Unpopular government… unpopular councils?
May 5th, 2006One feature of yesterday’s local election results was the electoral peril of controlling a council. Labour lost a string of councils whilst being able to gain Lambeth after four years of a Liberal Democrat/Conservative coalition. The Conservatives, despite an excellent night in general, lost their sizable majority in Richmond to the Lib Dems, who in turn lost their stronghold in Islington.
This may not be much new. Councils have always risked making unpopular local decisions which affect them in a way that’s not predictable from the national political scene. But has this been accented by widespread disillusionment with (at best) or hostility to (at worst) the government, spilling into a wider “anti-politics” mood? Paradoxically, it could be that some of Labour’s council gains were helped by the tribulations of the Cabinet.
If Labour finish with a net loss of under about 300 seats, it should qualify as another “Lucky Tony” moment.
The author is a Liberal Democrat activist in London. Mike Smithson returns at the weekend.
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On 26% of the vote? I think some people have a strange idea of the size of the Labour core vote.
to be fair Labour did pick up seats in certain councils ie Barnsley
Labour picked up one seat in Barnsley. The same as the Conservatives.
UKIP won a seat in Hartlepool
Could have been a lot worse and I expected it to be a lot worse. Same share of the vote as 2 years ago. Libs stalling, good night for the Tories and it’s game on for the next election!
A bit of a stinker for Menzies Campbell. He may be playing reasonably well in his native Scotland, but he is clearly failing to make the same impression on English voters. Is the mood against the Scottish Raj going to hurt the LibDems just as much as Labour?
It will be very interesting to see how the West Lothian Question affects Blair’s reshuffle: will there be a single Scot in charge of an English department? (Alastair Darling, at English Transport, was the only one last time.)
Labour didn’t do so bad in Tower Hamlets in the end.
Not very far from retaining control.
Respect looks like it’ll be the second biggest party…what were their expectations in terms of seats before the election?
Labour wont retain control tho.
The 6 remaining wards only currently have 1 Labour councillor in them, labour need four of them.
Sorry, just posted this on the previous thread before realising there was a new one. Anyone know where I can get ward by ward breakdowns of the Lambeth result - the council website seems poor (last update 24th march
)
http://www.lambeth.gov.uk does have a ward by ward result in PDF form (the handwritten declaration sheets).
its not easy to find, but try refreshing your browser.
http://www.lambeth.gov.uk/Services/CouncilDemocracy/DemocracyElections/ElectionsVoting.htm its on this page.
The full Richmond result is at: http://www.twickenham-online.co.uk/
Wakefield starts its count at 10am. I wonder if Yvette Cooper will be there or is she expecting a call from Blair this morning?
BBC Breakfast summary of the LibDems performance: “… going nowhere fast”.
8. yes, but yesterday TV talked about Labour collapsing in TH. In the end they could have done worse
14. It is very heartening.
I guess that the Lib Dems gained back Richmond because Jenny Tonge doesn’t represent Richmond Park, anymore. And lost Islington because they dumped the popular disabled Councillor Doreen Scott.
I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed the site last night. Very informative and just very good fun. I was in hysterics at the point we changed threads (although that might have had something to do with time of night and the party I was at!). You must have been good bearing in mind I was supporting the LDs and still having fun!
I hope my limited post on what I was hearing from Woking was useful. The result here seems remarkable consider the results elsewhere. The LDs won all their targets against the Tories except 1 and they missed that by 2 votes (after 5 recounts). Unfortuantely that last seat would have given them control (now 18 LD, 15 Con, 3 Lab). They succesfully defended all their vunlerable seats and two were very vulnerable. One seat (a Tory gain from Lab) which hit the national press last time re Postal Vote irregularities is very much in the limelight again. I have been told that apparently there was an arrest last night.
Good morning all. Having not long been back from the count, we have to reconvene at 2pm for two futher recounts. Given Greenwich didn’t declare it’s first ward until gone 4am, it’s been a very long day….
Morning all :). I’ll comment further later but just to say with Newham and Tower Hamlets still to declare, don’t assume the fun and games are over just yet.
