Looking for exit polls?
People I see keep asking me about exit polls, so just so you know there probably aren’t any – or at least, none giving an early heads up of the result; the BBC or Sky may well have done some normal polling just to add colour to their coverage.
I haven’t asked round the pollsters, but I’m fairly certain no one will do it. It would be illegal to publish any exit poll of the European elections until after 9pm on Sunday night (in 2004 the police even investigated Populus for publishing eve-of-poll figures from the three all-postal regions prior to the election, since they were effectively an exit poll).
However, since the votes are being counted earlier than that in most regions enabling the actual results to be reported shortly after 9pm, it would be rather a waste of money to pay for an exit poll that will only pre-empt the results by a couple of minutes.
While one could conduct and report an exit poll of the local election results, we’ve never seen exit polls for local elections in the past, so I doubt we’ll see them now.
So, anyone looking for exit polls, I’m afraid there won’t be any (though do check the comments below this, since following me summing up the final polls, and there being an extra final poll, I expect the first comment will end up being from a pollster saying “actually we’re doing one!”)
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A quick question that is slightly off the subject..
What coverage will there be of the Council Elections? Will there be counts throughout tonight with results coming in or will it a results programme from tomorrow morning?
Thanks.
Joshua – there are only three councils counting tonight (From memory, Central Bedfordshire, Lincolnshire and one other) so there won’t be coverage tonight.
Most counts start tomorrow morning, and there will be TV coverage then
A bit of a strange decision by Central Bedfordshire and Lincolnshire to count tonight when all the others are waiting until tomorrow morning. I’m surprised the BBC are not doing any election coverage tomorrow – have to tune in to Iain Dale’s radio station instead.
There is one pathetic 55 minute programme on in the middle of the day but that is it. Damn it. I had the beer on ice for a long night up watching the reults. I look forward to my election all-nighter all year. How disapointing.
In view of all the excitement in recent days, surely there will be predictions and second-guessing going on and maybe some unofficial exit polls and interviews with voters as they leave polling stations? It’s too good an opportunity to miss.
Very disapointed with the bbc.
Political excitement is at fever pitch at the moment and all they can supply is a single 55 minute bulletin.
The radio show Iain Dale is putting together will hopefully be some replacement though.
Re Coverage of the local elections. Dale’s coverage starts at 9am tomorrow and for those who have it Skynews begin their coverage at 10am I believe
“Lukw
Very disapointed with the bbc.
Political excitement is at fever pitch at the moment and all they can supply is a single 55 minute bulletin.”
Probably all hands on deck checking their expenses now that the MPs are turning on them!
There’s probably a sense of “job done” now that polling day has arrived without any of that difficult EU issues to debate thing. Much easier to go with the politics than have to mug up on issues.
Congrats to the Telegraph too on the timing of the expenses fiasco. And how ironic that it was that issue that they could use to obscure the real issues of how we work in Europe (when their whole careers have been supported by advance expense claims and pink “lie” slips.
Bah, I’m going to drink all of my election-night beer anyway all at once so that I see my own flashes of red, blue, yellow and green. If I drink the brandy as well I might even see my own swingometer.
Broxbourne are also counting their County divisions tonight, so there may be some other district councils doing the same.
well i guess some parties do want to know the results before sunday – so maybe labour or the torries will order some exit polls. so lets hope somewhere their numbers leak…
At the polling station I was pleasantly surprised to see two separate ballot boxes for the Euro and District elections. It will certainly save time which is usually spent separating the different ballot papers out of the same box. I don’t know whether this is just a national thing or whether some areas are still using one ballot box for both elections.
There was one slight problem which was that the two colours beings used were yellow and light green, and you had to look carefully to distinguish the colours since they were so similar. The size of the ballot papers was more helpful in distinguishing them of course.
I wonder why most councils are waiting until tomorrow morning to count. What happened to the usual overnight count?
Shire counties are short of money.
The EU results cannot be announced until rest of Europe have voted
My Euro Ballot paper had 15 Parties on it.
Ridiculous & pointless-what on earth is this Euro Election for?
I’m curious:
1) Why is it illegal to publish exit polls of the European elections until after 9pm on Sunday night?
and
2) Why do we have to wait until the rest of Europe has voted before we can find out how we ourselves voted? It’s not as if we’re voting for pan-European parties.
They don’t want the result in any one EU country to influence how people vote in any other, although I’m not sure more than a few people in any country take much notice of how other countries have voted. This is also the explanation for why exit polls are banned until the polls close across Europe on Sunday night.
it´s a paneuropean election
you are not voting for britain´s parliament
you are voting for the european parliament
the election has started today in britain and ends on sunday in most countries
and exitpolls can only be published after the last pollingstation has closed
its like asking for westminsterexitpolls from wales while in london some people are still voting – this could possibly change the way they will vote so you can´t publish them
we will just have to wait (and i hate waiting) *g*
Richard B
Staff costs?
Perhaps we haven’t yet resiled from the Working Time Directive and cannot yet force workers to work through the night; sorry, give them back the “choice to choose whether they work overtime” (or get fired)
@ John T T
Employment law in this country would count that as “unfair dismissal” and, trust me, whenever an employee leaves in a huff, small employers (who employ the majority of this country) secretly rejoice when the 3-month deadline for claims passes. I’ve watched them.
Some people want to be able to turn up Mon-Fri 9-5, and when 5 comes round, they can switch off and go home. Others wish to work longer when needed, do tasks, compete in the workplace, earn more, get promoted faster, have the satisfaction of a job done.
I don’t like the attitude of the 1st group, but I respect their choice. But to make such an attitude mandatory? Where is the freedom in that? Surely it is as much of an affront to freedom to refuse to let me earn money when I need to pay off debts (or whatever reason I have), as it is to force me to work longer at the employers’ choice, which in any case is patently illegal already?
I’ve found this list of declaration times according to the press association. The other council declaring on the night is Bristol:
http://election.pressassociation.com/Declaration_times/councils_by_time.php
Richard, no-one’s stymied by the hours, and
there are a good many (including many working mothers) who are thankful for a bit of flexibility.
They are the ones who’ll suffer from forced overtime and extra Sunday working .
Anyone wanting to work 100 hours + per week can already do so – they just get other jobs or start their own businesses.
I have utmost respect for them, but I do worry about the large numbers who will pay the price for ideological dreaming.
@ John TT
As I understand it, the EWTD applies in this country only through an opt-out system, which the EU is eager to remove. Thus, employees can only work “100 hours +” if they opt out, and this choice is the issue that concerns us today, not the WTD with opt-out which came into force 11 years ago.
If the opt-out system goes, as the EU wishes, then they cannot work more than 48 hours total, no matter how many jobs they may spread this across.
Reference: http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Employment/Employees/WorkingHoursAndTimeOff/DG_10029426
(1) Exit Polls – reason for the ban until 9pm on Sunday is that is when the last polls close. This is after all a single Parliament, even if Libertas is the first party to contest them on a genuinely pan-European basis.
It is a rule that the US would do well to follow, but for years Califonia complained that turnout was depressed because the actual results from the Atlantic states were being declared before their polls had closed.
(2) BBC coverage: It makes little sense for public money to be wasted on a programme which would effectively have to be repeated in three (or even four) parts.With results becoming available on-line, any programme at say lunch-time tomorrow would not only suffer from daytime viewing constraints, but have to start by recapping on the results which had already emerged, while by Friday evening all County Council / local results should be know. Sunday evening on the other hand should make for interesting viewing.
(3) Ballot Boxes: Separate ballot boxes is a good idea since the Euro ballots will need to be stored securely until Sunday. However, given how long the ballot papers are, I wonder if they have calculated enough space for the volume of paper once they are folded. My local polling station also did not seem to have supplies for a high turnout. I wonder how many polling stations might run out ?
(4) Counting Friday / Sunday: Not counting locals tonight is mainly a cost issue – do you want another 10p on your council tax ? Councils have already got to fund all that Sunday overtime from their already stretched budgets – not to mention that electoral services will have already put in a 16 hour day (yes I know the stations are open 15 hrs, but they need to be set up and dismantled).
(5) Length of the Euro-ballot paper: Colin, I deduce you are in the SE region as you have a choice of 15. Pity the poor folk in SW (17), let alone London (19 options). Should make for a record number of spoilt ballot papers – especially as some people may mistakenly think that since it is a PR election they need to rank their preferences – a misguided myth the Greens have been encouraging with some of their literature.
Any news on a westminister poll?
“Colin, I deduce you are in the SE region ”
Yes Paul-your point(3) is interesting.
I folded my green (Euro) paper as best I could & had to give it a thump to make it disappear into the ballot box. The latter was already pretty full-an enquiry to Polling Station staff at that time about turnout received the assessment-12%!
as i understand it the bbc news is covering the locals but don’t know what time they start covering the event likely 10am onwards on the bbc news chanal
UPDATE-
BBC News Channel Schedule for
Friday 5 June 2009
1330-1600 LOCAL ELECTION SPECIAL
here’s an interesting thing, based in france, i can vote in the european elections for a french party OR a UK party.
(has to be one or the other and not both).
wish i’d paid more attention in advance, i dont have much idea which french parties offer what!
Yeah Cornwall is counting tomorrow….
Didn’t know Euro’s weren’t counted til Sunday.
I was out campaigning for labour today outside a Polling Station I gave up after a few hours there was no point, I really am my wits end with them. I think I managed to get only a few votes from the tories to labour.
When does the counting start and end (approx) for local and euro?
@David in France, I’ve heard a fair few people going to try to use postal voting to vote twice….once where they are, and once where their postal vote goes….dunno if it’ll work, but it’s a nice thought for them.
Paul H-J. For what’s it’s worth the European Green Party launched ahead of the last Euro election and there has been a common European Green campaign for the past two Euro elections.
Not that you’d really notice from the media coverage, admittedly, but there you go
Whatever else it is, Libertas is not the first pan-European party.
Ian
Anthony
Please ignore my question on end of NewYouGov thread as I have now seen that you have answered my question to someone else already. Thanks. Hopefully the areas that are counting tonight will be reported to the BBC online results page….if there is anyone awake to do it!?
When my wife and I went to vote I noticed that somewhat less than 20% of names had been crossed out, indicating those that had voted. And we were told that things had been very quiet. This was around 7.30pm.
What is significant about this is where I am from, the Rhondda, has one of the highest level of support for Labour in the country. Our MP, Chris Bryant, has a majority of 52%.
A particularly low turnout here suggests a collapse in the Labour vote.
I put a comment on earlier which has disappeared for some reason. It was a link to a list of declaration times for the local elections.
Bristol is the other council declaring tonight apart from Central Beds and Lincs.
Alex what a surprise
Note last YOUGOV shows big leads for the NATS at both Westminster and the Euroes – 8 and 9 per cent respectively.
