Last Thursday's election results were a disaster for the Liberal Democrats. But they were no isolated event. They come on top of almost equally disasterous results (particularly in the big cities) over the previous four years. In fact the party's losing streak began as soon as Clegg took over the leadership and before the party joined a coalition government in 2010. The scale of that disaster is huge - no councillors in Manchester, Southampton, Islington, Lambeth or Lewisham (where just a few years ago we either ran the council or had high hopes of doing so), replaced as the official ...
It's been another not particularly great day to be a Liberal Democrat, with one of our Parliamentarians acting in the manner of a kamikaze pilot aimed at the ammunition store of an aircraft carrier, and more unhelpful, if well-meaning, interventions from people who might be better advised to confirm that their journey is really necessary before setting off. But, for good or ill, in a democratic, loosely controlled, political party, these things are going to happen - it is our strength and, simultaneously, our weakness. We're not control freaks (well, most of us aren't) and we tend to believe in ...
In January I posted the video Country Town, which looked at Boston during the Second World War. I have since found a whole website devoted to the website devoted to the history of this Lincolnshire town: Old Boston - I have borrowed the image here from it. It specialises in the quirky and ephemeral aspects of local history, and I particularly like its picture of Freiston Shore - "the poor man's Skeggy": There was no sandy beach there, Punch and Judy or amusements of any kind, all it consisted of was marshland, muddy creeks to bathe in, borstal boys and ...
...have women secured more first preferences than men in the European seat. Despite only have 4 of the 10 candidates women broke through a certain glass ceiling in last week's European election in Northern Ireland for the first time they secured more first preference votes than the men. In 1979 there was only one female candidate Bernadette McAliskey who was standing as an independent republican. Her 33,969 (5.94%) was enough to see her survive the first three stages before she was eliminated, there were twelve men against her in those first elections. Five years later in 1984 men took 100% ...
[IMG: Duwayne Brooks, Caroline Pidgeon and the Lib Dem team] The north London wipeout in the local elections meant that the Camden team were decimated. Only one councillor remained in the borough. Maajid Nawaz, their PPC sent them an email in which he grieved with them and looked forward to better days, immediately taking tangible action to motivate them again. Here are some highlights: When I was first selected as your candidate, I had little clue how our local party machinery works. I had little appreciation for why you took such pride in your achievements and little understanding for what ...
David Howarth, who was MP for Cambridge between 2005 and 2010 before giving up his parliamentary career to return to academia, is the party's most impressive intellectual. His introduction to Reinventing the State comes nearer than anything I have read to express a coherent Lib Dem philosophy. You can find it on the Social Liberal Forum website under the title "What is Social Liberalism?" and it is well worth reading. But what I want to blog about here is something David had written today on Liberal Democrat Voice: What does the evidence tell us about our strategy should be? The ...
Earlier today, I met with senior Royal Bank officials as part of the campaign to prevent closure of the Perth Road Branch of the bank. Over 370 local people have already signed my petition that allows residents to oppose the closure and calls on Royal Bank of Scotland to keep the branch open and I handed the petition to the Royal Bank representatives at the meeting. What was very clear from the meeting is that the bank has decided to close the branch for commercial reasons and I reiterated my request to see usage statistics for the Perth Road branch ...
[IMG: Nick Clegg Q&A 8] (#QTWTAIN = Question To Which The Answer Is No, an abbreviation made famous by the Independent's John Rentoul) I decided weeks ago that, come what may, LibDemVoice needed to carry out a survey of party members immediately after the local and European election results were declared asking what people thought about Nick Clegg's leadership. I reckoned the election results wouldn't be pretty and that there was a good chance the result of our members' survey could be deeply unhelpful to the leadership. But I thought it important members were given a say sooner rather than ...
Wed 28th
20:50
Why I am one of the 39% of Lib Dem members who thinks Nick Clegg should stand down as leader
Yesterday LibDemVoice reported a survey we conducted of 992 party members on Nick Clegg's future as party leader. I was one of the 39% who chose the option that Nick should stand down now. Let me explain why... I have enormous respect for Nick and like him personally. I am sure he's entirely honourable in wanting to stay on as leader to contest the 2015 general election. If, as seems likely, he chooses to stay I will support him and the party. However, I think he's going to find it tough to turn things round. The media, mostly unfairly, has ...