Just caught up with last night’s string(s) after 1am. Well done to those who got what they wanted, never mind to those who didn’t - there’s always next time. And to those who are, like me, about to go off to their counts: at least the waiting’s over.
On the overall results, obviously a bad night for Labour and a poor one for the Lib Dems - no significant progress against Labour outside a few areas which might mean revising a few assumptions about where they could make gains at the next general election. Good but not spectacular for the Conservatives, but none-the-less an undoubted boost for Cameron and his strategy. Question marks over how to win back disillusioned voters to the main parties (listen to them and do something about their concerns, and give local communities the power to do these things as well: running everything from Whitehall doesn’t work and isolates).
I should also that whoever pointed out the bet on Blair staying until July the other day. I made my first political bet on it but couldn’t find a link from this site. If there’s a way to donate the commission it would have earned, I’d be happy to pay it. Right - off to the Bradford count.
Sorry about all the thread shenanigans - I was at the count much longer than I expected so the posts piled up in my absence…
I think BV has it right. Lib Dems suffered from parking in Islington - Tories went into meltdown in Richmond. Labour held Manchester confortably, Lib Dems held Newcastle confortably.
A lot of this is down to local issues - which is how it should be.
Every party has something to celebrate (no meltdown for Labour, lead for Conservatives, second place for Lib Dems), and every party has something to worry about (third place for Labour, tories still confined to their core areas, Lib Dems losing muslim votes in several areas).
I guess relief will be greatest for Labour.
Camden and Winchester details anyone please?
Morning all. Jubilant, bleary eyed.
There will be a post-mortem in Cowley Street, I expect.
The implication about last night clearly supports what I have said for ages, namely that the most immediate loser to a Tory resurgence is not Labour, but the Lib Dems.
And their main concern must be that the are losing out in the South and South West to us and NOT WINNING in the central England cities where they will need to be making gains from Labour to shore up their position as they lose seats to us elsewhere.
The anti-war protest home they became for lots of Muslem voters was a short term boost that seems to have worn off rather quickly, or is that just my imagination?
As it stands Dez appears to be closest in his start of year predictions, but with 13 councils to declare, there is still everything to play for
23 - Absolutely right that parking was a major issue in Islington, but from where I live I think a lot of people were motivated by the council’s ‘A1 project’, which was supposed to concentrate resources and regeneration on the roads which form the, duh, A1. Unfortunately for the lib dems, that was interpreted as them not caring about the rest of us, and I’d be willing to bet when the wards come out that there might be a significant difference between A1 and non-A1 wards.
It’s the local issues, basically, but not just one per place.
Any way to get the results for Islington by ward?
27 yes indeed. I was giving an example.
Lib Dems MEP quits over Jewish slur
A very disappointing night for the LibDems in my view. I expect there are one or two MP’s out there regretting their headlong rush to endorse Ming Campbell for leader. Politics these days is all about image (sadly) and (perceived) dynamism and in Ming the party has gone for someone that projects both wrongly.
Been reading through last night’s posts and the various results. Congratulations to the Tories-although some disappointments for some pb posters. I realised on the day that even in the middle of Tooting the Tory vote was strong, which boded very well for you.
I can say that the LD results are OK as I wasn’t spinning anything else beforehand. Gutted not to get the seat we were campaigning for - Labour pulled out all the stops this week and got lucky that the Tories didn’t get squeezed as we were expecting, by my count they won on 38%.
Gains are gains, and as the thread topic reminds us, each party has bad councils and usless councillors. I think Ming is playing the safe pair of hands role well enough, and has time and ability to grow as leader. A small thought of whether Simon Hughes - who I supported in the leadership election - could have capitalised more on Labour’s recent woes, but no desire for any leadership change here. Holding our vote overall and gaining a few councillors and a small number of councils is progress in my book.
Not much to say about Labour really, hopefully these results will start transferring to national level.
And I have a craving for a bacon sandwich….is this normal after election day?
32. “And I have a craving for a bacon sandwich….is this normal after election day?”
- Only if you are not a vegetarian
How many seats have the Tories now got in Tower Hamlets? And how long was it that Tower Hamlets did not have a Tory councillor?
