So the bookies were right: Boris Johnson is London’s new mayor, having beaten Ken Livingstone (after redistribution of second preferences) 1,168,738 to 1,028,966. God helps us! Brian Paddick deserved to do much better than he did, but it was a classic squeeze situation, in a contest promoted by the media as a two-horse race. [...] 
Newsnight has declared us to be "treading water". The BBC's website offers this astonishing piece of "analysis": The Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg has won himself some breathing space. His campaign strategists did an excellent job in lowering expectations. The mixed bag of some losses, but modest gains, allowed Mr Clegg to declare he had confounded expectations. His party at least seems to
Barnet & Camden GLA victor Brian Coleman has tonight gone somewhat radio rental during his victory speech. The Tory candidate chose to launch a personal attack on Felicia Nicolette Gavron (aka 'Nicky Gavron'), formerly Deputy Mayor to Ken Livingstone. '...her hands are dripping with blood!' bellowed Coleman, in reference to her apparently carrying the Olympic Torch the other week. Mr Coleman added: 'She says I had bling well the King of Bling is back...' Hurrah! '...and proud to represent the people of Barnet and Camden'. As a person of Barnet & Camden, I have no idea what the bloody (boom ...
I didn't get a vote today, though as someone who spends most of her working life there, I do have a bit of an interest in what happens in London. I worry about what will happen to London Transport since that will have an impact on my life, but I worry more about what will happen to those who are marginalised in London. Boris has clearly demonstrated his credentials, racist, classist (is there such a thing?!), homophobic. Apparently at the LGBT hustings he said ....L..G..B..T is it? Yes yes I am all in favour of it! Right, this is the ...
The headline in this morning's Guardian was "Election fraud: Labour failed to act, say MPs". There were confessions that postal voting abuses should have been tackled before, and they are likely to bring in some sort of voter identification. Well, well. I just wish they had listened to me properly 7 years ago - but isn't that just the story of my life! In between looking up on the...
London, AD50 - 2008 News reaches Liberal Rant of the sad demise of the City of London who I am sad to report entered the final stages of her decline at approximately 11.55pm today. The City, which had already been suffering from the debilitating effects of the condition commonly known as the "Red Kens" for the past 8 years has now contracted the much more serious disease "Borisitis". Borisitis or to give it its full name Madious Eton Toffitis causes the sufferer to experience uncontrollable verbal diarrhoea, confusion, offensiveness and in extreme cases bouts of bigotry and "Toryness". The only ...
It's all about blisters really, isn't it? I was chatting earlier to our local master of the campaign trail Dave Hodgson. He had decided that he would have spent less money paying someone to do all the delivery he did in Milton Keynes, than he had ended up spending on blister remedies! At the other end of the scale was my dear son Ravi. Given our passing like ships in the night over the past week, this evening was the first chance I got to chat to him about his trip to help in..........let's not say where, but somewhere where ...
I had intended to blog the results last night, but did not get any further than offering an unrivalled service to Derby Arboretum Ward. Incidentally, we made a total of give gains in Derby and are now the largest party on the council there. But I was driven off to bed by Jeremy Vine and David Dimbleby. Vine's attempts to make the programme interesting were merely embarrassing. Why can't the BBC grasp that the only people who watch results programmes after midnight are political junkies anyway, so they don't want gimmicks. And why oh why do they have to get ...
Emily Maitlis on Newsnight said that the fact that the LDs got 25% of the vote on May 1st, beating Labour into third place, meant that we are 'treading water'. The only word which seems appropriate is cobblers.
My column from today's Liberal Democrat News. Unhealthy food talk On Friday all sensible Conservatives were away working in the local elections and Boris Johnson was busy in London. Which left just the real Tory Party at Westminster. And you can forget all that stuff about letting sunshine win the day and hugging huskies, because nothing has really changed. The first piece of business was a private member's bill, promoted by Labour's Nigel Griffiths, to ban television advertisements for unhealthy food before the 9 p.m. watershed. Griffiths had an impressive range of organisations - Diabetes UK, the British Medical Association, ...
Apparently, the only story about election night is that Labour have gained seats in Liverpool and St Helens. Come on guys, get a grip. It's not as if you've just suffered the biggest electoral drubbing your party's experienced for 40 years now, is it? Or that you've lost the biggest directly elected post in British politics to a complete buffoon? He he he he he.
The first GLA constituency to declare is Bexley and Bromley, which has been comfortably held by the Tories, who fielded the personable black candidate James Cleverly (105,162), to replace Three Jobs Bob Neil. Labour’s Alex Heslop has moved into second place (29,925), with the LibDems’ excellent candidate (and recent Bromley Council by-election winner) Tom Papworth a respectable [...]
"are we live?" @ 9.20pm Tessa Jowell says its highly unlikely Ken will be Mayor by the end of the evening. She sounds and looks wasted/tired. @ 21.44pm Conservatives retain Bexley and Bromley (my old haunt) with over 50% of the vote, theChristophe is shocked at a candidate winning over 50% of the vote in a FPTP election. Interestingly someone at the BBC has fallen asleep, this result has been known for sometime (declared on Iain Dale and London Elects) but nothing reported on the Beeb @ 21.50pm Brian Coleman has retained Bexley and Bromley with again over 50% of ...
