought I knew everywhere in the UK!
re 235. Quite agree. The Scottish FPTP boundaries must be donkeys years old now - are the any plans for the BCfS to update them?
It’s funny: we’re all talking councillors gained and lost. The actual changes in vote *shares* are pretty small.
In the regions declared so far, the Greens’ list vote has collapsed to almost half of what it was, even they’ve done a competent job in Parliament, they haven’t had any scandals like the Socialists, and they had similarly low levels of publicity as last time ’round.
Therefore I think the main reason for their collapse is the change of ballot papers. Previously the all-important list vote was called the “second vote”, which made many people think that they could just give it to one of the small parties.
Overall conclusion:
Labour win most seats in Scottish Parliament due to out of date boundaries primarily causing big distortion in Glasgow.
Scottish Parliament seats still based on Westminster boundary review passed in 1995 (based on 1991 electorates).
BOUNDARIES ARE 16 YEARS OUT OF DATE.
249
Its not the Tories fault New Labour have been a disaster, and its going to stay a disaster, all talk of reinvention is fantasy.
With 582 council seat gains so far (227 out of 312 councils) the Tories are on course to gain 800.
235 The Glasgow Rutherglen SP seat is now mainly in Rutherglen and Hamilton West.
238. Fair nuff. But you are traditionally strong in local government - yet you got a caning yesterday, during the dog days of a deeply unpopular third term Labour government. I can’t see why anyone would vote for you - apologies - in a general election, when Cameron is so successfully parking his T34s on your allotment.
230. I think you are too pessimistic about the Tories in Scotland. Life is an Heraclitean fire, as Gerard Manley Hopkins said - all is flux. Especially in politics. At one point - about five years ago - it looked like the Tories would be wiped out in wales forever, half a decade later they are challenging as the second largest party.
Who knows what will happen in Scotland now? I can see the SNP splitting if they don’t win power soon - into fundamentalist seperatists and Catalunyan incrementalists. They already have a bizarre range of economic policies. Are they left or centre or just a single-issue party?
Scotland won’t always be a subsidy-suckling lefty playground. The right will return, and so will the Tories, as the only serious rightwing party around.
252. South Suffolk.
Canterbury remains Tory:
Canterbury:
LD 11 (+2) Con 3 (-) Lab 0 (-2)
Herne Bay:
Con 8 (+2) LD 5 (-2)
Whitstable:
Con 10 (-) Lab 2 (-)
Villages:
Con 8 (-) LD 3 (+1) Lab 0 (-1)
41% looks like a very good platform for the Tories espcially since the Lab/Lib vote is evenly split (shades of ‘83?). Also, I get the sense that the minor party vote in England is something of a busted flush - a record number of candidates and not much to show for it.
I seem to recall an old study about a self-reinforcing effect for parties that look like winners. As it slowly seeps into voter’s consciousness that the Tories have a credible chance of forming the next government I can see some of the minor party votes peeling off and joining their bandwagon.
Dave is playing the long game, and playing it quite well.
Decent result in South - nice to see the Tories ‘rising star’ and potential ‘future MP’ Gavin Borwn slip to fourth place…
+700 seats would be a sterling performance by Cameron, from an already strong position. +800 would be stunning.
Current totals based on counting.
High & Islands
Lab 2 more
SNP 2 more
Lothian
Lab 2 more
SNP 4 more
NE
Lab 2 more
SNP 3 more
West
Lab 0 more
SNP 4 more
Given current Lab 38 SNP 34 total, this gives Lab 42, SNP 45.
Congratulations to Rik W on winning his seat in Reading and to the LibDem in his ward who reduced Rik’s majority from 709 last year to 458 this year .
It is worth noting that where there have been elections in LibDem Parliamentary seats , they are continuing to make gains from both Conservative and Labour even in the super marginals such as Eastleigh , Somerton and Frome , Westmoreland and Solihull where the Conservatives lost 3 seats and control of the council .