25. Do you have a rough idea of net +/- between LD and Con?
10, 11, Thanks for that - particularly unhelpful council website…
The site was, as usual, very enjoyable last night, and I didn’t have a craving for a bacon sarnie until you mentioned it! I might now have to indulge
34 - 7 IIRC, 6 on the Isle of Dogs and 1 in St Katharine’s Dock.
34, The Tories won 7 in Tower Hamlets. 6 on the Isle of Dogs (goodbye Alan Amos!) and 1 in St. Katherine’s. They had no councillors in Tower Hamlets (and its predecessor boroughs) from 1933 to 2004.
37 + 38 - Thank you BV and Sean Fear. 71 years - that is amazing.
Bacon sandwiches all round please!
24 Camden (so far) 20 Lib Dem, 16 Labour, 13 Lib Dem, 2 Green. Many bizarre results. The Lib Dems won all three seats in Belsize from the Tories, who in turn won all three seats in Gospel Oak, and took the last Lib Dem seat in Hampstead Town. Bloomsbury is still to declare, which ought to be a Tory gain, although I have no knowledge of the actual outcome there.
41 Sorry, 13 Conservative in Camden.
A good result for the blues last night - commiserations to Sean and Rik though.
I think DC can be very satisfied (particularly with the 40% share) with our performance although it would have been nice to have done better in the North of England. Still Rome wasn’t built in a day!
Would have been a real blow to have lost Enfield but fortunately the rumour wasn’t true - anyone know who started it?
The real concern for the Lib Dems must be that not only have they lost seats to the Conservatives in much of non-metropolitan England, but their advance against Labour in the Northern cities has apparently ground to a halt too. So both legs of the chair are falling off at the same time. They are back to the odd spectacular against the trend gain, like Richmond. Oh dear.
41 - clearly a lot of reshuffling. Our highlight in Southwark was turning a Labour majority of 400 in East Dulwich into one of 600 for us. Yet we lost one ward entirely and went from three councillors to one in another.
Camden - Bloomsbury is split 2 Labour and one too close to call (at one point in the recounts by a single vote) between Lab and Tory.
So likely outcome is Tory-Lib Dem coalition.
Both Labour and Conservative Group leaders lost their seats.
Sean, commiseration again on Fryent. Brent was surprisingly poor - what happened in Tokyngton, for example?
My gut feeling from scanning results from a LD point of view is that:
LDs made small loses to Cons all over the shires which all add up (as I expected).
LDs didn’t make the gains against Lab (with the exception of London)in the cities which I was expecting to more counter the losses to the Tories in the shires.
In London nearly all the incumbents got stuffed by whoever the challenger was. I was expecting this where Tories were challenging Lab and LD challenging Lab also expecting it in Richmond and Sutton, but it seemed to happen nearly everywhere including Kingston, Islington, Lambeth where I wasn’t expecting it (although a while ago there was much talk of the effort Lab were putting into Lambeth, but this was before all their bad news)
Blair is very clever to bring the reshuffle forward to today.
Knocks the Conservative ‘good news’ stories from the headlines and quells his own party nerves in one go.
I don’t think it will work past today though, the Sundays are going to be awash with Brownites ‘urging change’ at the top.
Labour will be very relieved after the last two weeks, that it was`nt total meltdown as many predicted.
As I was stating on here yesterday, I was wanting to know if this was comparable to 1988-89 or 1995 in the conservative years.
The questioned has been answered, the former.
So its all to play for in 2010.
In Bournville we were pretty happy,consdering recent events we aimed to hold our position against the Con’s and only dropped 46 below our target 2000.
Fears of a 1500- meltdown and fight with the LD’s for 2nd didn’t materialise though worryingly the BNP for quite a while were giving them a close fight for 3rd.
To generalise widely what struck me was both that the Con/Lab votes seemed to have held off any leakage to the LD and that the LD vote actually went backwards .
The other $64,000 question is where did those new 800 Bnp votes come from ?