According to Iain Dale, Brian Paddick has given his second preference vote to Lindsey German, the Left List candidate who in 2004 stood under the RESPECT banner. I am shocked speechless. Don't get me wrong, I think Paddick has been a very impressive mayoral candidate. He may not have the slickness of a career politician, but his interview performances have improved dramatically over the course of the campaign. His refusal to name a second choice was absolutely spot on. Quite why he's broken his silence now is beyond me. But that's not the real problem. I suppose, now the polls ...
OK, it is becoming a weekly success for Nicol Stephen - star of First Minister's questions - but he was particularly brilliant on Thursday. In challenging the Deputy First Minister Nicola Cheerful over false claims by Alex Salmond that the Government has launched a consultation on the SNP's election promise to scrap student debt, Nicol said, "The First Minister gave a BBC interview last week. He was asked why the Government had dropped its promise to write off student debt. In reply, the First Minister said: "'We've published a consultation document on student debt, which is out for consultation at ... 
Canvassing for the Liberal Democrats in Bermondsey and Bankside yesterday was a relatively comfortable affair. Not in the sense of effort, but more that, unlike the Southwark Council elections in 2006, there was less a sense of a knife-edge struggle for hearts and minds. And happily the party was less inclined to repeat the madness of killing our volunteers with insane quantities of leaflets, so we actually got to talk to more people, rather than block their letter-boxes. One of the main trends I picked up was the surprising number of people from all walks of life, particularly from some ...
Sitting here on a Friday night knitting and watching the snooker (no, erm, really) with yet another mug of PG Tips I've been reflecting on my blog. All this means is that I've probably done an unhealthy amount of blogging...and have been reminding myself of my mostly miserable stats. Is it worth pushing myself in the evenings during the week when I'm not really in the mood for politics or blogging? Perhaps, as in a recent 'don't work harder work smarter' book I read, the time would be better spent focussing upon something that doesn't require such close attention and ...
Well what an interesting night. The Tories won on the night and there will be many Tories who will be very happy today. However it was not all good news for the Conservatives. I suspect there will be some disappointment that the margin of victory was not bigger. Some supporters actual thought that they would [...]
My fellow ward councillor Alistair Dow was re-elected to Birmingham City Council in yesterday's elections. Thank you to everyone who supported him. The full result was: Alistair Dow (Lib Dem) - 1948 David Williams (Labour) - 1274 Andrew Hardie (Cons) - 889 Peter Tinsley (Green) - 319 Trevor Shearer (BNP) - 176 Details of all the Birmingham election results are available on the internet here.
Its funny isn't it, how defeat can often lead to a modicum of humility. I hate to admit it, but I had been lulled into a false sense of security. Michael Portillo, almost rehabilitated. William Hague, quite a cheeky chappy. Even Michael Howard's irritating tones had stopped having quite the same cringe effect on me. And there have been times over the last 11 years when I have surprisingly found myself applauding various Tories as they tore into Labour, over Iraq in particular. That nice Mr Clarke and sharp Mr Rifkind. But today has brought back all those horrid memories ...
Every political commentator, whilst waiting for the results from London to come through, is talking about the national picture, after yesterdays vote . The big question; that everyone seems to be asking is what if the predicted national share of the vote was seen at a general election. Well thanks to the BBC, and their general election seat calculator (from the 2005 general election), as well as the exit poll/research they used last night we can see how many seats each of the three parties would have had if it had been a general election. Last night the national (predicted) ...
Mar 2007 - Gordon knows in less than 4 months he will be Prime Minister - he announces most of next years budget in airy-fairy terms. It seems like good news. Sept 2007 - Will he? Won't he? No, he bottled the election. Things started to go wrong - his 'good news' future budget though is still waiting to impact on the country. Mar 2008 - Darling implements Brown's budget...
I can't say I wasn't warned. BBC Scotland did its usual trick of completely ignoring anything as trivial as elections from south of the border: it had an episode of Old Tricks on for the first hour while the rest of the country was getting coverage of the results. Therefore, for the first hour of the results coverage I was surfing around various political websites, rather than watching the telly. And on them, there was universal condemnation of the way in which the Beeb was presenting the results. Particular scorn was being placed on Jeremy Vine and his use of ...
All the pundits were expecting small Lib Dem losses last night, but it turned out not to be true and a small number of gains will give the party confidence to move forward under Nick Clegg's leadership. But whilst people might think it was a tale of two countries, with Lib Dems seemingly losing out to the Tories and gaining from Labour, the truth was that in the key Lib Dem seats in Tory areas that the Lib Dems have snatched at recent general elections, the Lib Dem performance was actually very good. Take a look at some of the ...