The strategy was simple. UKIP have always performed better in the European elections with a very clear message - the party of OUT. Yet polling shows that if you had a referendum, more people would be voters of 'IN'. With the Lib Dems not performing well in the opinion polls, we would simply sell ourselves as the party of 'IN' and just as supporters of other parties migrate to UKIP during the
#90734059 / gettyimages.com Polling day in Newark is 5 June. If you want to travel there to help the Lib Dem candidate David Watts, you have a problem. There is no Liberal Democrat HQ to report to. I have asked the East Midlands party, and the best thing to do is to email Marilyn Rayner and tell her you are coming. I am sure you will be found plenty to do. The party is planning an action day on Saturday 31 May, with a stall in Newark marketplace. Full details are on the East Midlands Lib Dems website, and that ...
...have the pick three not dominated in European quota collection. Many have passed comment on the length of time this European election has taken. But unlike in previous elections no candidate or pair of candidates has dominated enough in first preferences to make the transfer of their surplus more or less decide the election. In 1979 Ian Paisley was elected on first preferences of 1.19 quotas, John Hume was second on 0.98 quotas and was swiftly elected with the exclusion of the various independent and smaller nationalist/republican votes in the third stage. The UUP actually had 0.87 of a quota ...
So I'm still at the point where I'm counting hours, rather than days*. I don't want to jinx it, but so far it has been easier than I expected. It turns out that all I needed was someone to offer me a bet that I really didn't want to lose**. But there are a few weak points. I have a list of things I am currently finding it difficult to deal with:Work. Once an hour, at work, I used to get to walk away from my desk and let all the stress melt away. I haven't been able to do ...
Blog Categories: Political Theory Vote: 0 votes + Vote up! - Vote down! Whilst this was never intended to be a post-mortem on the European and local elections, the decline in vote share of liberal parties across Europe seems to emphasise the need for liberals to do something different. The UK Labour party keeps popping up with what seem like populist, on the hoof, policy announcements about the "cost of living" but so far it has not been apparent that they understand the reasons behind the worst of the problem, let alone found solutions that will do anything other than ...
The Council has received a planning application for the Islamic Centre at 40 Foxland Road, Gatley to extend the opening hours for prayer to 24 hours a day, this being for a one year temporary period. A number of local residents have expressed concern about the potential for noise, traffic and parking issues overnight if this change is made. We think it needs to be properly discussed in public so I've called in the application to appear at Cheadle Area Committee (probably in July). You can see the application, and have your say, here.
Following concerns raised by residents, and a consultation from the Council, the Lib Dems are pushing ahead with changes to the junction of Bulkeley Road and Stockport Road in Cheadle to allow vehicles to exit from Bulkeley more safely. The plans will improve visibility for cars turning onto Stockport Road and include "SLOW" markings on Stockport Road too.
Today I helped start work on the new bridge that will unlock the bend in the River Avon earmarked for Bristol's new arena. As Communities Minister I also announced £6million for further works and site acquisitions in the Bristol Temple Quarter Enterprise Zone. Many blokes think it would be fun to drive a bulldozer or [...]
[IMG: Welwyn Garden City - pink fountain - some rights reserved by John Barnabas Leith] Watching the election coverage last week was painfully gut wrenching. My only involvement had been to cast my vote, as I have done all my adult life for the Lib Dems. I can only imagine the hurt and despair of those of you who have been eating and sleeping that campaign, put body and soul into them and been confronted with those results. I wasn't always a lurker, I was an active member as a student at Birmingham University in the 1980s, a member of ...
When I first saw the email from Libdems4change last Saturday morning I was not really surprised. Every Lib Dem knew that the combined local and European elections 2014 would be a challenge. Many Councils had not seen elections since 2010 and we have gone through the toughest economic challenges in a lifetime. Many Labour facing [...]
I joined the Lib Dems at the age of 10, I am now 14, and never have I questioned my belief in the party until now. In these four years I have seen the party go from having no chance of being in power, to being in Government and reverting back to having no chance again. Being the youngest party member (I haven't been challenged on this so far) I feel that some balanced analysis is called for because I want to grow up in a party that governs for the sake of the people. I don't think i am ...