48 kjh: I think you’ll find that the LD have actually net lost seats in London at the moment. With a few wards still to declare here and there, and Newham and Hackney results to come, I make it LD -14…
50 - pains me to say I agree with you.
41 Sean - thank you
51 - Which seats (if any) changed hands in Birmingham?
And does anyone know when the West Yorkshire seats are likely to declare?
I was also so embroiled in dip calculations that I didnt think to ask Lyne Jones or Steve McCabe about the round robin letter
The key message from London is tht it is dangerous to go into coalition with the Tories - not impossible, but hard to sell to the electorate.
Detailed Camden results for anyone interested - will try & put Brent up when full results available.
http://www.camden.gov.uk/ccm/content/council-and-democracy/twocolumn/local-election-results-4th-may-2006.en
52 Anna. Doesn’t supprise me. Last night when we were hovering around zero gains I was thinking ‘oh well London to come and lots of gains there’. Although we started getting the gains I was expecting - oh dear the bad news starting coming in on the loses I wasn’t expecting whiched wiped them out. I only thought we would lose ground in Sutton.
The BBC results service is surprisingly poor, but my feeling is that the Lib Dems have made a small net gain in London (in terms of seats).
The Brent results were bizarre. We gained all 3 seats in Queensbury (Labour’s safest ward in Brent North), yet lost in Tokyngton. I don’t have all the figures to hand, but it looks as though we actually polled well in Brent North, and very badly elsewhere in the borough. The Lib Dems’ success across most of the borough obviously leaves Sarah Teather with something of a dilemna when the boundary changes kick in.
In some ways, the Lib Dems’ position in Brent is not that enviable. They have to form an administration, yet can be easily defeated by the other two parties in combination. That will probably lead to quite an ineffectual administration.
Since not all the results are yet declared, and I’m not sure what the turn-out was overall or how it varied from place to place, none of us can yet make more than provisional assessments…
Clearly the Tories are able to get their vote out - those who do identify with the brand do so strongly and vote for it in the main.
For Labour it could have been worse (and may yet be, if they lose any of their three London borough mayoralties) - a spinnable result, I suspect, tho’ whether that’s an intelligent response I leave to others to judge.
The Lib Dems overall had a poor night, but I’m not sure that Sir Ming is to blame - successive leaders have gone for the “anti” vote, of all sorts and conditions - what they haven’t got, and don’t know how to get, is the brand identification that is still the Tories’ strongest (some of us would say only) asset.
All three parties have learnt how to concentrate their fire, as the London results particularly demonstrate.
As for the B.N.P. - Griffin must be kicking himself that he didn’t move into Barking & Dagenham last year and organise a full slate: it was clearly there for the taking.
57 - I’m not so sure. Lambeth was pretty bad, but then so was Islington. And we got to more or less stalemate in Southwark (although the level of cooperation there has been well short of true coalition).
Anyone got the latest on towerhamlets? Their website has crashed.
Generally speaking, the best way to get individual ward results is to go to the BBC site, councils,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/vote2006/locals/html/region_99999.stm
and click on the links to the councils’ own websites. Most of those I have tried this morning already have pretty much full results up.
By the way, it should be noted that the running totals of gains and losses do not yet include several key councils for which control has been called, because they do not add them in until the last ward result has been declared. For example, Labour’s minus 255 now does not include Hammersmith and Fulham (20 plus) or Barking and Dagenham (12?), Tower Hamlets and several others.
When all of London is in, I would have thought they will indeed be over 300 down - and we don’t know about W Yorkshire and the other Friday counts yet.
60 Sean Fear: Agreed BBC is not doing a fantastic job on reporting result… They are declaring councils and attributing them without putting on seat breakdown, so it’s hard to keep track of losses.
Morning! And a beaut one it is too. My thoughts..
Kudos to NickP and Robert W for correctly nothing the greater swing against Labour in London than elsewhere.
But perhaps a bit of kudos to me.. This was my prediction of 12.24 am last night:
“On an extremely unscientific four second gander at the BBC website, Labour seem to be losing an average of 1-2 seats per council. There’s 176 councils voting, which means Labour are going to lose between 176 and 352 seats overall. Say 250.