So, it looks like the blogosphere is calling it for Boris. How very depressing! All I can say is that I'm glad I'm not Labour...because not only have they lost the country, it looks like they've lost London. Not just unfortunate but rather careless, wouldn't you say? So, I'm here, at the Sky News studio dropped off a little early by the car and just trying to contemplate what a potential Tory resurgence will feel like, because make no mistake if Boris wins tonight like everybody thinks he will it is far more significant for the Tories than a Livingstone ... 
This time last year I had just done an interview for Three Counties radio, talking about the disgrace of electronic counting. In Bedford we had Mayoral elections. The Borough council, in its wisdom, decided to take part in the trials for electronic counting. It created the most boring count I have ever been at. It also created the longest count we started at 10am and finished sometime...
23:40 Welcome to the final post of this evening. We know the following: Boris is MayorLabour have 6 GLA seatsTories have 8 GLA seatsGLA top-ups are to come but alas I'm not waiting up for them. For a detailed breakdown I still recommend this Grauniad page, which is very good. According to webstats this blog has had over 500 page views today. Somewhat less than the pb.com rate of 200,000 and yet somewhat more than my usual rate of 50-odd. Thus many thanks for reading and posting. It's been an honour. 23:35 FINAL ROUND-UP OF FPTP CONSTITUENCY RESULTS! Bexley and ...
I think you can sense the relief among Lib Dems today. Despite widespread predictions that the party would end up the loser of the night - both among the media and LDV readers - the Lib Dems have ended up with a net gain of both councils and councillors. Not only that, but for only the [...]
Not our elections yesterday, but a satisfactory set of results for the LibDems in England and Wales - Sheffield and Burnley amongst the council gains, and, in the circumstances of Labour throwing in everything including the kitchen sink in Liverpool, a triumph for the LibDem administration to hold on. Clearly an excellent set of results for the Tories and at time of writing (Friday teatime) I can't really see Boris failing to take London (and I still can't understand why anyone would want to vote for him!) A total disaster for Labour - enough said. Actually, there was one result ...
FYI: Overall, I feel the party has turned a corner in this election. The optimism amongst the people I’ve spoken to is much higher than it was 12 months ago. The drop in share of the vote from 2004 has not been replicated by a drop in seats. … It’s been a rough couple of years, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel now. Ultimately that counts for a lot more than bogus BBC statistics. Share This
Can anyone explain to me why the Royal victim of blackmail, and his employee, were given anonymity by the courts? Blackmail trials are fairly rare, so is this normal practice? Or were they given special protection because of the Royal links? I'm all for protecting victims, but I sincerely hope this was not special treatment. Of course, anyone interested has been able to...
Because I'm in one of those moods again where I can only get things done by multi-tasking. This is a list of the top 106 titles tagged as 'unread' on LibraryThing. (I have an account there, but don't use it, so I've actually got the meme from LJ, most recently via {[info]} shewhohashope.) Bold the titles you've read. Italicize the titles you have on your bookshelf but haven't read. Strike-through the ones you put down. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell Anna Karenina Crime and Punishment Catch-22 One Hundred Years of Solitude Wuthering Heights The Silmarillion Life of Pi The Name ...
While you were all off practising your democratic rights yesterday, out here in the REAL world ANARCHY ensued. Well I say ANARCHY, really it was anarchy as the swiss don’t really do violence (which is strange really as they are all armed to the teeth - so it turns out Charlton Heston was right: guns DON’T kill people, idiot americans do) Get the Flash Player to see this player. var s1 = new s1.addParam("allowfullscreen","true"); s1.addParam("allowscriptaccess","always"); s1.addVariable("javascriptid","n1"); s1.addVariable("shownavigation","true"); s1.addVariable("width","320"); s1.addVariable("height","260"); s1.addVariable("screencolor","0x000000"); s1.addVariable("autoscroll","true"); s1.addVariable("displayheight","240"); s1.addVariable("largecontrols","false"); s1.addVariable("overstretch","true"); s1.addVariable("showdigits","true"); s1.addVariable("showdownload","false"); s1.addVariable("showeq","false"); s1.addVariable("showicons","true"); s1.addVariable("showvolume","true"); s1.addVariable("thumbsinplaylist","false"); s1.addVariable("autostart","false"); s1.addVariable("bufferlength","3"); s1.addVariable("repeat","false"); s1.addVariable("rotatetime","5"); s1.addVariable("smoothing","true"); s1.addVariable("volume","80"); s1.addVariable("enablejs","true"); s1.addVariable("linkfromdisplay","false"); s1.addVariable("t","autodetect"); ...
Congratulations to the Conservatives for a great set of results for them, winning in Wales... unbelievable, let's hope they learn the Welsh national anthem this time. David Cameron has said, "This is a very big moment for the Conservative Party - but I don't want anyone to think that we would deserve to win an election on the back of a failing government." I can't help feeling that this is what has happened. Off the back of the whole 10p issue and a general feeling that Labour needs a kicking, some areas which have never been anything but Labour are ...