Westminster watershed election coming up!
in my own area things were also pritty dead in terms of turnout and even thoe im from a mainly conservative voting village and parish area the register did not look very full to me not many names highlighted as i looked at the sheets while they were looking formy name, it will be a low turnout this time
“Alex Smith
I think I managed to get only a few votes from the tories to labour.”
bless… are you sure they weren’t just being kind (then voting for another once in)?!
Turnout is probably over 50% in my village. That’s not saying much since we usually have very high turnouts. In the 1992 election it must have been close to 95% since the constituency as a whole was 86%.
Promsan, I thought that as they walked in, one of the reasons I gave up. Blaring megaphone from a car telling everyone to vote BNP to, couldn’t match up to that so went home.
There seem to be conflicting reports about turnout. The Daily Mail has a report predicting an absolutely dire turnout but other people have been reporting quite a good turnout. Very confusing indeed. The results from Bristol tonight should provide us with some much needed hard facts.
Couldn’t tell you about turnout in my area – I voted before midday and haven’t been at the polling station since. Hope it was low here though, because I am in Glasgow (Labour).
At my polling station in the Cynon Valley, I voted at around midday, and although it was empty, talking to the woman she reckoned that turnout was already between 15 and 20%, and that was at midday. So not that bad considering I live in a stong labour area. (But I voted for Plaid Cymru due to being dissilussioned with labour.)
I’m quite sure turnout will correlate with levels of unemployment…
…chronic unemployment = low turnout
…recent unemployment = high turnout
…working self half to death to keep head above water = low turnout.
ergo.. I predict a turnout of 33%!
(come on, it’s about as good anyone else can do!)
In a town of about 5000 eligible voters there was never more than about 10 people at the polling station all day. My guess at the turnout here is 25%
However, I’ve got my mum, nan, nans friends, Dad and mums friends to all vote Lib Dems. most of these usually dont vote or vote the big two.
Will be an interestin result
RIGHT HAVE JUST HAD A LOOKAT WHO IS VOTING TONIGHT
LINCOLNSHIRE (TONIGHT)
HAMPSHIRE (PART NIGHT PART FRIDAY)
CENTRAL BEDFORDSHIRE (TONIGHT)
don’t know about dorset they my be doing the same as hampshire
soory that should be counting tonight
@ Philip JW,
You say you voted at 7.30, yet your posting was at 7.21, time warp or different time zone perhaps,
Does that mean it is worth doing an all nighter?
The lists of declaration times above probably refer to the estimate of when the last county council ‘ward’ will be declared i.e. final results.
I am hoping there will be a number of sources where we can find out ward by ward results, which will give a good idea of swing/performance.
These include the websites politicalbetting.com and vote-uk, probably familiar to most here.
Also, worth trying the county council websites, in case they are annoucing ward by ward there.
No such partial results in the Euros.
Gordon, the posting times are out by about an hour. Its an hour behind.
It’s probably worth staying up to watch the parade of people quitting. Purnell has gone and called for Brown to step down.
ITS JAMES PURNELL – HE RESIGNED.
Ach, Anthony got in first!
I don’t think there’s a ban on exit polls being published until 9pm on Sunday.
The Dutch have done an exit poll which has been published:
http://blog.taragana.com/n/exit-poll-predicts-right-wing-party-will-be-second-in-dutch-european-election-72412/
Looks like Geert Wilder’s party has come in second.
Somerset are publishing results online from 9.30 tomorrow (Friday). http://www.somerset.gov.uk/council/election/party.asp
WES is that for local or euro?
Never mind
Local, just to clarify!
Wilders was hoping to come first in Holland although this isn’t a bad result for him, coming very close behind the ruling Christian Democrats.
Lukw – I’m disappointed too. I’ve booked a day off tomorrow because I’m too old to stay up all night and then go to work. Now I’ve wasted a day.
Richard – what a ridiculous law about hours. How can they stop you working as long as you like in your own business? I’m now working full time, and still have some of my own business left with old customers. Despite not pushing my own business, I probably work more than 48 hours some weeks. Should I turn myself in to the police or what?
Anyway, re exit polls etc. There’s bound to be stuff somewhere on the Internet, even if there are no official figures.
I reckon the wave of resignations either won’t come or will come on Monday after the Euro results are in, either way no point in staying up tonight.
As for Holland, thank God Geert Wilder didn’t come first, though 2nd is still horrifying. Let’s hope that kind of thought doesn’t make it across the channel.
Why’s that a waste Pete? You can use your day off work to watch the election results tomorrow!
Siobhain McDonagh, Nick Raynsford and Barry Sheerman have all refused to support Brown continuing as Labour leader.
The predictions on http://www.predict09.eu/default/en-us/state_analyses.aspx for the Netherlands were very close to the announced results (They got 23 out of 25 seats right).
Their forecast for GB:
CON 24 (-3)
LAB 15 (-4)
UKIP 10 (-2)
LDEM 10 (-2)
Greens 6 (+4)
SNP 3 (+1)
PC 1 (-)
turnout in the west melton mowbray parish of hoby with rotherby was 29-30% tonight (thats my patch)
The ballot papers are fixed.
I hope there is a re-election.
I wanted to vote UKIP, but I couldn’t find it on the ballot paper at all.
So I went with my 2nd choice of Conservative.
Now, after looking on the net, apparently, there have been over 1000 complaints that people like myself couldn’t vote for UKIP.
The fold was backwards and was so fine, you couldn’t see it. You can look at the news story on BBC NEWS.
This ELECTION IS FIXED.
Anthony,
You say that “It would be illegal to publish any exit poll of the European elections until after 9pm on Sunday night ”
The Dutch have released their results. http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2009/06/eu_elections_antiislam_party_b.php
So is this “EU law”, or just the usual ham-fisted British misinterpretation of an EU proposal.
I think that what Alex Smith did is illegal – you are not allowed to campaign just outside a polling station. The area and entrance must be kept free and neutral. All canvassing has to be done eleswhere.
I think it is most frustrating to be done out of the usual exit polls, and just another example of how the EU is clamping down and controlling the media.
Look out for unofficial polls circulating on the internet put out by anonymous untraceable sources!!
Turnout here where I live in SE was nearly 40% but a lot of people were spoiling their ballot papers. The presiding officer told me that!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8084086.stm
Is a link.
We had the same problem in London, except there was apparently 19 candidates, I only saw 12.
No results from Bristol as yet. However, see this link for latest http://www.bristol.gov.uk/item/elections/?XSL=main&ElectionId=63
I thought turnout looked a bit low in my polling station this morning (I’m in a strong Tory ward where the other parties don’t usually oppose as vigorously as in other parts of the area).
But I’m in London so we just had Euro elections.
@Joshua
Thank you. I was rattling my brain wondering whether I had mixed the time up. I tend to suffer from insomnia and last night was worse because I was up half the night with my son who had a stomach bug. Glad to see I’m not losing it.
I think the best strategy for Labour would be to change leader quickly. An October GE would be acceptable to the public, I believe.
It would give them the chance to apologise convincingly for the mistakes of the past. To use an old fashion expression they need to show repentance for the arrogance and mistakes of the past. Getting rid of Brown would be a very big and important first step. Without it anything they say will be meaningless.
They have but a few weeks to act forcefully, as they will need to do. Otherwise they will not simply be defeated but massacred at the GE.
Those desperate for some overnight results, as they are called division by division, may be able to enjoy some fun on Essex County Council – they say you can follow them live,
but so far it’s all “not called”.
http://countyelections.essexcc.gov.uk/MapOfDivisions.asp?DistrictID=1
I am hoping the Tories snatch Somerset and Devon – I’m going down there tomorrow, so I think it’s time to go to bed and look at it all in the morning.
I hope for Lancashire and Nottinghamshire aswell.
Hi everyone. I left a link to the Bristol results at 12.18 but it seems to be stuck in “awaiting moderation”!!!! Results are being published – two wards in. Since 2007 Libdems up a squeak, Labour heavily down, Cons slightly down – big gainers seem to be Green vote. However, this is from two Libdem holds wards.
I would like to add that I am concerned that from what I have seen tonight on the news a lot of leading Labour figures have not grasped the importance of removing Brown. Perhaps, it because many of them share his misguided values.
Early results:
Earliest news from Lincolnshire is a Conservative gain from Labour. Conservatives started out with 47 (I think) and Labour with 19 – If this sort of pattern continues through the night then Labour are likely to be in single figures (out of 77 seats) in Lincolnshire.
Labour won the bye-election in the Drumchapel & Anniesland ward of Glasgow North West. Their %age share of the vote was down 12% though, and this is probably Labour’s strongest area in the West End of Glasgow.
conservativehome predict labour will lose all of its 10 seats it is defending in bristol, and in lincolnshire labours vote in early returns has fallen by nearly 25% and the tories by -2.5% others are up big time.
9 wards declared so far in Bristol. Labour are ranging between 13% to 18% down on 07 results. So far they have only held on to one seat by margin of less than 1% (9 votes in fact). BNP are polling about 10.5% in both Bristol and Lincolnshire where they contest wards – worryingly high sign for Euro-polls result perhaps?
@Alex “I was out campaigning for labour today outside a Polling Station I gave up after a few hours there was no point, I really am my wits end with them”
Well, you get points for bravery, were you wearing a flak jacket?
Bristol: 16 wards declared. 3 Con gains: 3 LibDem gains: 6 Labour losses. Only 2 Labour holds – both by a whisker in formerly rock solid seats! BNP got as high as 17.4% in one ward.
So far there are 4 Conservative gains in Lincolnshire – all from Labour.
Bristol so far:
Libdems – 12 (+4)
Conservatives – 5 (+3)
Labour – 2 (-7)
4 wards still to be announced
Thanks to everyone for reporting results at this late hour.
4 gains give the Libdems an overall majority in Bristol, so unless they sustain some shock losses in the other 4 wards they have gained the council from NOC.
Lincolnshire so far (22 of 77 declared):
Conservatives – 19 (+13)
Labour – 3 (-11)
The other 2 Tory gains were from Libdem and an Independent.
Staffordshire county council is all but in Tory hands already since they’ve gained all the seats in Tamworth from Labour (6 of them) with swings ranging from 11.5% to 21%.
Thank you Neil. Not only are there 4 Conservative gains in Lincolnshire, but Labour actually came third and fourth in two of these contests – a disaster for them. UKIP and Independents are polling exceptionally well, getting several near misses to Tories. BNP is now averaging about 12% where they contest in Lincs.
Labour started out with 19 seats in Lincolnshire – so far they have lost 12 of these, and held onto 3!
Boston Coastal result: Labour behind BNP and bottom of poll. UKIP a good second to Tories with 25.2%. Tory hold.