Next year is another year and it will be the Conservatives defending unpopular councils and I suspect they will have net losses .
voters’ consciousness
259. I know but there is still a big distortion.
Does anyone have a list of the current electorates in the 73 Scottish Parliament seats.
Excluding the 3 exceptional ones (Orkney, Shetland, Western Isles) I think we will find the 10 Glasgow seats are all right at the lower end.
267. LD gains in Winchester too.
Labour has gained a seat from BNP in Calderdale
84 - I didnt pass on it! But it was good value and yesterday on 9% in the polls I was confident. Still I made up for it by backing the SNP at 4.5 and 5 in the small hours and laying off just before I went to football at about 2ish which seems like a good time to have laid off (though driven by the fact I needed to leave for footie rather than an expert eye!).
266 Will L, West of Scotland has already been declared. The SNP got 3 seats, which are already included in the current 38-34 totals. So if your other numbers are correct, Labour win by a seat.
263.
West of Scotland has not declared as far as I’m aware.
274. Golly. How can this be arguable? How chaotic is the vote up there?
274 - You’re right, I was looking at the 2003 numbers. D’oh!
Solidarity has gained a council seat in Glasgow (Ruth Black in Craigton )
266. SNP to get 3 more in NE Scotland?
SeanT, it doesn’t work like that! If the election is legally invalid, and the challenger expects to do better in the re-run than the original, they will challenge if they really want to win.
The Evening Standard notes that the move to a fortnightly bin collection was politically toxic for any council that suggested it. It puts the ousting of the LibDems in Bournemouth and Waverly plus the Tory loss of North Lincolnshire and Labour’s reverse in Telford as places where the rubbish vote was decisive
Greens have gained a second council seat in Glasgow (Anderston/City ward)
You would expect by the way for a new Lib Dem MP in a constituency to be able to improve ht Lib DEm campaigning machine and so improve the council result, more often than not. For a Lib dem seat held before 2005, that benefit would already be in place in the 2003 election result. that explains, for example, the gains in Leeds North-West.
265: don’t see how the Tories are going to get another 150-200 gains from 75 councils still to declare. Going to be low to mid 600s surely? That would do for me, well above my expectations of c400.
interesting too that the Tories have won outright more than half the councils up for election.
But I seem to remember William Hague claiming that his local election results meant he was on course for victory in 2001, which, er, didn’t quite happen.
Lib Dems have now won 65 more councillors than Labour.
279. Yes, sure, but it would be a recipe for months of chaos. A legal challenge might also be costly? And anyone who did it might be punished by bored voters rather than rewarded. I imagine there must be a feeling in Scotland of OK, that was a disaster, let’s move on.
After all, the rubbish voting system affected everyone - not just the SNP. Indeed it is arguable that the less well-educated are more likely to make mistakes - so maybe Labnour have been affected more than the Nats.
*retires behind parapet*
With 234 councils so far, Tories suffering some losses in recent results. Now on course to win ‘only’ 771 council seats. Labour to lose 409. Lib Dems to lose 261.
No Oaten effect in Winchester:
The Winchester Result
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 next year’s elections. All 3 of the Lib Dem gains were in wards within the boundary of the new Winchester parliamentary seat, so good news for our prospective candidate, Martin Tod, too.
Labour hold Aberdeen Central.
Lib Dems are doing much better now, they are only down to -197.
281 - We might be on for the 3 councillors there that I predicted then ;-). Also just been chatting to someone who *should* know and the Green seat in the Highlands and Islands is looking ok (we are told). So maybe 3 rather than 2 MSPs. Maybe.
274 - sorry you didn’t make it. I see Barry did.
286. Sean, having been at the count in East Kilbride not only was it chaotic and shambolic and votes disenfranchised but I dare say it, there was a feeling of what I can only describe as votes being ‘manipulated’ - allowing certain papers through for some parties (or should I say party) but not others. I left in disgust at 2 in the morning.