Well there we have it, Nick Clegg's first test as Lib Dem leader and I think it is fairly safe to say that he passed. The pessimists out there (and I include myself in that category) thought that we would be squeezed by the Tory revival and indeed lose ground to them. Let's take a quick look at the facts: 1) We came second in the national vote with 25% beating Grumpy Gordon's Labour Party. 2) We look set to increase our number of Councillors by up to 40 in a year where all the focus has been on the ...
Apologies for the recent radio silence. The good news is that as of next week I will be spending more time in and around Westminster. Casting my vote in Pimlico yesterday, I found myself surrounded by some extraordinary looking people, activists for the Conservative party. Aside from the incongruity of wearing mud-stained waxed jackets in central London, the Tories were smiling, which I found rather sinister. Clearly an extraordinary night for them, especially if, as seems likely, Boris Johnson has won the Mayoral race in London. While Labour has gone into full meltdown, as guardian.co.uk reports, Nick Clegg has every ...
If you haven't seen it - get to your local cinema for Persepolis, it's fantastic. For a short time in March, the film was banned in Lebanon, by Wafiq Jizzini who obviously has no close ties to Hizbullah, who in turn clearly aren't controlled by Tehran.
I think it’s time I started blogging more regularly again - and now the elections are over, I’ve actually got some time to do it. I’ve had a stressful month, but in the end it was all well worth it. I spent most of yesterday on my bike dodging rain (and even hail at a couple of times) as I was number-running for my ward, so I’m not quite sure how I found the energy to stay up for the count, but I suspect adrenaline played a large part, replaced after a while by a bit of euphoria. Yesterday we ...
Make no mention of my utter uselessness in updating. First off, on a local note, well done to Salford Lib Dems on gaining 2 wards. The targetting of a couple of wards evidently worked a treat (although, in mine, one should note we were beaten by a distance). Nationally, it's a very mediocre picture. We've gained a council, and around 30 councillors so far. Noticeably, more than a third of these new councillors are in Wales, which is a great achievement in taking seats from Labour and Plaid Cymru. I, personally, have no complaints whatsoever at how this has gone. ...
I just had a comment left on my blog about the GLA, suggesting that we are getting slaughtered, down to 3 seats at most. Hope this isn't the case, I had high hopes for Meral.
Pulling Lib Dem News out of its envelope made me marvel at the fact that for once I've actually met someone on the front cover (it's usually the back cover - in the 'people' section), and not one person, but two! Rhiannon Wadeson and Hamish McCallum have been helping out up in the Crewe by-election, where Elizabeth Shenton is the candidate. God, sycophantic I know... However, the letters to the editor page didn't provide a smile, more of a slow grimace that still threatens to turn the milk sour in my huge mug of PG Tips an hour later. Firstly, ...
Commenting on General Petraeus’ comments today on British troop levels in Iraq, Liberal Democrat Shadow Defence Secretary, Nick Harvey said: Gordon Brown last year announced reductions to our presence in Basra which have yet to materialise. The sad truth appears to be that our troops are being used to serve the increasingly desperate political strategies of the White House and Number 10. (more…)
Sounds rather boring, no change. The Liberal Democrats kept Claines (our stronghold) easily, but didn't do as well as hoped in St. Stephens. Labour didn't do badly concidering the national feeling, but were nearly beaten by the tories in one ward. However them managing to hang on is partly due to the Conservative's poor performance on the council (with £1million deficit). Two Independents faced challenges from labour but hung on, had the conservatives put candidates in those wards the independents would have lost to labour, as 200 votes would have been taken away from the independents. Nasty tactics. So rather ...
Slashdot | Adobe Opens the FLV and SWF Formats 'The Open Screen Project is supported by technology leaders, including Adobe- and leading content providers, including BBC, etc - who want to deliver rich Web and video experiences' Lemme here a Woo. And a Hoo (tags: flash videos adobe Open+Standards) Richard Bartle: Gamers have won the battle against the censors | Technology | guardian.co.uk I'm talking to you, you self-righteous politicians and newspaper columnists, you relics who beat on computer games: you've already lost. Enjoy your carping while you can, because tomorrow you're gone. (tags: internet media politics games) Women have ...
I'm back on Sky.com News tonight with two different bloggers this time: Shane Greer and Jag Singh. We're going to be covering the local election results and the producers are hoping that the Mayor and London Assembly election results are going to be annouced whilst we're on air. As I have one of the world's most expressive faces ever it will be really easy to tell what I think before I get close to opening my mouth: relief, joy or absolute horror! I've been trying to pull myself together from a feeling of impending doom for London and write a ...
Congratulations to Dominic McCavish, now the first Liberal Democrat elected to Barrow-in-Furness Borough Council. Liberal Democrat team in Crewe seems hopeful that there will be one or more Liberal Democrat gains from Labour in the elections in the Crewe & Nantwich constituency. Update: confirmed. A cheery half-wave to the BBC: gosh, your round-up on News 24 has [...]
Benedict Brogan reports that the new Labour General Secretary has quit and won’t be taking up the job after all.