Labour coming third or worse in rather a lot of places as far as I can tell.
Tony,
Where can I get a link to these results? I’d like to see that one!
Gray, the telegraph have a live blog of the results on their website – it has links to the bristol and lincolnshire results.
From what I’ve seen so far Labour are doing every bit as badly as most people had predicted, if not slightly worse. But of course they’ll almost certainly do even worse in the Euro elections compared to local elections because there are usually many more minor candidates available for people to defect to in the Euro elections.
Final result from Bristol:
Libdems – 15 (+4)
Conservatives – 6 (+4)
Labour – 2 (-8)
So the Libdems have taken the council by a whisker – 36/70 seats. Tories have overtaken Labour in the council with 17/70, Labour have 16/70.
Gray
Anthony’s website doesn’t seem to allow links without his moderation before they are posted, so I will describe how to find it. Go to Lincolnshire.gov.uk and then select Election Results All.asp….hope it works for you.
More interesting results from Lincs…and a bit frightening! BNP almost took Boston North West with result 463 Tory and 374 BNP. Needless to say Labour came fifth behind further two ind candidates with only 11.8%. Ruskington & Cranwell: BNP outpolled Labour with 14.3% BNP and 9.2% Labour respectively. These results bode ill for Sunday night viz BNP gains in Euros I suspect?
LD majority in Bristol probably rests on their 73 vote majority over Tories in Henleaze.
Tony: Got it. As to the BNP: By “ill” do you mean “ill for the BNP” or “ill for everyone else having to put up with the BNP”?
Boston Rural: Independent gain from Conservative by 2(!) votes!
Of the seats in so far between Bristol and Lincolnshire, Labour held 25. Thus far they’ve lost 21 of them, with a lone oddball pickup in Lincolnshire to compensate.
Note: The gain was Kevin Clarke in Lincoln Boultham. However, Labour’s vote share there is off over 20% and he still got over 30%, so I suspect an error of some kind there.
Lincoln Boultham wasn’t a gain. Don’t know why it says that on the website because Labour held that seat before.
Gray
Glad you got it. By ill I most certainly mean for the vast majority of us who find their presence in our political system distasteful. However, despite having once been a Young Conservative activist during the Heath era, and later active in the Anti-Nazi League when I defected and became a Young Liberal in the late 70s early 80s, I have been out of active politics for 20 years now, and respect the democratic right to participate in elections of those I still detest. However, having said this I really do think we should all respect Anthony’s wish for this to be a non-partisan website – and just enjoy the polls and the psephology as a science. However, when it comes to neo-Nazism I cannot but help reveal my distaste sometimes!
Gainsborough Rural South:
Conservative gain from Libdem
Interesting, because a big chunk of Libdem support swung to the BNP, which was enough to let the Tories win by default. Never thought Libdem voters were natural BNP targets!
Ok. So the “gain” line is an error. Make that 26 held, 21 lost, 5 still held as of that posting (and still as of now). I wonder what’s going to happen once those northern councils that Labour has a good chunk of seats on start coming in.
Neil, I suggest rwo-part hypothesis:
1) Rearranged deck chairs;
2) Shifting protest voters.
1 states that some LD voters went to the Tories while Tories went BNP. 2 states that some of those LD voters weren’t actually LDs, they were protest voters who just changed vehicles with their protest. And of course, there’s always the matter of who bothered to show up.
Or 3) it shows that the BNP can pick up support from Libdems too.
But you are right, there are several possible explanations.
I feel almost like one of those live bloggers!!
Gray
re rearranged deckchairs and shifting protesters, I think you are spot on! But I suspect the biggest factor you hint at only at the end – differential turnout may be the key.
Us guys should be on the telly discussing this! I think the Council will be declared as a Tory hold soon (39 seats needed) and when the count is over we will see the Tories’ grip on the council really solidified.
It seems though, that the Libdems are also down, though not nearly so much as Labour. Maybe just because it’s a Tory area, but maybe that will be a trend nationally – we will see later.
Neil and Gray
Thanks for helping make tonight so enjoyable – I’m off to bed now – catch up with you both tomorrow!
Neil,
The LibDems are holding their vote but FPTP is causing them to get jammed on seat totals. It’s not that their vote share is off, but the Tories are up in a few areas while many LD votes are “wasted”. As to why they’re not -gaining-…I think that has to do with all of the other parties soaking up the protest voters.
Tony,
Have a good one, and see you tomorrow!
You are right. Libdem share has barely changed overall. But there are plenty wards where they have shed a few %.
Breaking News:
Conservatives have held Lincolnshire Council. With 50 of 77 seats declared the results are:
Conservatives – 39 (+16)
Libdems – 5 (-3)
Labour – 3 (-15)
Independent – 2 (+1)
Boston Bypass Ind – 1 (+1)
Neil,
Some of those are cases where new candidates were in the mix (i.e. that BNP case; before they might have counted on tactical Labour voters, while they broke off here). They’re mainly losing ground to more people fighting over the “raspberry vote”.
Also…I can honestly hardly believe some of this. Labour is on only about 11.5% in Lincolnshire. I know it’s not their strongest area, but it’s bizzare to see them basically in a fight for third.
Tony, with my moderated remark above, could you please tell me what I triggered moderation with?
Linconshire Update :-
Con – 46
Lab – 19
Lib – 8
4 left to declare
Huge gains for the Conservatives
Cliff,
The results I saw on the Lincolnshire website were, with 77 in:
Con: 60
LibDem: 5
Labour: 4
Lincolnshire Independents: 4
Independent: 3
Boston Bypass: 1
Labour was all but wiped out (three of their four seats were in Lincoln proper, while they used to have all 10 there; more importantly, in every seat they held they were knocked under 40% vs. usually being around or above 50% before)
Also, in a similar vein, in the three declared councils/authorities, Labour has only 6 of over 160 seats chosen thus far (down from about 29 or 30).
Kudos to the posters up all night and the Lincolnshire and Bristol results are shocking for labour.
Personally I think the Europe results are the more revealing and it will be interesting to see what the combined UKIP + Tory vote will be. I think we can count this number ,minus 2-4% for the odd other voter lending to UKIP, as a good GE guide Tory score.
Re Purnell and other assorted potenetial assissins; what many find objectionable is that he was hawking his letter around at 6pm whilst others were trying (in vain) to get out a few extra votes for Labour.
Him and Blears are finisihed in the Labour Party for top jobs. I hope Saflord PLC deselect her for tax evasion and flipping.
Bad results Sunday night (which is likely) and GB gone Monday which I did not think even a week ago.
If he doesn’t expect more resignations.
Then October GE as new leader has no legitimacy.
Gives enough time for new PCCs to be selected where necessary as well.
It will be interesting to see how GE polls move during a Leadership contest and once new one in place.
Side note, shocking that Max’s first voting experience is a cock up (I don’t think fix). He is clearly interested in politics and this will not stop him voting again but what about others less interested?
Overall Bristol vote shares:
http://www.bristol.gov.uk/item/elections/?XSL=main&ShowElectionPercentage=true&ElectionId=63
Libdem 35.01
Con 26.02
Lab 18.88
Green 14.32
BNP 3.33
Engl Dems 1.60
Respect 0.84
Where and when will the next results be coming from?
I must say that I am finding the odds of Labour holding out until next summer longer and longer. A legitimate claim can be made for holding off until fall regardless of the leadership situation (to allow deselection/reselection as needed, not to mention letting some of the extreme anger cool off. Much beyond the fall the claim of Brown (or anybody, for that matter) to legitimacy will start to stretch a bit more than I think anyone would want to try right now lest additional voter backlash be risked.
As it stands, the damage here is running both broad and deep. In Bristol, Labour fell to third with less than 1/4 of the seats in a council they had an outright majority in not seven years ago. Labour got only 11% of the vote in Lincolnshire; though there were many wards they didn’t put candidates up in, they also managed to get humiliated in at least two cases (where they came in fifth and fourth, both behind the BNP).
If there is one saving grace for Labour in all of this, it is that the LibDems are not managing to wipe the floor with Labour outside the South as yet. I do look forward to seeing more areas’ results, though, as I suspect that there is something more of a tale to be told with these results.
Random aside: Which EU Region does Lincolnshire fall under?
Lincolnshire falls under ‘East Midlands’.
It’s where I am and from what I can tell the Tories will have strengthened their share both at local and Euro level.
How and why is Brown trying to stay on? Was he a Tory ’sleeper’ in the Labour party all these years waiting to explode!?
I’ve taken the liberty of reading everything Lincolnshire Council has to tell me about their elections, fascinate stuff (their election website is awesome too, better than the BBC map).
It seems Labour have taken a beating but the ‘Lincolnshire Independents’ party have gained 4 wards (and thus are as powerful as Labour now!). The Boston Bypass party also gained a seat, this is the local party that 2 years ago won Boston council with a majority of seats on the issue of building a bypass through Boston to gain passing trade. 4 non-partisan independents were cut down to 3.
But as suggested above, some wards were incredibly close. Hornecastle and Tetford was won by the LIs by 2 votes over the Tories, as was Boston Rural by an independent over the Tories. Spilsby Fen was won by the LIs by 16 votes out of almost 3000. There are other close wards too.
More interesting still is that the LIs ran in fairly few wards, but when they did run they were dynamite. I haven’t found a single ward where they ran and got less than 25% of the vote and came 2nd or above (with a couple of exceptions, where they still came 2nd and just one ward where they came 3rd), next time this council goes to vote they could conceivably be seen as the main opposition, and who knows what will happen then. Independents who ran and were deliberately unopposed by the LIs had a similarly successful set of results.
To emphasise the scale of the Labour defeat, not only did they lose plenty of seats but I only found 1 ward other than those they held that they stayed 2nd in!
To downplay the threat of the BNP, though they did poll up to 15% in a couple of wards, they were never above 3rd (with very rare exceptions when barely anyone ran) and in most cases where UKIP ran too they got at least double the vote share. In wards where the BNP have run in both this and the last set of elections, they typically gained very little or fell by a few percent.
Boston North West broke all these rules, for the record. There were 3 independent candidates, the BNP came 2nd and the Tories won with just 25% of the vote. Crazy.
So there you go, half an hour of my time gone, and a terrifyingly comprehensive guide to the Lincolnshire County Council election results.
Brown is stubborn. It’s just his personality. Also, I suspect more to the point, Brown waited over a decade in the number two slot (which I dare say he was more suited to) to get to where he is now.
Granted, he may yet give in; blustering to the end of the road is fairly normal from what I’ve seen. But if I had to guess, he will go down fighting and it won’t be pretty. I could quite candidly see him quietly threatening to pull a GE if an attempt to force him out actually did materialize.