[IMG: web snoopers charter] At the core of the problems we've faced over the last few days is the daunting realisation that something has to change. But in the ensuing skirmish over what to change, it has become apparent that it is not the leadership. The #libdems4change movement has not provided a political coup in the party. But it has provided a mental one, a revolution of hearts and minds. Not towards a new way of thinking, but towards a new vigour in pursuing our cause. In many ways, it had to happen. I started this week supporting LibDem4Change, I ...
In response to criticism from Matthew Oakeshott*, Kirsty Williams, leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats, has told BBC-Wales: "Nick has had the courage of his convictions during this election campaign to make a positive case for what the Liberal Democrats and the Welsh Liberal Democrats believe in. "I cannot be any clearer. "I think Nick Clegg is the right person to lead this party into the general election and what we need to do now is re-double our efforts and explain to the people of this country why we took the decision to be in coalition government and what the ...
[IMG: Phoenix] No-one can deny that this has been a horrible week electorally for the Liberal Democrats. It might also be argued that to join the Liberal Democrats at this time is akin to landing on the Titanic prior to it hitting the iceberg. At least that is what has been said to me but to no avail. A few weeks ago I resigned my membership of the Labour party and joined the Liberal Democrats. Whilst the events of the last few days have saddened me and caused me considerable angst, not for one moment have I had second thoughts ...
[IMG: Screen Shot 2014-03-09 at 08.06.08 Liberal Democrats Libby] I was misquoted on BBC radio 4 on Monday. They said I had asked for Nick Clegg's resignation. Would that it were as simple as asking for a leader to resign-as if that would change everything. But it isn't. And I don't feel in any way that I am being evasive or woolly by not asking for a change of leadership. What I am asking for is a root and branch review of our campaign strategy. Let's examine the facts. We have just suffered a disastrous set of results in the ...
A lot has been said (and written) about why UKIP performed so well, and the Lib Dems so disastrously, last week. Much of the Lib Dem analysis has focused on the curse of coalition, the thorny issue of Europe/migration (where the voters are merely misguided/stupid/plain wrong) and, more latterly, on playing the blame game -it wasn't the message it was the messenger. Sorry – it is none of the above. It is the simple fact that people don't know what the Lib Dems are about ...and don't care about the things the party seems to care about, or simply disagree ...
Labour recently released a contract of what they will do in power immediately once they are in power, words taken directly from their statement, and my responses: Freeze gas and electricity bills until 2017 and reform the energy market I do like the irony of the former Energy Secretary leading with this, as if his three years in the post weren't sufficient for reform... Obviously energy bills need to come down - or at least stop increasing so rapidly. The irresponsibleness of this though is the prospect of frozen bills for 20 months will lead to companies increasing their price ...
[IMG: evidence of organized light] As a party committed to evidence-based policy, we should be asking what the evidence tells us about the questions of strategy and leadership we now face. The discussion is currently impressionistic and getting fixated on the past. We need instead to stick to the evidence and to what it suggests we should do in the future. There are many examples one could give about the leadership issue, but here is one about strategy. Nick Clegg has explained the party's strategy like this: " We said in 2010 we were going to do something exceptional which ...
I left once, due to a local party issue. I need a political home. Is it better to be inside pissing in and out, than outside pissing in?
Last year the Economy and Environment Scrutiny panel of Calderdale Council examined the ongoing flood recovery operations of Calderdale Council. One clear recommendation to come out of that work was that the Council's progress at delivering flood recovery, and resilience against future flooding should be published on a publicly focused web page. Minute F22/16 of the 8th August 2013 Scrutiny Meeting Meeting(b) the Flood Resilience Strategic Partnership Manager, in consultation with the Director, Economy and Environment and the Cabinet Member for Economy and Environment and in liaison with the Council's Marketing and Corporate Communications and Web Teams, be requested to ...
I wasn't going to blog about the whole leadership thing, because what good would it do? I am desperately, desperately sad that the party's response to our disastrous showing in the recent elections has been to turn inwards and fight each other, but it's not like I can't recognise the symptoms of self-harm, and I realise that trying to tell a self-harmer to stop doesn't make a lick of difference if you can't do something to stop the pain that self-harm is a response to. So why did I decide to blog about it after all? Because Matthew Oakeshott has ...
[IMG: Autumn 2012 conference - Some rights reserved by Liberal Democrats] Last week's local and European elections were truly awful. Those of us who joined the Liberal Party back in the dark days of the 1970s remember the many false dawns and disappointments that followed local and General Elections. We built our base bite by bite from the bottom up and fighting Labour it was tooth and nail. The loss of all our Councillors in Manchester or seeing Liverpool reduced to just three Councillors or in my own Rochdale where we have gone from 33 to 1 in four years ...