Labour wiped out in Babergh (S Suffolk) with six losses, lose half their seats in Wellinborough (which they held at parliamentary level until 2005)….and more Lib Dems losses in Aylesbury (a target for them)
286 - The BNP and UKIP probably lost quite a few votes to the too-stupid party as well.
Interesting to look at what happened in Mid Scotland and Fife to appreciate the impact of the voting system.
In 2003 results were
Labour 5 (all FPTP),SNP 5 (2 F, 3 List), LibDem 2 (1 F, 1L) Con 3(All list), Green 1 (List)
In 2007 results are Labour 5 (2,3) SNP 6(5,1)Lib Dem 2 (2,0) Con 3(0,3)
so despite Labour losing Stirling, Dunf West and Central Fife the net effect of the whole thing was that SNP picked up 1 from the Greens and everyone else stayed the same.
Re: The voting system. Alex Samond was spot on when he said that they shouldn’t have put the STV on the same form as the MSP form. Really confusing. I spent over an hour trying to explain it to a mortified relative at the weekend. I think I was wrong as well — I thought there were 3 regional seats in Scot South not 7?!?
266 38 + 6 = 44 !. I cant say I understand the details of the regional top up but I would have thought 4 more seats for the SNP in west is unlikely seeing as they only got 3 last time and they have gained a seat similarly in Lothian, lab seem likely to get 3 in H & L as they have lost a seat there. It is all likely to come down to very small margins.
Sean T I think the feeling in Scotland seems to be ‘this is a shambles’ and we’re bloody angry. Salmond holding a Press Conference in the next hour; does he smell victory or is it a preemptive move to try to define the election? GB invisible. If anyone spots him can they let us know!
ConservativeHome has a good map of the gains by the Tories in the North.
Has Aberdeen Central decided it?
So the Conservatives have beaten the 700 target by a good margin. Labour are so far behind in Council seat totals now that a Conservative majority is highly likely. If the Conservatives can hit 48% of council seats prior to the 2010 election than a Conservative win is inevitable.
Remember there will have been 13 year of Labour by the next election. The chance of a Labour win is looking to extremely doubtful. The media bias is astonishing though. Where is the coverage of Labour meltdown on the already base vote of 2003! What a cover up!
Lib Dem Voice reporting Lib Dem gains from the Tories in key marginal in Cumbria: http://www.libdemvoice.org/in-tim-farronland-778.html
Good LD results in Taunton too, and Mendip section of Somerton and Frome, which looks good for the GE.
It seems to be that the LDs are slipping up more in areas without MPs, and the organisation and profile they can bring.
Oh look! Some of the key marginal seats, held up for ‘technical reasons’ have been held by Labour! Doesn’t in the least bit suprise me.
Surprisingly good result for Labour in Aberdeen Central
297. Jamie the STV and the list were on seperate ballots.
Labour wiped out in Tonbridge & M - 7 down and LD another 5 down - all to C
267. Portsmouth South a comfortable LD hold too….
297 - Sounds like you had it quite wrong. There were two ballots for two elections: the first ballot with a list vote (X) and a constituency vote (X) for the Parliament, and the second ballot with an STV vote (1-2-3-…) for the Council.
Council wards have three (or four) councillors each, so perhaps that’s where your confusion about the regional seats came from.
Anyone know what happened to Benedict White?
305. That’s probably because Labour have most of the FPTP seats in Scotland: so it’s statistically likely.
305.”Some of the key marginal seats, held up for ‘technical reasons’ have been held by Labour”
It was the SNP who asked to delay Abderdeen Central count when they say Labour ahead and many spoilt papers.
307: Really (I didn’t vote in Scotland)? Put it this way — that was far from clear on the electoral information leaflet… it certainly caused a lot on confusion on the lines of as many as you want on this paper, but numbers, just one cross on that etc…
Very strong for Labour now on Betfair to win most seats in Scots parliament.
Sean T, you could easily argue that the Tories were most likely to lose out because their voters are more likely to be elderly (and confused by new voting methods).