I come under East Midlands as well and its looking towards Labour doing very poorly in the Euros.
My counties results will be very interesting (Northants) as there has recently been a rise in the presence of the BNP and also want to see the Lib Dems make advances on Labour.
My prediction for Northants:
Cons – 54
Labour – 9
Lib Dems – 9
Joshua,
I wouldn’t be surprised if the Libs overtake Labour for second to be honest.
There’s been nowhere worst hit in terms of unemployment this last year that Northampton itself. The town centre is full of boarded up shops. These people will evict as many Labour representatives as they can I suspect.
Just heard from a friend who was doing an exit poll last night that, as predicted, a great many EU votes were cast for “other” parties. He wasn’t/couldn’t be specific but said a lot of people here had voted BNP or UKIP and a lot of other people had voted for alternative leftwing parties – many more than usual.
Sunday’s results promise to be very interesting indeed.
James,
Your mention of an exit poll did raise an interesting thought. While I was at Uni here, I took a class where one thing we did was run an exit poll in the local area. Though the results tended to skew slightly (you can never nail these things perfectly without lots of weighting), even a bunch of college students with a professor could easily run an exit poll for a couple hundred dollars in copy costs and a couple of burned hours apiece.
A detailed look at the Bristol elections is telling, as this is the only large city to vote in this year’s local elections.
Labour avoided a wipe out there last night by less than a hundred votes in two wards, clinging on to 2 seats, a drop of 8 since the equivalent 2005 election. Lib Dems gained 4 as did the Tories. However, the quaint FPTP system doesn’t reveal that the biggest vote gainers were the Greens, whose mean vote in comparable wards has risen by 5.5% since 2005. In fact, while in 2005 Labour came ahead of the Greens in all of the 23 wards in Bristol this year the Greens were ahead of them in 10 of the 23 wards. Labour is indeed in a tussle for third place.
The Conservative mean vote was up by a more modest 2.7% and the Lib Dems fell slightly by 1.5%. Meanwhile, Labour dropped by an average 12.6% per ward and there are indications that they lost most votes in wards where they were clear winners in 2005, not a good omen for a GE.
For those obsessed by the BNP factor, there were no wards where they stood in both 09 and 05. However, in the two wards where they put up cadidates both this year and in 2007 (in Frome Vale and St George East), their % vote fell slightly.
Crikey, if Labour faces the same level of wipeout that the Tories were subjected to in Northern cities they might find it really hard to rebuild with such a low level of grassroots.
Point of comedy today: Labour’s “Go Fourth” campaign seems to be taking on an unintended meaning at this rate…at least, I don’t -think- they were referring to fourth place with it.
What Labour need to do now is not thinking about a way they can somehow miraculously save themselves but build the foundations for the future. They need to campaign loads in their stronghold areas to make sure they have safe seats for the future. Because if they just clumsily let it fall through then, like Clegg said, there will be no future for Labour.
Oh how they laughed at Clegg but it seems the only choice is Tories of Libs.
Full results from Lincolnshire (I know this has been partially posted, sorry, I fell asleep at 6am!)
Seats : Share of the vote
Conservatives – 60 (+14) : 46.5% (+4.2%)
Libdems – 5 (-3) : 19% (-1.8%)
Labour – 4 (-15) : 11.1% (-9.7%)
Lincolnshire Ind – 4 (+4) : 9.1% (+9.1)
Independent – 3 (-1) : 5.7% (-3.8%)
Other – 1 (+1) : 8.6% (+2%)
There are slightly inaccurate figures for gains/losses on the Lincolnshire council website, so I had to do the maths. The “Other” seat is held by an outfit called “Boston Bypass Independents”. Their share of the vote was not broken down from others.
@ WillR – it’s the EU elections rather than the locals where the BNP has been predicted to do best, due to PR.
But the big question now is surely whether Brown’s premiership will survive for hours or days.
James,
The BBC seems to be expecting him to hold on, as the wheels didn’t come off. But I think the commentary that this isn’t the reshuffle he wanted makes sense.
Also, just now it seems that the Defense Sec. stepped down (on his own, of all things) in the reshuffle.
@James. Yes, the BNP will win a seat or two at the Euros. But in some local wards their percentage vote will also run well ahead of the regional Euro vote (where they face more competition from a number of right wing lists). Look out for some gains in Lancashire, for example.
In fact, it seems we are moving into a period of greater regional and local divergence. For example, in Bristol the Greens gained (in votes if not seats); in Lincs various Independents picked up a lot of the protest vote at local level. I suspect that in the north and parts of the Midlands this is more likely to go to the BNP. To some extent it depends where the ‘other parties’ are already well planted and can appear to be an obvious alternative and the pattern of this varies quite considerably across the UK. It will be fascinating to see how this spills over into Euro voting patterns where, unlike the locals, the others are present everywhere.
@ Gray – if the BBC is right, it’s very sad. It pretty much seals Labour’s fate for god knows how many years.
@James
Personally, I think a leadership challenge is inevitable if the poll numbers fail to improve over the next month or two. If I were an MP in a marginal I’d rather have a dead cat leading my party than Brown right now, and I’d likely be conspicuously silent about the internal fracas for a few days. At least the cat would have lower disapproval ratings and be less likely to cost me my seat.
@ Gray – let’s hope so. It’s staggering that this man who has never won a general election, who has dragged down his party to historic lows, and whose government is self-evidently in meltdown, can continue to cling to office. We need a system that makes it a lot easier to oust a PM under these circumstances and which isn’t dependent upon a bunch of spineless ministers and backbenchers to make it happen.
Will R, re analysis of Bristol.
“Labour dropped by an average 12.6% per ward and there are indications that they lost most votes in wards where they were clear winners in 2005,”
One of the deficiencies in calculating UNS is that it assumes that the share of vote drops/rises uniformly.
In fact, it is much better to look at the percentage of previous vote which might shift. For example, if a party won 40% on average at previous election and falls 8%, that represents a drop of 20% of previous vote. So, in a seat where they previously had 30%, their vote would be expected to fall 6%, while in a seat where they had 60%, it would fall 12%.
Overall in Bristol, the Lab vote fell to 18.9% from 31.3% when these seats were last fought in 2005 and from 25.4% at the 2004 Euros.
This shows that compared to its previous vote, Lab has fallen by:
40% of 2005 (Last GE)
25% of 2004 (Previous Euros)
Extrpoloated to National results in those years that shows:
From 2005: 36% x 60% = 21.6%
From 2004: 22.6% x 75% = 16.95%
That translates into Westminster / Euro figures very much in line with recent Polls !
Unfortunately the BNP did quite well in Lincolnshire which is always slightly surprising since it has hardly any ethnic minorities, although there is a large Eastern European presence.
In North Norfolk Labour came bottom in every seat.IMHO UKIP and BNP might have done better. Lincolnshire Independents did well.
Gray – I think that you are right.
Brown could not take the humiliation of either being fired or beaten in an election – look at the reaction when he was called Mr Bean!
So he will take them all down out of spite – a Gotterdammerung, just like the other bunker resident who did not get his way.
Bill Rammell MP has just said on BBC News online that in Harlow wards yesterday the Tory vote was stuck at its level of last GE and that the BNP has done well? Where are the results? The BBC online list of gains & losses seem to wait for whole councils to be declared before updating the figures – hopelessly inadequate and slow….how come the BBC have been so disinterested in fulfilling their public service role of giving bang-up-to-date results this time, including no overnight programme etc etc? Risible!
Tony
The link posted by Joe James B further up takes you to the Essex figures, follow the link and then click on ‘back to Essex Map’ you can select Harlow and then the individual wards.
Thanks Denis – found them.
I agree that BBC coverage has been poor – both TV wise and online – there is no ‘live updating’ of results as they appear to promise!
I might have to get a dish and switch to Sky News – although am loathe to give Murdoch anything.
Terrible coverage from the massed media. I’m having to go to each separate county council website to keep up to date with what’s going on. If I can manage to do that (for free) why can’t they? It’s not difficult but would make things so much easier for everyone.
Staffordshire results coming in here:
http://moderngov.staffordshire.gov.uk/mgElectionResults.aspx?ID=5&RPID=333938
You only need a DigiBox to watch Sky News, not a satellite dish.
Denis,
I believe Sky News can be received for free via a dish.
Also, if you have a friend with a subscription you could ask them to set you up with a username and password and you would be able to watch live online at absolutely no cost to the friend and no need for you to install a dish.
@ Denis – you can get Sky News on Freeview. Channel 82. Loathe though I am to say it, these days Sky News is a lot better and more hardcore than the BBC News.
First Hertfordshire results from Broxbourne show BNP in teens overall, and over 20% in one ward. However, this is BNP’s strongest area in Herts, so is not indicative of a likely MEP gain in Eastern region.
Some funny results from Watford, where LDs (+8%) have gained a seat from Con (static) thanks to sharp drop (-10%) in Lab vote, but Lab increased their vote by 16% in neighbouring seat (with LD falling 11.8%.) Greens (+8%) held their seat with increased majority where Cons (+7%) were also beneficiaries of Labour collapse (-14%). Note no BNP candidates in Watford.
It’s on freeview now. Couple of channels up from BBC24. Much more populist and, dare I say it, ‘fun’!
@Tony
“Psephology” – that’s a nice word! (i thought it was a typo at first)
“en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psephology”
—
@jimjam
“Him and Blears are finisihed in the Labour Party for top jobs”
What top jobs?! There aren’t going to be any very soon anyway!
—
@ Gray, surely one of the most telling things is that the LibDems are not profiting at all.
Aren’t there very practical structural reasons why the issue of Labour leadership can’t be resolved?
I can think of little worse for Labour and the country for us to have a summer without a leader during one of the greatest national crises in modern history, can you? Labour seem to be trapped in a choice between the frying pan and the fire.
Brown is not only stubborn, he’s got a PhD entitled:
“The Labour Party and Political Change in Scotland 1918-29″, I’m sure he’s fully aware of the negative precedents he’s at risk of setting …the irony is choice: being backstabbed and briefed into ignominy.
—
Andy Stidwill
“the B-NP did quite well in Lincolnshire which is always slightly surprising since it has hardly any ethnic minorities, although there is a large Eastern European presence.”
So not so surprising then.
—
Tony, I’m quite sure the BBC appatchiks are reluctant to report the success of the B-NP; and are more likely to report with disdain towards the elections in general, following the old addage: “disdain what you cannot have”. They will doubtless say things like: these are not proper elections; the votes don’t really matter; the public need more education (i.e. re-education); etc ad nauseam… …but the Beeb have their own impending crisis …the inevitable end of the licence fee; and in the shorter term, the likely assault on their financial transparency and expenses by a vengeful parliament.