Labour have gone into meltdown in Northumberland. Results have just come through and we have gone from third to first place. We are short of a majority, on 26 seats. Labour, previously with a comfortable majority, have collapsed to 17, the same as the Conservatives. So on the big, new authorities, the Lib Dems have done well. In the North East.---Sent via BlackBerry
In any set of local election results, the councils gained and lost are always the ones which make the most headlines. That means that the efforts of those in councils which have been held for some time can get overlooked, so to redress the balance, my congratulations to the Lib Dems in Three Rivers, Watford, Stockport, Cambridge and Eastleigh, who have all managed to maintain Lib Dem-run councils for lengthy periods of time. You are an inspiration for many of us in the party.
Well - after all the gloomy predictions, Liberal Democrats achieved 25% of the vote across the country, beating Labour into third place. This is almost exactly the same as four years ago, when anger over Iraq sent many voters in our direction. Having found the Lib Dems they seem to like us and have stayed with us. To sum up, as I write Lib Dems have achieved an overall increase of 19...
If you haven't heard I've won in Redlands with 927 votes, and a majority 131 votes. Thank you ever so much for your support - I'm looking forwards to joining a great team on the council and in Redlands. Poor weather and university exam period led to a turn out of ~33 % (If I remember correctly). In other news: Warren Swaine beat the leader of the council, David Sutton, by ~30 votes! Labour called a recount, but the winner was clear. Result!!! In Park, Labour held their seat and the Greens came second. Our man, Neal Brown, had worked ...
Durham County at the moment tops our success story list. We have gone from 4 to 27 councillors. Part of the increase can be explained by the doubling of the size of the council, so in theory the baseline was 8. Not a bad rise. No one ever thought Labour would lose control, but they came very close. A handful of byelections over the coming years could finish Labour control.Lib Dem controlled
Lib Dems last night gained from the Tories four of the 20 council seats being contested in Colchester, ending Tory control. In Shrub End, Nigel Offen snatched victory by just 11 votes after two nail-biting recounts. In Mile End ward no recount was necessary - Martin Goss's margin of victory was astounding, as he received 1500 votes, nearly twice as many as the Tory, from which we can deduce they didn't like his performance as regeneration supremo. The Tory planning portfolio holder was defeated in Stanway ward. The fourth gain was Wivenhoe Cross. In Berechurch only 53 votes separated Lib ...
An amazing result in the Highgate by-election. The Green candidate won convincingly with 1482 votes. Labour came second with 1185. The Tories went from first to third (on 1180 votes) so no Boris effect there. And the Lib Dems, who were in fourth, went up the most in percentage terms. All in all a complete disaster for the Tories. Much food for thought.
The last vow taken by baptism and confirmation candidates in the C of E is currently to "acknowledge Christ's authority over human society by praying for the world and its leaders, by defending the weak, and by seeking peace and justice". The equivalent in the Episcopal Church of the USA is to "strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being". I like the US version better, and not only because it seems to have had a real impact on TEC's stance on homosexuality, although that certainly predisposes me to think well of ...
My prediction earlier this week was right in one respect. Labour has not lost 200 seats: it looks like it's going to do even worse than that. Let's be clear about this. This is a complete meltdown in their support and I have to confess that I under-estimated the extent to which Labour voters were angry with the government. For a governing party to get as little as 24% of the vote in a set of local elections is an utter humiliation, one which not even John Major's government experienced (his lowest was 26%). Indeed, when Harriet Harman appeared on ...
26) Kecia Ali, Sexual Ethics and Islam: Feminist Reflections on Qur'an, Hadith, and Jurisprudence (Oxford: Oneworld 2006, ISBN 1851684565). Ali points out various sexist features of classical Islamic jurisprudence and argues that it is possible to rethink Islamic ethics to accommodate gender justice, but that it is structurally impossible to do so within the classical tradition of jurisprudence and that therefore a more radical reform is required. To me as a beginner in this field, though, the methodology she proposes of "seek[ing] out and privileg[ing] those elements in the tradition" that "see women as fully sexual in a way that ...
Brown said it was "clear to him" that last nights results were "disappointing" - quite an understatement. Note his language talking about Livingstone. He said that he thanked him last night for his campaign and for what he has done for London - using the past tense. Not exactly breaking news but when spin breaks down for Labour you know they're losing it. One positive thing: before long we'll get Ken's entertaining commentary from exile on the government.
12.01 All results are in. Labour have lost control but the Conservatives have failed to gain control. My calculations are: 3 Tory gains from Labour, 2 LibDem gains from Labour, one Con gain from LD, leaving the seats as: Labour 20 Conservatives 18 LibDems 8 11:44 LibDem Warren Swaine wins Katesgrove ward, unseating Labour council Council Leader since 1995, David Sutton, said to be one of the
News that Labour have lost another four councillors in the last two hours made me think about life after a failed election. How must it feel to lose your seat? Assuming, perhaps incorrectly, that most councillors who lose their seats have done so through no fault of their own, i.e. not through neglect of their constituents or lack of hard work but purely through a stronger candidate running alongside them, the feeling must be one of utter rejection and depression. To be sacked by one person when in a paid job is an entirely different kettle of fish to being ...