However, I imagine Labour were most likely to lose out- simply because the most marginal seats seem to be labour losses.
311 I know he’s got blisters on his blisters! How are yours?
301 - NE still up in the air. In 1999 the SNP took 7 seats (2 cons 5 list) and the list votes this election far higher than 1999. We have 6 seats at present.
Why are the seats where the counts were ’suspended due to technical difficulties’ showing much smaller swings than all other seats. Something very strange is going on. And why was there no exit poll for the election? Combined with the discounted ballots, something is seriously wrong with the Scottish election.
A system was deliberately created which would be easy to rig - hence independent observers described it as flawed before the election was even conducted. In Leeds we saw Labour’s desperation combined with criminality lead them to rig the postal ballots.
304. So what about Sth Gloucs and Lewes and Romsey where they have lost seats?
LibDem lose 203 seats so far in local elections.
How long does everyone think that Ming Campbell will last has LibDem leader?
These results have to be very shocking to them?
I had assumed that Lab would loose Aberdeen Central to the SNP so updated guesses
High & Islands
Lab 3 more
SNP 2 more
Lothian
Lab 2 more
SNP 2 - 3 more
NE
Lab 2 more
SNP 1 more
West
Lab 0 more
SNP 3 more
Given current Lab 39 SNP 34 total, this gives Lab 46, SNP 43. Given the uncertainties Lab 44 - 46 SNP 43 - 45, so all three results still possible
319.
Will L. You’re closer than you think on that one. That’s why I left the count.
315 StJohn - Yes, I don’t know why but it seems Betfair has now called it for Labour.
Chrisco If you look at the Parliament ballot paper it said in big letters you have two votes with arrows pointing at both sides of different coloured paper. The problem was it then said in much smaller letters ‘one vote only’ on each side but below the advice that voters had two votes. Apparently many people voted twice for both the list and FPTP. There should have been three different ballot papers( including for the local elections); there will be next time.
I think a lot of people on this site will need to eat crow given that its now a certainty that Labour will emerge with both the largest number of seats and a plurality of the vote.
6 Green gains in Brighton and still NOC overall.
I reckon
There is too much turbulence beneath the static % votes to safely make any guess going forward. Tories could get a high % in a GE and be didappointed in the seat gains. Eastleigh should fall, but not on the basis of today’s results
Tory gains at the expense of the LD’s only gain half a point.
Cliche of the day = meltdown.
Ming is a problem - in by-elections they have been doing well. LD’s rely on the leader doing well in a GE. Huhne or Clegg would do well. 3 weeks of Ming hmmm
319. Oh what a load of balls. How is it easy to rig?
Why no declaration is South Wales West yet?
Tories gains South Stropshire, Devon North and Newark
317. Didn’t get blisters, but the sun burn has cleared up quite nicely.
328 - the Tories won’t outsmart Chris Huhne in Eastleigh!
Not official yet but Conservatives have won Newark and Sherwood
The SNP should ask the police to get involved. There is now strong suspicion that something underhand has occurred.
Do others agree that it seems that there’s a McPalmer paradox in operation in key marginals, leading to a reduced Lab>SNP swing?
324. Ptp. Someone just taken my £6 at 20.0 SNP so it looks all over for them. Fortunately I’ve remained green on both outcomes and traded my position up a bit overnight by backing both parties at odds against. Only to modest additional profit given I’ve been putting in overtime on this and working the nightshift!
re 326 I think you’re wrong and the SNP will emerge as winners in both votes and I’m still sticking by my 1 seat victory for them as well.
On the topic - I was one of the 7% who got it right, and I think I said the same thing in the predictions at the beginning of the year (haven’t checked).
Why did 93% of you get it wrong?
1 - you believed Rallings and Thrasher (I learned last year)
2 - you overlooked the fact that Labour started losing huge quantities of seats right from their first term and that
3 lib dems were controlling (or had large groups in a NOC) a significant number of councils that have generally been Tory by a long way. some of them had to switch back - and some of them did by a long way.