Thanks Paul HJ for the number crunching with it seems to be a sensible methodology.Euro results will probably be even lower than 21-21% for Labour due to more alternatives.Also – I guess if a poll was carried out today they would poll comfortably below 20.John Curtis on BBC adds up votes in wards that makes up seats and is he saying bad for Labour, of course, – 10% or more but also LD’s only treading water and Cons up a modest 4-6% which he says will be disappopinting for them.Cameron wants an election now as it does not take much to bring the Cons down to NOC in GE.One big bad story for them could see 5% come off which is enough.Watch the media come after the ‘Goverment in waiting’ if Labour trials become tiresome from anews perspective – Ashcroft, Camerons Mortgage Interest etc.
“Paul H-J
First Hertfordshire results from Broxbourne show BNP in teens overall, and over 20% in one ward. However, this is BNP’s strongest area in Herts, so is not indicative of a likely MEP gain in Eastern region. ”
True dat.
What I notice about the progress of ethnocentric parties in Europe, is that there appear to be certain thresholds…
We saw the breakthrough threshold of “mid-teens” polling occuring in Austria and Switzerland; and now in Holland, and perhaps signs of it here.
The reality is that Labour is in a tailspin that they can’t pull out of – a lame duck or a cluster phuck over the summer, and support is being siphoned off into various other political directions… the best thing I believe they can do, is bail out, let the Labour party die (as the old Liberal party did), and set up a new “clean”party, that is redesigned from first principles to be fit for purpose for the current century, rather than the last.
Tories appear to be on the verge of taking Somerset:
Con 29
LD 20
LAB 2
7 to declare (mendip)
Brown – the clever old fox. They say that in politics timing is everything! If the locals had been declared last night and we woke up to “Labour slaughtered” meltdown would have happened – the delay in results, and BBC foot-dragging over announcing those already declared has enabled Brown to move the BBC agenda to his reshuffle rather than results. BBC is saying almost nothing so far about shares of votes, just headline whole council results. All the talk on reshuffle is babble as it is a non-reshuffle – just slotting in a few old hands at the gaps -no major moves in the other top four posts…but Brown has conned the BBC onto his news agenda, instead of election results. By Sunday Euro results will be disastrous for Labour, but stale as too old at three days later than polling. The delay in counting and results has effectively changed our system from instant healthy Anglo-American “hire and fire” by the voters, to news management by the political classes pending already discounted results when they are finally counted and declared. Do others agree with this analysis?
Jim Jam
The Conservatives may be disappointed by only gaining 4-6%, but in a GE situation they will pick up a lot of UKIPs votes so any gains they make in euro or local elections will likely be smaller than they’d get in a GE.
It’s going to be very interesting come Monday.
The BBC’s election map is showing the Tories as having taken control of Devon and Somerset.
@ JimJam – the BBC might spin Tory gains as “disappointing” and “modest” but their modesty is almost certainly due to the fact that the Tories already dominated local government in England anyway so were in all likelihood close to their zenith to begin with.
Link to Warwickshire live results
http://www.coventrytelegraph.net/news/coventry-news/2009/06/04/election-results-2009-live-blog-92746-23789465/
So far after about half of Leicester has been called it currently shows BNP with nearly 16% of the vote!! Insane and scary.
In my county, Staffordshire, Labour have so far managed to win 2 seats. Incredible.
BBC Projected Nationsl Share:
Labour – 23%
Conservative – 38%
Liberal Democrats – 28%
Others – 10%
BBC reporting that on these figures, Labour will do well to break 20% in the Euros.
This shows the Tories have been damaged slightly by the expenses scandal in terms of the share of the vote but not in terms of winning councils and council seats since the other parties have done even worse for those or other reasons.
According to the BBC, the national share of the vote is as follows:
Con 38%
Lib 28%
Lab 23%
Plugging these into Electoral Calculus gives interesting results:
Con 340
Lab 184
Lib 96
Con majority of 30
So dispite LibDems outpacing Lab by 5% in the populare vote, then still only get half the number of seats
Sky News have predicted a Tory majority of 22 seats based on the local election results.
Andrew
You wrote “So dispite LibDems outpacing Lab by 5% in the popular vote, then still only get half the number of seats”
Yes, indeed. When I was a professional member of the Liberal national By-election team and Area Agent for the Home Counties under Secretary General Andy Ellis from 1985-89, we used to refer to this phenomenon of the FPTP system as the “Glass Ceiling” against us. It is what makes FPTP fundamentaly anti-democratic in outcome, if not intent.
Trouble is those elected under it have a vested interest in its maintenance – a bit like unregulated expenses really! However, having said that I fear Jenkins AV+ because any list system risks giving seats to the BNP in top-up mode. Would rather keep FPTP than risk that. Perhaps Irish STV in smaller 3 member returns would be a safer reform?
@ Andrew – as has been discussed here before, local election results aren’t really accurate predictors of general election results. If they were, the Tories would have won the 2005 General Election.
@ Tony
Electoral systems should be based on how best to represent to populace, not which party you wish not to be represented………
That’s quite a disgusting attitude.
Sam
So why do most countries have a 5% minimum for list representations then, if not to keep out undesirables?
As a supporter of electoral reform – specifically STV – I rather hope for a result at the next election like Andrew Kennedy is showing. If the LibDems get half the number of Labour seats despite clear (orange?) water between them this will surely put pressure on the major parties as it will deny the main Opposition party the legitimacy of their position.
Hoon has resigned from the cabinet.
Leslie
I agree with your sentiments, however, I do not share your confidence that they could be “shamed” into conceding PR even if this happened. We need a scenario where naked self-interest bounces a major party’s MPs into thinking they would rescue more by switching systems than facing a wipe-out under FPTP….er, wait a minute…Labour MPs now perhaps?!!! Come on comrades the time is right if you want to save some of your necks eh?!!! (Tee! Hee!)
Cons win control of Staffordshire
Derbyshire goes to Conservative control, previously Labour’s safest county.
Hoon has resigned (damn, Andy got in first!)
Heck, it’s just one thing after another today! Politics hasn’t been the interesting before in my entire lifetime!
@ Tony, Jame, Leslie, et al
Yes, I know that these are not values that we can expect to see in a GE (everything is up in the air at present), but I just pluggen them into the calculator to see what would happen.
And with the FPTP ‘anomoly’ for Lib -vs- Lab, and on the subject of Electoral reform, does anyone know when the boundary committee are next scheduled to consider boundary changes, and (hopefully) rebalance the system a little?
I can’t understand why some pundits are saying Brown’s position has improved during the day. In terms of results, things just seem to be getting worse for him.
Oops, sorry, that was supposed to be…
@ Tony, James, Leslie, et al
I’m predicting 8-11% on Sunday for the BNP. They have performed so strongly in some counties that they are bound to gain at least 2 MEPs.
The Greens will do well as well which is deserved as their campaign has been very good.
The Greens beat Labour in my local ward which is quite a decent performance from them since they’ve never stood before in the area. I agree the BNP is doing very well in places like Leicestershire and Lincolnshire.
Andy
Viz Brown’s position – as I wrote earlier, his position has improved because the results are too late…he has successfully moved the lead news item from election results to cabinet reshuffle which takes the heat off him. If we had counted overnight I feel sure he would now be on the ropes – but the fact is that an adminstrative changed has saved his neck today, and therefore probably doomed between 170 to 200 of Labour’s 370 MPs to defeat next year……unless they jump for amalgamating three FPTP constituencies into STV 3 member return constituencies instead throughout the country in an urgent Bill in the next few months – which could save about half of these 170 potential losers on these results. They won’t do it of course, and thus I expect Cameron to be in Downing Street by next Summer. Anyone but Brown would stand a better chance to turn it round to some extent for them…but I suspect they have bottled out of doing it.
Apparently the Greens are having a hard time in Oxfordshire – anyone got the results?
Ian Gibson has just resigned too, with immediate effect.
And Margret Beckett is stepping down as a minister. I cant keep up.
A Tory gain in Norwich North by-election must be very likely.
Ian Gibson has a majority of around 5500 I think – and he has resigned from the Labour party and will be running on an anti-Labour ticket, which could be very popular. Not clear cut I don’t think.
So far things are looking good for the Conservatives in Cornwall. Largest party, and not too far short of a majority. A fair number of wards still to be announced though.
Andrew Kennedy,
Electoral Calculus using UNS.
As I have mentioned before, UNS is imprecise – especially as on the swings we have seen yersterday there will be a large number of seats in England with negative Labour votes !
However, what we almost certainly will see at the next GE is anti-Lab tactical voting. This has already happened in the Council elections – just look at my own county Hertfordshire) where Lab have been reduced to 3 seats – losing some to LD, but most to Con.
So, had this been a GE, I would expect Lab to have lost more than 200 of its 350 MPs and be in the region of 100-125 MPs. LDs would probably still be behind them on around 100, but it would not be a case of LDs having half as many MPs on a larger share of the vote.
Peter Hain is returning to the cabinet – surely that means Labour is history.
I’m wondering if the overall share of the vote will be more favourable for the Tories than the 38/23/28 split that the BBC have been reporting for a couple of hours. It seems as though more recent declarations have shown a larger swing against Labour – in the 15-20% range in Lancashire and Derbyshire.
McNulty is leaving. Don’t know if that’s new or not.
I think it’s safe to say that the Beeb’s predictions will be more favourable to Labour, and less favourable to the Conservatives, than the actual result.
McNulty leaving is new, not sure yet if he was sacked or if he is resigning.
BBC are giving changes of Labour -1%, C -6%, LD +3%.
Officially it’s a resignation but may really be a sacking according to David Dimbleby.
@ Neil – McNulty has resigned.
As concerns the BBC projections of 38/23/28, I believe they say this is what would happen if the vote swings were repeated nationwide. You cannot take this result which would show a 2.5 pt swing C > Lab over last year with a different set of councils contested, but rather compared to 2005. Comparing it to the GE in 2005 might be suitable. Then the swing is 9 pts Lab > C, so if it is 15 pts in some parts of the North, where Labour has more to lose, what is the surprise?
The results for today alone will certainly give the Tories more than a 15 pt lead over Labour. All in all, it could have been better for everyone involved…except maybe the Liberals.
Caroline Flint gone.
Flint has gone
Argh! Too slow!
Andy,
Where are you getting those BBC figures, and what are the changes being compared against ?
Every County I have looked at in detail is showing double-digit reduction in Lab vote on 2005 when these seats were last contested.
Glenys Kinnock to be minister for Europe!
This is not even funny anymore, how many unelected people are we going to have?
Well, Labour’s net losses are running over half of their seats still…and that’s with the total number of seats up having been increased. I think they’re actually losing more like 3/5 the seats they “should” be winning. It’s interesting seeing them blown down into a weak third.