[IMG: Mid-air Dusty] One of our candidates, telling last Thursday, was told by his Green party counterpart that this particular ward, Clissold, was the Green Party's one target in the whole of London. They had volunteers coming to Hackney from places as far flung as Orpington and Grimsby. So, how did they do? Well, they didn't beat Labour, but they pushed us into third place. Clearly where they work, they win. Well, come second, anyway. Only here's the thing. Apart from the one ward, Cazenove, in which we kept all our councillors, the Green party pushed us into third place ...
Haydn Preece Liberal Democrats 1187 30% Elected Jamie Halsall Conservative Party 1159 29% Not elected Terry Durrance United Kingdom Independence Party 990 25% Not elected Stephen Jowett The Labour Party 444 11% Not elected Barbara Ann Dutton The Green Party 207 5% Not elected Birkdale Iain Brodie Browne Lib Dem, win!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Birkdale - resultsElection CandidatePartyVotes% Iain Brodie - Browne Liberal Democrats 1484 41% Elected Tom McKenzie United Kingdom Independence Party 945 26% Not elected Ged Wright The Labour Party 521 14% Not elected Georgia Twist Pactor Conservative Party 489 14% Not elected Tony Young The Green Party 178 5% Not ...
[IMG: OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA] Dear Liberal Democrats on Twitter, Facebook and Liberal Democrat Voice, I am tired of process stories. I don't need another analysis of Annette Brookes' email, Nick saying where we work we win, Lib Dems 4 Change setting up a website on 22 May or Matthew Oakshotte's self-indulgent polling. The simple truth is this. In the euro elections we lost 10 out of 11 seats and got 6% of the vote, the same as in 1989 when we had all just discovered we were Democrats. In addition we lost a wealth of MEP staffers who helped their ...
...Scheming/infighting/plots. Years of watching Tony Blair's government it seemed that people were only there for their own advantage - trying to get themselves to a higher position and not for the good of their country or even their party. You only needed to look at Gordon Brown to see him eyeing up the job that he really wanted. As much as I hate the confrontational nature of the different parties - always fighting and rarely working together, opposing for oppositions sake to seem populist/trying to paint everything that the opposition does in a bad light, I find this even uglier ...
[IMG: Matthew Oakeshott speaking at Lib Dem conference, Brighton 2007] The Guardian reports that Lord Oakeshott has dramatically resigned from the Liberal Democrats. Here is his resignation statement: I am today taking leave of absence from the House of Lords and resigning as a member of the Liberal Democrats. I am sure the Party is heading for disaster if it keeps Nick Clegg; and I must not get in the way of the many brave Liberal Democrats fighting for change. I leave, with a heavy heart, the party I helped to found with such high hopes with Roy Jenkins, Bill ...
Hopefully by now you will have caught your breath! The count will seem an awfully long time ago, but for the new councillors, and indeed for those of you who are back on the council, now the real work commences – to represent those people who put their faith in you via the ballot box. [...]
[IMG: clegg farage lbc] Nothing is more annoying, said one voter on the radio, than mainstream politicians telling us why we voted UKIP. But at risk of causing further annoyance, it is important to try to understand the UKIP vote, what it represents, and to what extent it is right to respond with appeasement, like Labour's Sadiq Khan, and many others of left and right, or opposition. To be fair to Khan, despite the apology, he largely makes the same arguments Labour have been making for years. Uniting the issues of immigration, Europe, and foreign aid is a concern that ...
To mark the centenary of the First World War, Ian Swales MP and Redcar British Legion Chair, Cllr Eric Howden will be hosting a sponsored walk around the war memorials in Redcar Constituency on Saturday 14 June 2014. The Standard from the Legion will be carried and present at each memorial and a cross will be placed. 20 miles in total, the walk will begin in New Marske Church at 8.00am and end at Redcar Cenotaph around 5.30pm. All proceeds will go to the Redcar British Legion's Poppy Appeal and Blind Veterans UK. Ian and Eric would love for people ...