The other issue that I have picked up is that we have sometimes got our targetting a bit wrong - being sucked into the myth that Labour could lose anyhere.
I’m not expecting us to have a good set of gains in local polls until 2009 (and those will be odd results).
It all evens up though. In the medium term, seats you win when the going is tough are worth more than the seats you win when the going is easy.
Scottish result is very simple. National vote share (4 seats left):
SNP 33.2%
Lab 32.7%
There are then 2 big distortions to Labour:
1) Too many seats in Glasgow due to 16 year old boundaries
2) Too high ratio of FPTP seats : list seats in Glasgow
The SNP national share lead of 0.5% is nowhere near enough to overcome these 2 pro Labour distortions. Very simple.
No reporting of this on the TV at all. Does anyone have a clue?
326. If this is true - IF - it is certainly a remarkable performance by Labour in Scotland at the very depths of their unpopularity, and given what the polls were showing just two days ago - YouGov with the SNP strongly ahead. What happened? Did the SNP voters get in the booth and think - oo-er, independence, maybe not - was it the thought of five more eyars of Jack McConnel’s rhetoric that brought them back nto the fold?
Or was it the unnverving thought of Wee Eck as Premier, rather than acerbic court jester.
Hats off to the Labour machine, if they do win. They’re still an impressive force when they make an effort, at least in their (dwindling) heartlands.
326. I’m prepared to bet a fair few of them will instead descend into conspiracy theories and wild unfounded, unevidenced allegations.
Oh, wait, They already are.
(mind you, that’s a very confident prediction you make there)
329.
You don’t ‘rig’ it. You simply take the high numbers of ‘unreadable’ ballots in the first scan, which can often be 2000-3000, have them verified manually by adjudicators and ‘filter’ certain ballot papers to reach a required result, if it’s a close vote. I saw papers accepted for Labour with a certain mark, when a similar mark was on an SNP paper it was rejected as void. That’s why I left the count.
335. You think that Labour plan to steal the election since Scotland has been such a tiefdom for them for such a long time?
Latest odds on Lab in Scotland? Those last few Lab holds look pretty crucial - all skin of the teeth stuff!
Gedling Tory Gain!!!! Yes. I’m a happy man!!!
333 Joe. My point exactly. His majority is small, but looks like he will hold on - at current performance.
There are 60 odd LD seats Local factors mean some will hang on, even in a bad year.
= problem for Tories beneath the veneer of victory. Who needs an even bigger majority in Tonbridge
Tories gain Gedlying and Harold
Conservatives gain Gedling as well. A good result in a key target seat for them.
Any news on Broxtowe yet? I wonder if Nick is starting to feel the heat a little?
More bad news for the LibDems in York - the LibDem PPC for York Outer (notional LD seat) has been re-elected, but she now has a Conservative Councillor for company. Conservatives have gained three seats in York all from LibDems (we were wiped out in 2003) with most of the Council still to declare.
SNP gain Edinburgh East in huge swing
SNP gain Edinburgh East
SNP gain Edinburgh East
319. There’s no point in rigging a close FPTP count because there will be a compensatory switch in list seats.
329.
All elections conducted with electronic counts have an automatic hand re-count of 1% of ballots that are randomly selected. This is to verify that the electronic counting is truthful and computers are not being manipulated.
Without such a test, anyone can manipulate computers to deliver any preferred result through programming the counting software to do so. There were warnings before the election that it was riggable for these reasons.
Labour was responsible for choosing this system, violating standard obeyed everywhere else in the modern world. A lot of dodgy things have occurred in Scotland over the last 10 years. this is not the only thing.
351. But the SNP now, er, out to 8.4 on Betfair (first time I’ve ever used the lingo). All over bar the shouting?
13.3% swing from LAB to SNP in Ed East
343. So your allegation is that the returning officers are corruptly favouring Labour, despite the favct that you, and presumably the SNP election agent were there watching them? If that’s the case, why didn’t the SNP agent for the seat challenge these votes?