Also, interesting point in the Telegraph blog: That 38-28-23 Con-Lib-Lab split of the vote is actually an improvement for the Libs of about 3 points over last time. They’re just losing ground, it would seem, because Labour is tumbling so hard (and because of where the councils are too, I suspect; note the major pickups in Bristol). I’m suspecting tactical anti-Labour voting to some extent is to blame for their losses in the SW.
Oh, wow…here’s one heck of a result: The English Democrats elected a mayor. I suspect there were a -huge- number of second prefs that didn’t even consider him to be a realistic choice.
Ugh. Kinnock in Parliament. I feel sick.
Brown’s press conference is embarassing. You could almost feel sorry for him.
Paul H-J: those are the BBC’s projected shares, and the comparison is with last year’s local elections.
lancashire is Blue
Does anyone know what the record for most resignations in 1 day is? or 1 week for that matter?
What is teh BBC playing at ?
On their elections site they are showing Nottinghamshire as “Lab lose to NOC” with no details of seats to date.
On Wednesday, seats were;
Lab 35
Con 26
LD 5
Ind 1
Giving Lab a majority of 3 on a council of 67 – 34 needed for a majority of 1.
On the County web-site they are showing 47 out of 67 seats declared with:
Con 32
Lab 8
LD 4
Ind 3
With 20 seats left to declare do the Beeb really believe that Cons will win no more than 1 of these ?
They’re obviously waiting for formal confirmation of the final result.
Wow, this is just incredible stuff. Caroline Flint is not very happy with Gordon!
Kate Hoey is sticking the knife in now too.
Caroline Flint accuses Brown of using her as “female window dressing.”
Listening to Kate Hoey I think it is fairly likely to defect.
Latest from Cornwall:
Conservatives – 41
Libdems – 25
Independents – 23
Mebyon Kernow – 2
23 Independents? Could I check that number somewhere? It just feels a little on the high side, even for today.
I checked the Cornwall government site. Good grief! I knew that was one of Labour’s weakest areas, but they’ve basically been reduced to an asterisk there.
Yeah…I’m running through individual seats, and I’ve seen them in third once (and that’s also their only 20%+ seat). Other than that, they’re almost universally a -distant- fourth (or fifth…or sixth) and in single digits where they even bothered. I’ve even seen Labour candidates under 5% on several occasions.
Is anyone keeping a tally of Labour MP’s opposed to Gordon Brown? If he’s brought in Glenys Kinnock and Alan Sugar he must be desperate. Shawn Woodward was putting it about he would be Home Secretary – he can’t be best pleased at being made to look a fool.
Nottinghamshire
Following up on Paul H-J’s comment, the Telegraph live blog says “Labour have lost power in Nottinghamshire to no overall control, although they remain the largest party” but the Notts CC twitter site has
Results so far: Conservatives 33 seats, Labour 11, Lib Dems 7, independent candidates 5. Still to be declared: 11 seats.
(with two more declared since then, one to Lab and one to Ind).
It’s interesting that the LDs are projected to win 28% in the local elections because their share in the Euro elections on Sunday night could be as much as 15% lower than that, or to put it another way their vote could be half as much.
Nick Robinson on the situation in Labour:
“Gordon Brown is stronger than he was, but not by much. Ministers face a choice, as one told me, between a slow, lingering death if they keep him, and instant death if he goes.”
@ Gray – “I knew that was one of Labour’s weakest areas, but they’ve basically been reduced to an asterisk there.”
Lol! Best line I’ve read all day
@ Wolf – “If he’s brought in Glenys Kinnock and Alan Sugar he must be desperate.”
The way Brown is going, we’ll soon have an entire government consisting of people no one has elected to office.
Then we can go bomb another dusty beige-coloured country in order to convince it of the superiority of democracy.
Given the nature of FPTP, the Conservatives are surely on course for a majority of well over 100 (looking at where the gains have been made) and not the modest 20 plus that Sky are predicting. Ultimately, in a GE there are only three parties in it, and the Tories have fared best.
I must say that I’m amused how many Labour ministers are in the House of Lords. That Gordon Brown appears unable to find competent MPs and has to resort to placeholders appointed to the house of Lords to complete his cabinet is a complete and utter condemnation of the quality of Labour MPs.
Indeed CYNOSARGES.
Glenys Kinnock!!!!
A “fresh new face” according to Harperson-which tells you everything you need to know about the Brown Bunker.
Labour 23 % -1%, C 38 % -6%, LD 28 % +3%. That is an interesting BBC comparison with Local Elections in 2008.
Labour support is at bedrock, it hasn’t fallen much further. Performance slightly better than polls. Huge losses in Council seats, but remember the last time these were all contested was at the last general election, which of course Labour won.
Conservatives, 38 %. Performance slightly less than than polls. It would seem that they have punished as well afterall for the moats and the duckponds.
Conservatives and Labour will lose EU seats on Sunday. I’m not UKIP, but they will do well.
The 38/23/28 reported by the BBC was very early in the day. I wonder if it is still accurate. I remember it was being suggested that the Tories were seeing underwhelming results at that time. That turned out not to be the case though.
Not to mention what the events of the last day or two might do to those figures even if they are correct.
I would have thought that there would be a figure for the turnout at least? Why is there any? They are not results.
There was a projected turnout share given by the BBC which is 37%.
Today’s results just re-enforce what I’ve thought for a long time – that the Conservatives are simply not doing well enough now to win outright at a general election.
Voters have given Labour a kick in the teeth, but they seem to be at their absolute base – hardly any worse than last year and not that much worse than the local elections a year before the 2005 GE.
Yet, there seems to be no direct swing from Labour to Tory, suggesting at least some of that protest vote will return at a Westminster election.
Another few quid on a hung parliament I think.
We have all enjoyed ourselves on this website over the past 24 hours, many of us using it as a communication system in abscence of any overnight coverage by the main media. For this we must thank Anthony’s indulgence, as I feel we have all stretched the point of this his website about Opinion Polling to the limit, filling it with news and comment instead. I notice Anthony has not commented yet about any of the results, allowing we amateurs to debate freely the implications. First of all, thank you Anthony for hosting this site – and secondly, what do you make of what has happened relative to prior Opinion Poll predictions?
I’d like to second that sentiment Tony, thanks Anthony!
@Cynosarges: ‘So is this “EU law”, or just the usual ham-fisted British misinterpretation of an EU proposal?’
The latter. The publishing of exit polls before 10pm on the last day of European Parliament elections became an imprisonable offence in Britain in 2004. The British government claimed that the new law implemented a decision by the European Council, but the Council had merely called for a ban on releasing official results before all polls had closed: it hadn’t mentioned exit polls or other unofficial estimates. Britain is the only member state with such a ban. (Makes you proud, dunnit?)
The new crime was introduced by statutory instrument after being scrutinised by a House of Commons standing committee and debated in the House of Lords. Allegedly. The following is the only relevant exchange in either the committee or the Lords.
Lord Rooker (Secretary of State): The publication of exit polls before close of poll will become an offence, liable to fine or imprisonment. [...]
Baroness Hanham (Conservative): I welcome the fact that exit polls will not be published before the close of polls. That is long overdue. Such publication has had a dramatic effect in many places and the legislation has been required for some time. I welcome that. What I had not picked up when I read the regulations was that the counting of votes will start before the close of polls. That is most unusual. Perhaps I misunderstood what the Minister said.
Lord Rooker: My Lords, the misunderstanding has probably arisen because of my inadequate explanation. The counting of the European elections, which this year take place on Thursday 10 May, has always been held back in this country until late on Sunday evening when all the polls have closed in the rest of Europe. It will now be open to the returning officer, if he wishes, to start counting before the close of polls across Europe which could be on the Friday, the Saturday or early on the Sunday. It would not happen before the close of polls in this country.
Baroness Hanham: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that explanation. I was wondering how all the ballot boxes were going to be opened before the close of polls. If I had given it a moment’s thought I might have realised, but thank you for that explanation.
There was no further discussion of exit polls.
It’s quite clear that Baroness Hanham approved of the ban on exit polls so effusively only because she had misunderstood the nature of the ban. She thought it restricted publication until after voting had finished in Britain (which was already the case) rather than in the whole of the EU.
So much for parliamentary scrutiny. What about the press?
As far as I can tell, the printed media accepted the new restriction on their activities without comment.
So it was a mixture of the usual gold-plating by Whitehall draftsmen, the usual incompetence of parliament and the usual indifference of the rest of us. All in all, ‘ham-fisted’ is a fair description.
(Legislative paper-trail: Council Decision 2002/772/EC, Explanatory Memorandum on the Election of Representatives of the European Parliament (01/12/03), and Statutory Instrument 2004 No. 293.)
I’ll second your sentiment as well, Tony. Thanks, Anthony!
I couldn’t agree more with the last three comments. We are supposed to be discussing opinion polling.
Fair enough Tony… hugs all round.
Moderating forums is a tedious endeavour; and some of us have been in danger of taking Anthony for granted.
I think it’s fair to say that recent events have got us all excited about politics for the first time in ages.
So apologies for indulging in excessive “right to reply”.
Excellent results for both Tories and Lib Dems. It suggests both will do a bit better than the last Yougov. poll results.
Regarding the Lib Dems it is important to remember that at the last Council Election they gained 23% at the GE.
I am fairly confident we shall soon see the Lib Dems polling 23 to 24% and Labour 19 to 21% a few times. And if this happens we could see the Lib Dems rise still further.
When people talk of an “absolute base”. I would suggest that the only “Absolute base” is 0 votes.
The Liberal Party doubtless never believed the would be permanently, so far, out of power for so long. Perhaps the time when the Labour Party has taken itself so far from its former constituency that it will never get it back? Maybe another party will take Labours niche?
…both will do a bit better IN THE EURO ELECTION than the last last Yougov Euro poll results.
Promsan: I find it ironic that we’re getting excited while turnout is cratering.
Honestly, is there a good forum we could all go to (or start up) so we don’t take Tony for granted over the weekend?
One of the less commented on features of this election is how depleted the Labour ranks have become across much of the country. With (for example) Staffordshire having just 3 Labour councillors (out of 62) how much more difficult will it be for the party to campaign at the next election. After the scale of defeat at the local level, will Labour be able to put the troops on the ground, come the general election?
Well, it did and it didn’t. It depleted one set of ranks (the County Councils) catastrophically, but it’s also only one set (and one where Labour tended to be weak in general). In many of these councils, they lost a large % of their seats, but as far as numbers of seats they only lost a few (as they only had, say, 2-5 to begin with in some cases).
As Cynosarges points out, in my local county of Staffordshire Labour now have to defend marginals like Tamworth and Stafford with no county councillors at all. They were lucky to hold 2 in Burton by very small majorities.