Mark Carney's speech yesterday to an Inclusive Capitalism conference has attracted plenty of press coverage. And rightly so. It is a fascinating speech. But it is not necessarily fascinating for the arguments it sets out. The arguments are familiar. It is fascinating because it is Carney who is making the arguments. Markets erode social capital; inequality undermines the legitimacy of capitalism; more robust regulatory structures are insufficient on their own to deliver a safe and socially useful financial system; banking should be viewed as a support to broader, more important social objectives rather than an end in itself; we need ...
Daily Mail - this is a new journalistic low EVEN FOR YOU. (tags: ) My BBC News Election Results Interview | Kavya Kaushik (tags: ) Not all men. Not all men by any means. But enough. (tags: ) On men who are violent to women who say no (tags: ) Peter Black's thoughts on the European Elections and Nick Clegg (tags: ) Elliot Rodger and the Price of Toxic Masculinity - Paging Dr. NerdLove (tags: ) Where we work we get a pasting I know very much how the writer of this article feels (tags: ) [IMG: comment count unavailable] ...
24% voted in the Yarm 4 Yorkshire poll last night 1465 'Yes' and 177 'No.' On 22nd May1986 a similar poll in Yarm voted 1675 'Yes' and 682 'No.' On that occasion 41.7% voted. Also in 1986 Guisborough voted overwhelmingly 4950 to 953 in favour of Yorkshire. In Loftus, however, the result was much closer. A 32.64% poll voted 1153 for Yorkshire and 1129 against. A majority of 24 in favour of Yorkshire, which was reported in the press as a 'Yorks vote snub.' The reason for this small majority was no doubt a lot to do with the campaign ...
[IMG: Sunrise Little Trout Bay 4] These last five days have been among the worst I have known in my almost 31 years of being a part of this wonderful party. I'd pretty much prepared myself for winning only a couple of MEPs. Even those limited ambitions proved to be wildly optimistic. Seeing massive Labour fiefdoms recreated in London and Manchester. t's been bruising, brutal and fraught. Seeing friends and colleagues lose their jobs and seats through no fault of their own is heartbreaking. And to lose them to wrecking, scapegoating UKIP types is particularly upsetting. I've gone through so ...
Concentrating our vote in ever fewer seats is not a sustainable strategy. Could a Gladstonian pitch to younger voters provide an alternative? The Liberal Democrats faced two 'difficult' sets of elections last week: local elections in many parts of the country and elections to the European Parliament. Both elections produced results that were clearly bad [...]
Arms, and the man I sing, who, forc'd by fate, And haughty Juno's unrelenting hate, Expel'd and exil'd, left the Trojan shore. Long labors, both by sea and land, he bore, And in the doubtful war, before he won The Latian realm, and built the destin'd town; His banish'd gods restor'd to rites divine, And settled sure succession in his line, From whence the race of Alban fathers come, And the long glories of majestic Rome. The Aeniad, Virgil The "survivalists" find themselves expelled within the party. Unwilling to join the joyous strapping on of the suicide belt by the ...
Wed 28th
09:20
Mark Pack's verdict on those ICM polls: "not sensible figures for anyone to draw a conclusion from"
[IMG: Mark Pack] My former co-editor here at LibDemVoice, Mark Pack, has been taking a detailed look in his latest Liberal Democrat Newswire at those ICM constituency polls commissioned by Lord Oakeshott. Here's his take on them: It's not only the attempted anonymous funding of the polls that's questionable. So too is the way they were worded. Even reputable pollsters such as ICM given their clients some discretion over question wording, and in this case it was a matter of misleading by omission rather than an outrageously worded question in its own right. The full data tables for the polls ...
[IMG: Harry Truman] Yesterday morning, I saw an article on the Guardian's website written by Patrick Wintour and Nicholas Watt in which the headlines spoke of a "damning" poll by ICM which showed that the Lib Dems would be wiped out in certain constituencies - including Sheffield Hallam. My heart raced; it certainly looked bad, and at exactly the wrong time for the party too. But about halfway through, some numbers jumped out at me that instantly calmed my nerves. They were the ones that said that the Labour Party were going to win Sheffield Hallam by a 10-point margin. ...
From the Leicester Centre for Creative Writing blog: We're delighted to have a series of talks coming up from three award-winning writers: Sara Maitland, Iain Sinclair and Louis de Bernières. All three will be exploring the notion of place in relation to their writing. Celebrated author of Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernières will be talking on the 3rd June; on the 5th of June we have the great cartographer of the London of the imagination, Iain Sinclair; and on the 12th June we have novelist, non-fiction writer, and explorer of solitude, Sara Maitland. All events will be in the ...