337 Well done, stjohn!
I was all green too and have spent the last eight hours cranking up my profit by £16 - i.e £2 per hour.
What’s the minimum legal wage rate?
349. Im hearing the Tories have gain which wouldn’t be good news for Mr. Palmer but its uncomfirmed.
Tories now on course to gain 818 council seats.
343. Oh yes, those corrupt Returning Officers for which the British system is so famous…
343 Afleitch, err, I thought the whole point of observing a count was to interject when stuff like that happens, not to go home in a sulk.
Unexpected GAIN SNP gain Argyll & Bute
361. Remember b/c the Tories don’t have seats in inner city Manchester and Liverpool the other gains don’t mean much.
According to Blairs this is a great springboard to winning the next General Election
SNP gain Argyl from LD!!!
354 Mike “There’s no point in rigging a close FPTP count because there will be a compensatory switch in list seats. ”
Depends. In Glasgow and Central Scotland there would be. In Mid Fife etc as noted above the compensatory effect kicks in.
Tories now on course to gain 840 council seats!
jgc totals above are totally wrong on NE result. These will give the SNP 3 extra seats and Labour less. This alone will close the gap between Labour and SNP.
SNP certain now to get at least 44 seats. Labour need 45 to be higher, yet they are a net 6 down. Could this be a tie? How would the betting market settle this?
In the middle of a training session, but I just discovered:
-LDs lost one seat to remain largest party in MK. Sadly it was the one I was campaigning in.
-I was in Norwich with work one day a couple of weeks ago and went canvassing for the evening as there was a request for help from the Lib Dems. We won the seat by ONE vote. A pretty good chance that I persuaded at least one extra person to vote that evening, I’d guess…feels a bit more of a significant evening now than it did at the time.
Neil, third Green seat on Glasgow council (Southside Central ward)
How does Argyl affect SNP chances? They’re at 3.8 on betfair still.
363. I couldn’t locate my agent! It wasn’t my party but regardless the speed at which each ballot flashed up was very fast and bear in minf the scanned application was still in the system. It wasn’t there to physically check.
the Tories don’t have seats in inner city Manchester and Liverpool the other gains don’t mean much”
And those cities represent the whole of the North of England
367. Sorry - agreed. But the delayed counts were in Aberdeen and Edinburgh, both areas where it should make no difference.
6 Conservative gains in York now, 5 from LD and 1 from Ind.
Conservatives gain High Peak from NOC, with at least 12 gains, maybe a couple more once the count is done.
Maybe a new thread would be useful… Refreshing the page is getting difficult
I’m sticking with my 1 seat SNP win
Betfair still pretty certain Labour will win. Yet it seems incredibly tight to me. Do they know something we don’t.
Whatever Labour said before the election, 840+ seats is a magnificent performance by the Tories.Surely they must be nearer 42% than 41% now? This prediction hasn’t changed in many hours, and the Tories have done better as time has gone on. Either way it’s a slightly better “springboard for the next election” than Labour’s.
How could he even let that phrase pass nhis lips? “Springboard for the next election” my Cornish arse. And so Blair departs with a final piece of egregious, dreary and utterly mendacious spin. Fitting, really.
Are the SNP going to get any “bonus seats” due to winning more constituency seats in a region than their share of the list vote would entitle them too?
Ironically despite the ballot rigging there is a possibility the SNP may just edge ahead by a single seat.
I guess Argyll & Bute cancels out Aberdeen Central. Still all to play for?
370 - argh. That result was a bit gutting actually as it meant the Lib Dems just stayed ahead of the Greens as 2nd largest group. Will you stay at home next year? How much would it take to make it worth your while…
BBC: Labour has no councillors in 80 councils!
South Derbyshire - first time ever Cons majority
382. People like you who throw around completely unfounded and unsubstantiated allegations like ‘ballot rigging’ do as much harm to our electoral system as those who engage in vote fraud.