A great night for the tories, many a supporter will be celebrating tonight, and a good result for the Lib Dems, even though they lost a council their vote shares over the country went alot high coming second place in the majority of the counties.
Both will be celebrating tonight while Labour goes off to lick its wounds…..
Cant wait for the Euro results or the next westminister poll.
@Vinny
Actually, that does make me proud to be British. Of course results from one country shouldn’t be public before another has voted, and if we are the only country taking that seriously then good on us.
@General Discussion
I recall a Tory MP discussing a similar problem to this a year or 2 ago when they were behind Labour saying that the lack of Councillors in Northern Cities meant very little ground operation. He cited an example in Sheffield where the last Tory councillor was wiped out in 2008 and said it would be very hard for the Tories to campaign there given only the constituency party was left, nothing else.
That 38/23/28 vote share would give the conservatives about a 60 seat majority at a GE, which would be acceptable for a party out of power for 13 years. Normal caveats apply from extrapolating from locals to national, plus things are very strange at the moment anyway.
As an odd aside, would it be illegal to take an exit poll in the UK but only publish it overseas (sort of like that spying book debacle some years back)?
@Quincel
So you think exit polls are results?
@Vinny
No, but I think they’re close enough to influence voting quite notably. Indeed there is an argument to say we should ban all polling for a few days before elections, but since they don’t seem to influence voting that much it probably isn’t necessary.
@Quincel: Mexico does that, actually. There’s about a 10-day ban on polling right before an election.
@Quincel
Well, do they or don’t they?
@Gray
Illegal where?
The results of another exit poll, this time from Ireland, will be broadcast tomorrow morning on Irish radio.
Ireland held European and local elections on Friday.
I’ve been amazed at the lengths the BBC have gone to in order to downplay the Tories success in these local elections.
They’re still peddling old figures on the news at this late hour instead of the final results.
The idea that today has been anything other than a complete and utter annihilation by a suprisingly dominant Tory party is laughable.
Final result is that the Tories gained 20% in councillors and won nearly every Council!
the Libs lost 10% of their councillors and 2 councils and Labour have practically ceased to exist at local level in England.
I would suggest that that’s as good as it gets.
Final results? When I last checked not all councils had declared…
When you last checked *where* Jack? If its the BBC you are checking for this information then thats Ivan’s point.
Many hours ago they stopped updating their info on their site with Con +217 seats, Lab -250, LD -8.
news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/elections/local_council/09/map/html/map.stm
Here is what Sky have been showing for hours now:
news.sky.com/skynews/Interactive-Graphics/Locals2009
Con +285, Lab -329, LD -48
Con 30 councils, Lab 0, LD 1, NOC/OTHER 3
Poor BBC. Same goes for that Guardian reporter on Sky News tonight. What cuckoo land that guy was in.
Ian Hislop on HIGNFY’s filming on Thursday night: “By time this [show] comes out three resignations in a day may be nothing!”
He didnt really mean it of course. LOL.
I love all the unintentional humor that’s coming from this…
M,
I’m going to give the BBC the benefit of the doubt on this one and suggest that someone went to bed early. If they don’t have it fixed by tomorrow afternoon I’ll start wagging my finger, but not before.
I think Suffolk is the only place left to declare now (they held over one division for counting later)
In Bristol we met many Lib Dem and Labour local voters switching to the Greens for the Euros – so we are hopeful for an MEP in the South West
9.40am Saturday. I have just got up and checked the BBC local elections results page and see it is still hopelessly out of date given what else I have read here, and Anthony’s report that only one Suffolk ward is yet to declare. In the past the BBC have always been so good with their coverage of elections, but this time it has been desultory and verging on the shambolic, with out-of-date analysis etc. Some of their reporters in the sticks were “spinning” so badly that even Dimbleby had to prompt them to announce things they were deliberately ignoring, as in the chap in Lancashire who failed to mention at all the LibDem clean sweep in Burnley bar one to the BNP, all from Labour. The way the BBC were bounced by Brown onto the non-reshuffle and off the election results I believe has actually aided his survival and thus the BBC have actually had an impact and interfered by the editorial choices with political history: This is very naughty – has there been a change of personell who run these things at the Beeb Anthony?
I would agree that yesterdays (and still todays!) coverage of the elections on the BBC was abysmal.
I’m not even sure it was all down to bias toward their Labour ‘comrades’ either. I think it was just poor quality full stop.
I notice that the papers are quoting BBC results and projected vote shares this morning, thus perpetuating out of date info. I can just about remember the days when Reuters would report on behalf of all newspapers and provide an accurate and up to date results services for elections. Nowadays it appears that the Beeb have the monopoly.
Is there any chance that the 38:23:28 projected vote split can be updated? It’s based on results up to around 2pm yesterday, yet the BBC have been reporting it as gospel ever since.
I doubt it’s deliberate bias, especially as Labour spokespeople were given a hard time by BBC reporters yesterday, but I suspect that Labour actually did 1-2% worse than the figures claimed, and the Tories 1-2% better.
The BBC’s “coverage” of the election results was appalling. I have never seen such overtly partial and distorted coverage from them. They colluded with Brown’s drip-feed reshuffle distraction strategy shamelessly. It will be a long time before I trust the BBC again.
Following up my last point, does anyone know of a site that has the actual “official” results including shares of the vote? i.e. a site that represents local governmen not the media?
There was no bias form the BBC. All you want is the BBC to be a fanzine for the tory party. They have a special newsnight on today on the PM. How can you say they are playing this down. The tories got under 40% be real everyone knows it is not a historically spectacular result for the tories. Why does the BBC have to pretend it is? The Lib Dems got their highest public ratings ever. It was good night for the lib dems,.
Richard B
I think it’s cock-up rather than conspiracy. That Brown stole the headlines with his reshuffles is undeniable, but that was a legitimate news story for the BBC to lead on, especially as – as they made very clear throughout the day – it was forced on Brown and brought forward from Monday. The election results were a growing story as the day progressed, as more results came in, but in the morning he reshuffle was undoubtedly the big news.
I doubt that there was even news management by 10 Downing Street, let alone collusion by the BBC. And if you look at today’s press headlines, theye are hardly reflective of an effective spin campaign by Labour. With the sole exception of the Mirror, they must make grim reading for Brown and his colleagues.
Even Nick Robinson – whose blogs generally supportive of Labour – was putting the boot in last night on the Ten O’Clock news.
The main problem with the BBC coverage was how slow it was. It was far behind Sky both on results and resignations.
It probably wasn’t deliberate but it does show how slack the BBC has become in recent years.
I think I must also defend the BBC here as well. If the tories had got well over 40 % then that would be a spectacular result. 38 % is a good result, but not spectacular is it? and I think the BBC have pitched it right. Along with Labour, the tories hae been punished as well to an extent for all those tory piggies with their noses in the expenses trough. I would also say again that the last time these elections were contested was 2005, on the same night as the general election, which of course Labour won on a much higher turnout. It was inevitable that Labour had much to lose.
By instinct I would like to defend the BBC as I do not believe they are institutionally biased towards any political grouping. I can remember periods when Labour claimed the Beeb was Tory biased, so if they get bricks thrown at them from both sides I think their pitch re-political bias is about right. However, my criticism is that they have become so sloppy about gathering electoral results (if Gray, Neil, Andy and I can do it fiddling around on-line overnight, I am sure a single bod at the Beeb could?!!) and so easily bounced by Downing St onto the non-reshuffle it shows that sloppy editorial control has led to them prefering an easy life of valueing and covering Westminster village tittle-tattle rather than the actual votes of millions of people. To lead on the reshuffle rather than the ballot box results was I am sure not deliberate but sloppy and by default influencing events. How many more cabinet ministers (like Miliband) might have jumped if the BBC was leading on the Labour results massacre?
I don’t see the BBC as being biased at all, to not report Browns reshuffle would have been ridiculous, and the general message from them on the three parties was pretty accurate I think: Terrible for labour but that was what we were expecting, a mixed bag for the Lib Dems, good for cons on the day but not GE winning form. To fall share of the vote wise by 6% is simply not a good result in terms of a GE coming up, even if they do have some thick silver linings to point at.
If anyone really thinks they’re biased, go look at the website: headlines ‘Tories triumph in local elections’ ‘Labour loses council strongholds’ ‘Tories romp home in Lincolnshire’. If the BBC were wikipedia those would get chucked out for being too pro-tory….
On another issue of the data being somehow ‘out of date’, I doubt it…..I believe it is specific areas results they wanted to use: the elections yesterday were mostly rural, to use all of them wouldn’t be a realistic representation of the UK, it was the urban results they needed to make the comparison….tbh there’s probably a lot more to it than that too, but I can’t see them issuing revised figures, and I imagine if you asked they’d tell you that there was nothing to revise.
I think these elections show pretty clearly that even what most people see as an unimportant punishment vote for the main parties Labour has roughly 1/4 of the pop behind it. The only way for Labour is up….even if they carry on bumping along the bottom for a few months,the party will rally round as the election looms and they’re bound to regain some of what they lost to ‘others’. For cons, hard to tell whether they could get back to ~45% when the moats etc die away….or whether this is them on a high and the only way is down. I can’t see lib dems getting 28% in GE, but ya never know…..
@ Wood – “I think these elections show pretty clearly that even what most people see as an unimportant punishment vote for the main parties Labour has roughly 1/4 of the pop behind it.”
I wouldn’t count on it. In local elections, a proportion of voters will make a distinction between local councillors and the government. If they regard their local Labour councillors as decent people doing a good job, they will still vote for them regardless of how they feel about the parliamentary Labour Party. In a slightly different way, I’m an example myself of this sort of voting – there’s one local councillor I vote for every time because she’s a great local councillor, very hardworking, very involved, very accessible. But I’d never vote for her party in a general election.
Also, according to the BBC the final (34/34) results are
Cons +233 to 1476 councillors, +7 councils to 30
Lib Dems -4 to473 councillors, -1 council to 1
Labour -273 to 176 councillors, -4 councils to 0
Other changes of note, BNP get their first 3 councillors, and NOC councils down from 5 to 3.
UKIP get 6 councillors, Greens an extra 6 giving them 16, and an extra 37 others, now 164 in total.
Basically a conservative bluewash with the exception of Lib-Dem Bristol, and minor parties/independants making gains on all sides.
Paul Goddard,
But did the Tories get 38%? Is there somewhere else you are getting that from other than the BBC or a paper using the BBC’s numbers? If so then fair enough. Please share! Unfortunately I cant seem to find anything attributable to anyone other than the BBC. And the point some people are making is that the 38/23/28 numbers from the BBC were actually extrapolated very early in the day yesterday. Very early in the counting. And at the time it did look like the Tories were having an underwhelming day. Even Sky were sticking it to people like William Hauge and claiming the Tories were doing OK but not great.