The news that previous PPC for Crewe and Nantwich, Marc Godwin has quit the party after having failed to be shortlisted for the by election raises another thorny issue for the party in terms of candidates. Clearly, Elizabeth Shenton is an excellent and formidable candidate. And of course it is not unusual for sitting PPC's to be ousted in the event of a byelection, that after all is how Simon Hughes became the candidate in Bermondsey. But, the process should be seen to be transparent and fair shouldn't it? When I was selected for Luton North there was no caveat ...
Israel styles itself “the only democracy in the Middle East” and it has multi-party elections, an independent judiciary, and a constitution. But it is somewhat disturbing that Israeli authorities have prohibited Christians who wish to pray at the site of the Temple from wearing a visible cross. This is an offensive restriction on people’s right to freely [...]
And boy did I get a swift one in the happy sac: Ouch. Don’t pull your punches will you Borehamwood. The lesson for the Lib Dems in Hertsmere? This is a Tory Borough, and it will take a lot of hard work and patience to change that. However, bloody fantastic results across the country for the [...]
Well - the BBC TV coverage of the local election results has come in for a lot of flack, particulary for the Jeremy Vince / American Wild West shootout stuff. Of course the bit I appeared in was perfect! But overall - did the coverage give the depth of information you were interested in? Was it a successful attempt to make election results interesting? Or an awful trivialisation? Vote in my poll and have your say - and of course comments welcome too. (One vote per IP address)
Elections took place for the new Northumberland Unitary council, to replace the dual structure. Labour should "notionally" win it but of course are in meltdown most places. If you are bored and like watching maps update Northumberland Council has a live update on their website. So far the Lib Dems have gained two seats from Labour. http://www.northumberlandcouncil.gov.uk/default.asp EDIT: Well done to Northumberland Lib Dems on winning the new Unitary council!
Later today we will hear how Mr. P has done in his battle with Messrs L and J. No doubt this will be followed by some picking over the bones of what we could or couldn't have done better. I trust that my elders and betters will learn some lessons. My initial thoughts are as follows........firstly, can we please start thinking about a candidate for next time now, instead of scrabbling around at the last minute? We do it in target parliamentary seats, why not London? With a prospective candidate in post, a London Spokesperson could spend the next term ...
I wasn't at this gig. I've never seen Johnny Vegas perform live. I hope that the girl involved in this was a plant, or was otherwise briefed prior to the eventI'm slightly concerned about misrepresenting what happened if you didn't see it with your own eyes. I can't give you the complete context without recounting the whole set, and that would take forever and I'd probably get it wrong anyway. With that in mind, I'll try to explain what happened, but please take what I say with a pinch of salt and bear in mind that it's my intepretation. Anyway, ...
Soooooooooooooooo - not bad at all! That's my verdict on how we did in the local elections in England and Wales based on the results in so far. We gained seats off Tories and Labour and won seats right across the country. Gaining St Albans against Tories and Hull against Labour was a good message of how we are the only national party. However - losing Pendle wasn't great. Shame to have missed taking Oldham, Warrington and Cheltenham by just one seat in each of them - but that's the name of the game. Seeing Labour's disastrous result - pushed ...
Last night’s results were a triumph for local Lib Dems in Prestwich, and my thanks goes to everyone in the ward who helped and supported us through a long and tiring campaign. Congratulations to the newest Lib Dem Councillor in Bury - Mary D’Albert, who joins Donal O’Hanlon on the St Mary’s team. Re-election for Vic D’Albert in Holyrood and Ann Garner in Sedgley means that we now have all 9 Councillors in Prestwich, the culmination of work that started in Holyrood 22 years ago when we had no Councillors and not much else either! I am very tired this ...
An immature diagram from Guido Fawkes? Surely not!
LDmLabConBNPGrnOthLDm %Lab %Con %BNP %Grn %Oth
My feet are still on voicemail after yesterday's 22 hour day. Every election day has its little highs that keep us going. Like reassuring a Turkish family who wanted to vote for Meral but couldn't find their poll cards that they could still vote, and seeing them leave for the polling station five minutes later; or [...]
The BBC has announced that we got 25% of the vote nationally against 24% for Labour. That is the best news so far.
The BBC's Nick Robinson reports that the first ballot boxes have been opened for the London Mayoral count and the strong feeling is that Boris has won. (Can't find this on the web, but I heard it via the circuitous route of Henry Kelly on BBC Radio Berkshire, who heard it from his wife). Mind you, it depends where the boxes are from, of course.
Despite my best attempts to stay awake, I confess I dropped off about 3am so all my plans to continue blogging failed miserably. So, what about last night? Should we be dancing in the streets or crawling under the covers? Well, it was clearly going to be a Lib Dem squeeze night. People are fed up with Labour and given our unfair voting system, the clearest way to send a message was voting Tory. I for one was surprised at the number of soft Tories I encountered this time, many who had always voted Tory but now weren't so sure. ...