I said there would be a photo-finish election. Just the wrong one. lol
Nth Devon - 12 Tory gains to take control. One of the results of the night. Excellent.
Some good news for the Lib Dems - at the current rate, they will become the single largest organised party on the Highland Council. I don’t see any reason why they won’t pick up a seat in each ward, meaning they’ll have a total of 22 councillors (out of 80 and up from 10 - I think - before the election). The independents will remain the largest grouping and I expect the SNP to be the next largest party. Disappointing results for the Tories so far - I don’t think PR has done us any unlooked-for favours this time round.
New thread- “How should Tony view his last elections?”
387 - Not at all true, there is nothing worse in a democracy that vote rigging, and those who do it are those who’re committing the crime, not those who accuse people (too often it seems now rightly) of having done so.
700 Councillors gained and counting, can’t recall anyone saying we’d do that.
right with the constituencies almost finished ( no rumours of an unlikely lab loss in leith ? ).
Lab 40 ( assumes leith ) SNP 36
remaining regional
Lab 5 - 6 ( H & I, Lothian, NE )
SNP 6 - 7 ( H & I, Lothian, West )
Lab 44 - 46 SNP 42 - 44, cant see anything other than a tie or more likely a lab being the largest party. Sure this will give the conspiraloons much to chew over. This is a poor result for Lab but they have done well considering the dire predictions and premature celebrations from certain quarters. Question now is how can any party get a coalition out of this result cant see a greman style “grand” coalition being on the agenda.
383 Chrisco - Argyll & Bute makes no difference because the LibDems have won half the Highlands & Islands constituencies. Aberdeen Central might have just have been a bonus seat for the SNP though, because they already had six constituencies seats in the North East and the list vote is unlikely to get them a seventh seat (out of 16 altogether in the region).
I helped the LD cause in Mid Dorset and North Poole and in this constituency we achieved 3 gains from the Tories ( all Poole Borough seats) and no losses. The “constituency led” campaign went very well acheiving all its targets comfortably and I offer this as just one example of how well the LDs can do in most places where they have a sitting MP and an effective party organisation.
This also surely shows David Cameron and his “New Conservative Party” they will have great difficulty will in taking these constituencies in the next General Election!
Conservative Gain S Derbyshire, another impressive East Midlands victory to go with with gaining Gedling, Newark and Sherwood Charnwood, North Kesteven, NW Leicestershire as well as making gains in Rushcliffe and Amber Valley despite starting from high watermark positions.
We have also comfortably held Bassetlaw, not natrual Tory terrirtory by any means. Still waitng for Broxtowe and Derbyshire Dales, Erewash and High Peak (Which from what I have heard looks very good), as well as to see if Labour can hold Ashfield where the Tories don’t exist. but Nottingham city aside (where Labour did do very well), it is looking like a huge victory for the Conservatives in the East Midlands, particularly in the key marginals at the next GE.
High Peak sweeping Cons gain - Glossop is definately part of the North
392. Unfounded allegations of vote-rigging stemming from being a sore loser does as much to undermine the public’s faith in the democratic process as the actual crime; perhaps even more, since they never get to hear of the perpetrators being brought to justice.
And let us clarify, aside from the usual fringe webloons absolutely no-one in any way seriously involved in politics in Scotland has even hinted that there may be something untoward going on in Scotland’s democratic process.
Edinburgh N/Leith would need an 8-point-something swing, which by itself isn’t impossible given Edinburgh East had 13 percent. However, the Labour occupant has a bit of old Labour rebelliousness in him, so probably won’t get quite the kicking many of his colleagues are taking.
398 Chrisco, Afleitch’s allegations may have been rather outrageous, but the inbuilt Labour advantage due to the distribution of constituencies is quite clear. Whether that happened by accident or intent is impossible to tell, but certainly nothing was done to fix it.
Afleitch and Will L’s complaints/allegations were not about inherent bias in the system…