That mood changed as the day went on, and most were surprised at the final seat numbers. The BBC, however, continued to talk about the same 38/23/28 numbers they had extrapolated eight hours earlier.
People just want to know if those numbers turned out to be representative. I dont think it is unreasonable to doubt them. There was a definite mood change, as the day went on, that those who followed all day would have detected.
@James, I would have agreed with you until Labour lost Derbyshire.
The info between Sky and BBC still differs noticeably.
news.sky.com/skynews/Interactive-Graphics/Locals2009
news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/elections/local_council/09/map/html/map.stm
BBC say LD lost 4 seats, Sky say they lost 48. BBC say Lab lost 273 seats, Sky say 329. Who is right?
@M bloody good point…..looking at it I suspect Sky is right….that’s a co<k up and a half….
I suspect Sky and the BBC are using a different yardstick for gains and losses. If you compare losses and gains of sitting councillors then Labour’s losses are more dramatic. If you compare ward results with last time ward was electing (ignoring which councillor was defending) then Labour’s ‘losses’ were fewer. Could this be the explanation?
Tony Dean,
I dont know. But shouldnt the “Total Seat” info still match?
@M
Yes, indeed! What a cock-up this all is! Nobody is sure what has happened. Perhaps a group of us should volunteer to help the BBC get things right next time for free as a civic duty?
The other way approaches could differ is the new unitary authorities – whether they are treated as brand new (so change), or changes from what they would notionally have been.
On the share of the vote, the BBC figures will be the only ones for the time being. Rallings and Thrasher’s figures don’t come out for a while.
The Lib Dems were the only big party to increase their stake in the popular vote yet they still lost seats, is this because they don’t do as much tactical voting anymore?
With regard to the gains and losses, we had this last year … I think it’s due to Sky including notional gains and losses on the new unitary authorities and where there have been boundary changes. I’m rather annoyed but only as on the pb.com 2009 prediction competition (in which I am doing abysmally) I had Lib Dems as -50 …!
On the 38-23-28, remember this is an extrapolation to national performance, ie it adjusts for there being no elections in Labour strongholds like Scotland, Wales and the big cities. Labour would have got far less than 23% in votes cast in county elections, the C far more than 38% – as the proportion of seats they won indicates.
However we can expect both the Conservative and Labour to do far worse in the Euros. As the combined total is surely going to be well under the 50% they got betwen them in 2004, it’s looking like about say 29% and 16% to me – which would suggest Labour may well ‘finish’ third or even fourth.
That’ll renew the pressure!
@ Wood – I’m not saying it doesn’t affect local elections. Far from it. But there is a proportion of voters who will cut local Labour councillors a break that they wouldn’t cut the government, which means Labour’s 23% share of the local election vote may not be matched in a general election.
As has been suggested by others, I find it almost impossible to believe that the BBC % figures for the parties (particularly labour) are correct. I have been to a number of County sites for their individual results and each one seems to show a massive decline in labour % vote since the last elcction 2005.
Has anyone tried to check the percentages yet?
It’s interesting to compare the 2004 projections with the 2004 Euro election. The BBC’s projected share in 2004 was: C – 38%, LD – 29%, Lab – 26%. Rallings and Thrasher’s projected share in 2004 was: C – 37%, LD – 27%, Lab – 26%. The 2004 Euro election result was: C – 26.7%, Lab – 22.6%, LD – 14.9%.
The BBC’s current projection for 2009 is: C – 38%, LD – 28%, Lab – 23%. If the change was the same between the BBC’s projection and the Euro results as in 2004 the result of the Euro election this year would be: C – 26.7%, Lab – 19.6%, LD – 13.9%. (We’ll have to wait for this year’s Rallings and Thrasher projection). I think the Labour share will probably be about 2-3% lower than 19.6% because more Labour voters than in 2004 will probably drift off to the minor parties because disillusionment with Labour seems to be a lot higher this year than in 2004. If that’s correct the Euro result would be something like: C – 27%, Lab – 17%, LD – 14%.
Is there still a motion this week by the nationalists to dissolve parliament and if so when is it
Andy,
The 2004 projected national shares are also interesting when compared with the actual 2005 General Election shares.As you say the 2004 shares were Con 38 Lab 26 LIBDem 29 – Con lead 12(over Lab). A year later the General Election resulted in Con 33 Lab 36 LibDem 23 – Lab lead of 3. This represented a swing of 7.5% from Con to Lab 2004 -2005.
We are now tod that the 2009 shares are Con 38 Lab 23 – LibDem 28 -Con lead 15 (over Lab). If the same swing of 7.5% were to occur 2009/2010 Lab/Con would be level pegging!
I am not predicting this – but it offers an interesting perspective.
@ Graham
Labour probably got that swing back to them because the economy was doing well and the conservatives were stillpulling themselves together, Labour had done alot of good then.
Now the situation is completly different, Labour is doing little to nothing right, Brown has his cabinet crumbling apart, backstabberss in the poarty, Labour’s support is collapsing, their govt. is clearly exhausted and dieing. It would take a hell of alot more to make any large swing to labour like in 2004.
Surely the so-called swing-back between 2004 and 2005 simply reflects that many people would have voted against the government in 2004 as a “safe” protest while reverting to Labour at the general election. I don’t think that local election results provide very much information at all on GE voting patterns. Since 1997, Labour have been losing ground in local elections while winning two further GEs. There used to be an old adage about voting Tory locally to encourage efficient local services, but Labour nationally to maintain social spending.
Despite all the talk by parties about “real votes” telling the true pictiure, I think that opinion poll questions about voting intention at a GE are much more valuable as a predictor for the next GE than local election votes, and would still be predicting a comfortable victory for David Cameron despite the fall in the local election.projections. Of ourse, that’s this week! Right now, a day is a long time in politics!
Whatever the real vote share turns out to be in the locals, the vote was before Purnell, Hoon, Flint, veteran boos at D-Day, etc etc and the cabinet lolshuffle. The vote is probably already out of date even if it did have value for projecting for a GE.
Also if the Mandleson letters in the News of the World tomorrow turn out to be real, regardless of their date, its not going to help.
Are the BBC’s projected national share amended to take into account the lack of elections in metropolitan districts.
Labour’s core vote isnt in the shire counties, if the percentage of votes for labour was 22% in areas that they wouldnt expect to do well even when ahead in the polls then i would think that to be quite a good result for Labour.
If on the other hand its 22% projected as if their was an election everywhere, or wighted to include people who would have voted Labour in the cities. Then it would look like a very bad night for labour.
To see what I mean take the results map from the BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/elections/local_council/09/map/html/map.stm
And then take the map of seats at the 2005 general election:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2005UKElectionMap.svg
Look at how all the white areas on the 09 locals map corrolate with all the red areas on the 05 GE map.
Leslie, I agree that locals give very little indication of how a future GE will go. A point given repeatedly by Mike Smithson over at PB is that the recent oppinion polls for Labour give an indication of the number of die hard Labour voters out their. Similar to how the tory polls in the mid 90’s showed exacly how many die hard tories their were.
I think that local elections are also a good measure of how badly a wose case scenario for a party could be. I would therefore be very suprised if labour got less than 28% at the generel election, I would be equaly suprised if the Liberals got less than 28%.
The next election will depend upon the tories ability to get out the vote, if they can pull a result in the 40% region then theyve got a good majority, if they can only get 38% then they could have a hung parliament. Of course I’m assuming a uniform swing, which is a naive thing to do especialy given thurdsays locals.
Michael,
You say that ‘Labour had done a lot of good then’.Does that include having led the country into an illegal war in Iraq? It was pretty clear by 2005 that Blair had blatantly lied about WMD – and was widely perceived to be a war criminal. None of this, however, prevented the very substantial swing back to the Government.
Yes, and they did loose alot of seats due to it, but the economy was strong and growing, the conservatives didnt really offer anything better than Labour and no one thought the Lib Dems could win (or atleast no where near enoguh people) and the govt. was standing strong together.
Now the situation is completly different, we have mass expsenses scandle, mass job losses (predicted to rise), a govt. falling apart with cabinet members leaving left right and centre, a PM who is unelected and unpopular, a resurgent tory party with a young new leader and a far more popular third party.
Kier – the projected shares of the vote that the BBC and Rallings & Thrasher do at each election are a projection of what the shares of the vote would be if there were local elections across the entire country.
So when exactly do we learn the Euro Results? Have they already been counted thus allowing us results on the dot of 9pm Sunday, or is that when the counting starts?
Rallings and Thrasher’s calculations for the projected national shares have just been released on the Sunday Times websites. The figures they give are:
C – 35% (38%)
LD – 25% (28%)
Lab – 22% (23%)
Figures in brackets are the BBC’s projected shares, which I think are calculated by John Curtis.
Regarding the Euro elections, I think they start counting at about 6pm so some results may be ready at 9pm such as in Greater London. It depends on whether there need to be any recounts for a particular seat.
A comparison of these R+T figures with what happened in 2004 (using the R+T projection from that year) would give a predicted Euro election result this year of:
C – 25.7%
Lab – 18.6%
LD – 12.9%
The Tory share is actually 2% lower this year compared to 2004 with the R+T projections so the predicted Tory share in the Euro election this year should have been 24.7% not 25.7%. The other figures are correct:
C – 24.7%
Lab – 18.6%
LD – 12.9%
I’d like to also note that I find the extrapolations of parties’ votes to be terribly useless this time. Though I know Labour tends to do poorly in a lot of these races, I do suspect that they had an unusual amount of trouble getting candidates to run this time. In some counties, I’d wonder if someone hadn’t mixed up the century given how poorly organized Labour seemed to be (and how well, by comparison, the LibDems were doing): Labour came second on exactly four occasions, and three of those were places they had controlled (the exception was Cumbria, which seems “uncontrollable” as a rule). In Staffordshire, they went straight from government to fourth place as far as seats went. On no less than 4 occasions they seem to have been outdone in seat totals by a minor party (my personal favorite being Staffordshire on account of UKIP and the LibDems getting to flip a coin for opposition there), and on four occasions they got blown clear off (incl. Cornwall) while they were knocked down to a single seat on 5 more councils.
Finally…what the devil happened in Cornwall? 32 independents makes no sense whatsoever…nothing like that seems to have happened elsewhere, so why Cornwall? Was it just being a new unitary authority, or was there something funny going on there? I ask not only because of the pile-o-indies, but also because Labour regularly embarassed themselves there with low single digit vote shares and finishes in 5th or less.
By the way, an odd follow-up: When were the filing deadlines for the local races?
Thanks Anthony,
Perhaps the beeb should put some methodology on their website, it would be helpful.
Is that all of England or all of GB?
Quincel,
Counting begins at 5pm today in London if that helps.