Liberal Democrats now hold all 9 council seats in Prestwich! Here’s our new team of Councillors in St Mary’s Ward - Donal O’Hanlon, Mary D’Albert and Richard Baum…… Labour MP Ivan Lewis sneaks past behind. {St Mary's Team} Lib Dem Councillors elected last night Mary D’Albert, Vic D’Albert and Ann Garner with some of their group colleagues Steve Wright, Wilf Davison and Donal O’Hanlon. {New Lib Dem Councillors}
Wrexham: Liberal Democrats become largest party. Reading: Liberal Democrats defeated Labour council leader - congratulations to Warren Swaine. Liberal Democrats making gains in Swansea: up three seats. Party looks set to be running more councils after these elections than before - gaining Burnley, Sheffield, Hull and St Albans, whilst losing Pendly and West Lindsey. London Mayor election turnout: BBC [...]
Labour MP Martin Salter has said on BBC Radio Berkshire this morning that Labour will lose control of Reading Borough Council when the votes are counted this morning. This would be the end of 22 years of Labour control of the council. All eyes will be on Katesgrove ward, one of the first to be counted, where Council Leader David Sutton, is defending his seat. Sutton has been leader of the
It's official. The papers have been counted and verified by harassed council staff. My professional and political opinion has been formulated and constructed overnight...Labour have been screwed! They've lost 6 councils and 162 councillors. All is needed now is a Boris win and Brown won't be seen for dust in the General Election either next year or in 2010. Even Harriet, cut and bruised from a recent hacking attack, concedes the results are 'very disappointing indeed'. Elections expert John Curtice, of Strathclyde University, said: "It looks quite possible that by the time all the results are declared some time on ...
Firstly let me apologice to Bjørge Lillelien but. Lord Wilson, Lord Callaghan, Sir Ian McKellan, Keir Hardie, Clement Attlee, Liam Galagher, Baroness Jay, you have beaten yourselves, you have beaten yourselves. Gordon Brown, can you hear that? Gordon Brown your boys [and girls] took a hell of a beating. No while one team has it's worse showing ion 40 years another has had a good one. For the
If truth be told I really am too tired to blog and should instead be tidying up the Committee Room, cutting the grass, doing the shopping and all the other little jobs that have been neglected for the past eight weeks. Nevertheless, I did want to make an early comment on the outstanding results in my region of South Wales West. Firstly, it is difficult to know what happened in Bridgend. Their website is devoid of information and all I have is rumours and unsubstantiated press reports. I know we lost Coity to an independent, which came as a shock, ...
Waking up this morning to some of the local election results as Monica heads to the GLA count at Alexandra Palace, there's no time for me to think through all the implications properly - although if we have overtaken Labour in national share of the vote, as being forecast, then that would be pretty impressive. The fun thing about local elections is that there are always good and bad results for each party if you dig down. We have taken control of some councils like St.Alban's and Kingston-upon-Hull, but lost others - although in councils we have controlled for some ...
My daily digest of texts, tweets and status updates.14:51 is eating a rather full plate of food. Trying Sosmix for the first time, rather impressive, reminiscent of old Soya McCartney pre GM scare # 23:43 why is Vine trying to be Snow? You're not Snow, be someone else, you're just looking crap. Oh, wait... # 23:57 cringing at the horrible cartoon pic of Alix. Ow. # 23:58 Wow, Luke really is annoying. I thought it was just malicious rumour. # 00:12 Why is Boy George taking so long to state the obivous? Yes, we know you need to take councils ...
As I head off to bed after a long polling day I thought I would reflect on the day. It was lovely start to the day. After spending the first part of the day in South West Herts, the urgent call I knew would come came, and off I went to help us gain the third Lib Dem controlled authority in Hertfordshire! Such a lovely success. It is a credit to St Albans Lib Dems that we now have full...
What to conclude from tonight's results? Well, here's a summary. As I type, the BBC are reporting we are: Councils: 6 (-1) Councillors: 1053 (+8) They project our national share of the vote to be 25%, 1% more than Labour's. But, we must acknowledge, the last time we fought these seats we were at 29%. So where have those people gone? Well, as the Big British Castle has been reminding us all
So Dimbleby has disappeared from my screen (meh), as have Vine (hurrah!) and Alix (bah!). Things I have learned tonight: 1. I contributed today to the re-election of Sian Reid by quite some margin. So hooray. Not that I'm surprised - the only other party who bothered to deliver leaflets to me and my friends were the Tories. The best claim "In Touch" could make for representing students was "
Well…. my predictions, it turns out, were hopelessly optimistic…. The Conservatives won Bridge, Fant and Coxheath, although they did lose Barming. Maidstone, for the first time since 1983 is no longer a hung council. The sad thing is, I just can’t put my finger on why…. I feel that Fant ward was won by the Tories purely because the vote was split between Labour, Lib Dem & Green. The Tories only got elected ‘through the middle’. However, Bridge and Coxheath…. WHY? National swing? Inaccurate and misleading Tory literature? Not enough work by the Lib Dems? I don’t know is the ...