As the rumbles of the Euro-massacre continue with mutinous mutterings across the Liberal Democrats, it is worth stepping back and thinking about where were could realistically recover to in the course of the next few weeks and months, and, post the general election election in May 2015, years Personally I think that the difficulties of changing leader are so large, and the probable benefits so marginal, because of the damage that it would cause, that it is simply not worth it.So what should we do instead?I agree we absolutely need to refocus and to change our way of doing things, ...
Understanding the numbers behind your local election results will help you plan and perform better in the future. Everyone will have their own opinions about why certain things worked and didn't work. What the numbers and statistics allow us to do is gain the cold, hard facts and to base our conclusions about what happened [...]
A short thought for today. UKIP have "won" the European elections and are now waxing lyrical about their prospects as a serious fourth party in next year's general elections, but can they ever be a real contender on this level? The problem for UKIP is that they are a party of just one policy. They [...]
Residents have complained to me about the very poor condition of the roadway of Seymour Avenue, towards its north end - see right. I have asked the council's Roads Maintenance Partnership for pothole repairs to be carried out here.
[IMG: Electoral Commission logo] In good news, the Electoral Commission is going to investigate Tower Hamlets, as indeed it should. In less good news, the wording of the Electoral Commission's statement contains two worrying elements. First, in the face of numerous people saying that there were large and intimidating crowds outside polling stations, the statement simply says: Acting Superintendent Helen Lewis, of Tower Hamlets borough police, said: "Although we have received no allegations of harassment, intimidation or fraudulent behaviour at polling stations in Tower Hamlets we would, of course, be keen to speak with anyone who has concerns. If you ...
I've had some serious ebook-formatting problems, so while the paper and PDF versions show the revised text without the inadvertant transphobia, it'll probably be Sunday before I get the epub and Kindle versions sorted. Poke me if I haven't announced the new versions by then.
I was going to do a political post today, but it turns out that I have something to say about that nasty little wankstain whose name doesn't deserve to be mentioned, who murdered those people. People are saying it's "because he had Asperger's". No. I've got Asperger's. Number of people I've murdered — zero. And [...]
[IMG: clucas] What a great story in the Liverpool Echo. I have known Flo for years in her capacity as a Lib Dem Councillor in Liverpool and was sad to see a good friend move away from our area. But Flo has popped up again by winning a council seat for the Lib Dems in Cheltenham. Congratulations Flo.
Dick Dastardly and the Vulture Squadron [IMG: Post to Twitter] Tweet This Post
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The BBC report that the insistence by Liberal Democrats that the Government crack down on tax avoidance has led to a record £23.9bn in additional tax being collected for the year to the end of March. This is in addition to regular tax receipts: HMRC said that of the total amount it had raised, more than £8bn came from large businesses, £1bn from criminals and £2.7bn from tackling avoidance schemes in courts. In total, HMRC has said it expects to secure £100bn between May 2010 and March 2015 as a result of its investigations into unpaid tax. The "tax gap" ...
In his Telegraph column yesterday, Dan Hodges suggests that Labour have finally realised that they may lose the next general election. His concern is that in a blind panic Ed Miliband will begin to 'dog-whistle' to Ukip voters on immigration: His speech will be dressed up. It will include lots of references to disfranchised working-class communities. There will be lots of condemnation of the exploitation of migrant workers. But it will be a good old-fashioned dog-whistle speech just the same. Miliband doesn't want to be whistling Nigel Farage's tune, of course. He hoped to spend this week issuing vacuous homilies ...
When a couple emigrate it is usually because one of them has a job offer, or sees better career opportunities abroad. It is rarer for both of them to be in that position. The other partner is called 'the trailing spouse' and it is in the nature of things that, even nowadays, the trailer is [...]
Yesterday LibDemVoice published the results of the members survey carried out over the last two days, as we reported then we would be making the full results of the final question available. Below is the breakdown for each of the 42 stages, and if you are really interest you can download the ballot file to run through your favourite STV counter (mine is OpenSTV, but it's chargable) eliminating candidates if you so wish. All losing candidates are eliminated. Count after substage 1 of 1 of eliminating Lynne Featherstone, Charles Kennedy, and Jo Swinson. Transferred votes with value 1.00. Since no ...