Here’s some of the benchmarks the media set for the Liberal Democrats: Financial Times: any gains would be “good performance” Daily Telegraph: loses of less than 50 would make for a “good night” Daily Mail: loses of less than 50 would make for a “good day” … whilst the average prediction from readers of this site was for 34 loses. And the results? [...]
No council seats changed hands in Southport in the local elections on 1st May 2008, with all seven wards re-electing their sitting councillors. The Liberal Democrats won four seats to three for the Conservatives. Overall, Southport continues to have fourteen Lib Dem councillors to seven Conservatives, with no other parties having representation. The Liberal Democrats will continue to have control of the Southport Area Committee.
Er, it’s not exactly good is it? Having a graph that has 25% lower than 23% isn’t the most helpful of graphs. I’m not sure that “American” accent was a great idea either. But really … compared with the results available from numerous places on the internet, was the BBC coverage up to the standards [...]
Although there were some strong BNP results early in the evening, as the results have settled down it’s looking like a mediocre result for them with the BBC reporting that their vote overall is unchanged on last year. Liberal Democrats defeat Labour leader in Cardiff. BBC consistently reporting small net gain in seats for the Liberal Democrats [...]
Just a late night/early morning note on yesterday's election result. Here in Oliver's Battery & Badger Farm the votes were: Liberal Democrat (David Spender) 1251 Conservative 497 Green 59 Labour 34 This result has left me completely stunned. Last time we had an election here, in 2006, the result was a Lib Dem victory by just 8 votes. I feel immensely grateful to my friends and neighbours who
Here’s the party’s news release: Liberal Democrats retain control of Liverpool An Independent Labour councillor has joined the Liberal Democrats, tonight, meaning the party has retained its control of Liverpool city Council. The move means that the Liberal Democrats have 46 of the 90 seats in Liverpool. Nadia Stewart decided it was in the city's interest to [...]
I haven’t bothered taking note of the overall totals, but the election results for Salford are now in. We acheived our targets, the Tories lost out on a couple of theirs and Labour had a terrible night. We gained Swinton South on a very strong result. Ex Councillor Burgoyne and Barbara Keeley MP were very ungracious [...]
With 2 of the 3 Lincolnshire councils, to hold elections this year, reporting results it has been a night for the Conservatives, and unfortunately a bad night for the Liberal Democrats. Here in Lincoln the Conservatives have gained a seat from Labour to take their majority to 3. The council make up is now 18 (Conservative) 14 (Labour) and 1 (Liberal Democrat) - please note that the BBC have got it wrong on their website, and the way that I know this is that I was at the count and saw Helen Heath re-elected by a greater margin than she ...
Well, maybe not quite either, but it does seem it is going to be a mixed night for us. Given that this is the first year in living memory (well my living memory since I came to Bedford 17 years ago!) that we haven't had an election here, it has been interesting for me to have the luxury of getting out into the region. One thing I have learned is that you don't get flogged quite so hard in other areas as wot u do in Bedford! Our taskmasters have us up at 5am with not so much as a ...
I’m on the night shift tonight - got to file an article for Comment is Free at 7am. The big picture is still unclear at the mo so I thought I’d offer my words of wisdom about the London election. I’ve spent the past month tracking mentions of Boris, Ken and Paddick on Twitter. What I witnessed, particularly today, was about 80% of twitterers mentioning Boris expressing utter disbelief at the prospect of Three Jobs Boz getting the Mayoralty, 5% were petulant remarks from True Blues accusing anyone who fails to immediately see how wonderful he is as being “class ...
Watching the BBC's coverage of the election results, it is hard to put into words how unutterably appalling Jeremy Vine's attempts to upstage the delightfully eccentric Peter Snow are. The tumbling stone/ice Tory leaders, who arose as developing human species was bad but the Lib Dem leader gunslingers was quite simply unintelligible. What the [expletive] is the BBC up to with my licence fee? They just don't get it, do they? Peter Snow was a one off and should not be imitated. Hats off to Alix Mortimer for providing the best up to the minute info so far. As to ...
The Arboretum ward, no less. Derby, incidentally, is run by a Lab/Con coalition. And there is more on Derby Arboretum here.
I am just back from Southend - with a dilemma. I can listen to the radio and blog. I can listen to the radio and watch the telly. I can't watch the telly and blog. What am I to do???? More by luck than judgement I just caught the bloggers spot and thought Alix was a star, certainly a rose between two thorns.......but, short of carting up the telly from downstairs I am stuffed. Any ideas?
{km} The latest state-of-the-art children’s playground - the biggest of its kind in High Wycombe - was opened at the end of April, at Kingsmead Recreation Ground. The £167,000 play area includes fantastic equipment for children from toddlers to teens, and the seaside theme for younger children was developed after consultation with local families. The new play area, off Fennels Road, replaces an older playground. Wycombe District Council’s Play Strategy last year identified the eastern side of the town most in need of improved play facilities, and WDC’s Play Partnership agreed. It has been funded by a £127,109 grant from ... | < | May 2008 | > | ||||
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