Bad for Blair but not cataclysmic”.
Not bad in the circs!
Otherwise, a rather good but not magnificent result for DC, a nigh-on appalling result for the Lib Dems.
And people should really stop banging on about the Tories and the northern inner cities - yeah it’s not wonderful we failed there - but the Tories have control of councils all over the map. Check it. And.. we… we’re never gonna win Moss Side… But if we win London, southern England, the shires, the southern and northern suburbs, and most of the Midlands, as we did last night - then we win the G/E.
28 - Islington results http://www.islington.gov.uk/Council/Political/VotingAndElections/CurrentElections/electionresults2006.asp
64 agree. I’ve done the same on a number of results
and the winner of the lib dem leadership contest…..
envelope please….
the winner is david cameron
Labour voters apparently just as ‘extreme’ as Conservative ones as Labour the main losers to the BNP.
Major reshuffle underway with my local MP losing the Foreign Office, so no more Condi visits :o(
69 - hmm… Straw back to the Home Office, “Welcome to Dumpsville: Population Charles Clarke”? Then maybe Hilary Benn to the FO.
Richmond has gone back to the same position is was in before the 2002 local elections to the ward I think. Basically the electorate have voted in the same way they did in 1998 which is interesting though very disappointing in my view seeing as I thought the Tory council had done a good job particularly on environmental matters in the area. We seemed to lose on a high turnout because the LD’s have a better machine than us in most wards in the Borough.
Still the councillors lost in Richmond were compensated in numerical terms by the gains in Kingston and Sutton. In all of the Golden Triangle the Tories now have the substantial base in councillor numbers that enables them to put forward effective electoral challenges. Indeed I think that Sutton and Carshalton will certainly fall to us next time both at council and general elction level, with Kingston continuing to move back towards us at both levels(though Twickenham lost for good at GE level) and with Richmond a hard fight as always at all levels.
Sky reporting that Hoon will be Minister for Europe in the cabinet and Clarke Foreign Secretary for everywhere else !!
We have new Foreign Secretary and Home Secretary.
Agree BBC site poor, although it looked like it was going to be good. Last night before it all kicked off they had ‘10 results declared’ Odd I thought. In fact these were 10 councils where control couldn’t change with 1/3 up so they had them as declared. Hardly 10 results declared. They seemed slow at getting stuff on the web site and it was impossible to identify new results being posted.
I gave up and used this site for info.
Clarke confirmed as FM?
70.If i was Hilary Benn F.O would be my response…..he should bide his time until the real P.M really becomes P.M…he looks to have a future.
Is Jack Straw the new Geoffrey Howe?????
72 Are they trying to get Clarke out of the country quick…
Interestingly though I see we did well in Barnet extending our majority, while having it cut back in Enfield. You would have thought those statements should have been reversed. However on a general level a 40% vote share and scoring big gains in London (par Richmond) particularly in places like Ealing and Harrow where demographics do not favour us is very pleasing.
66 SeanT, thanks; but note my point about the eventual overall loss figure at 64 above
- what an exciting night, didn’t we all have, all that hiding and seking while moving threads!
It looks as though the BNP would have gained control of Barking and Dagenham, had they fielded enough candidates.
Interestingly, the Tories did very badly in B & D. They didn’t win a single seat in Longbridge or Chadwell Heath, and only one out of three in Eastbrook.
The Lib Dems clearly didn’t do as well as they would have wanted, but I don’t think this can be regarded as a poor result for them (certainly not in London).
Charles Clarke to backbenches!
Still no Pat Hewitt…….this could be GOOD
night of the long knives was my advice days ago….is Blair finally getting a grip and walking over his Chancellor…the new team looks very NU-Labour
BTW can anyone break down Birmingham and H&F in numerical terms as BBC does not have details up of them?
Clarke gone! he offered his resignation took all that flak and is now sacked…thanks tone
55- Moseley + Kings Heath went LD ( this was a target seat for them).
Other than that I’m not sure, Billesley and Brandwood are Con but I cant remember if they are holds.
Kingstanding was a possible BNP gain but I havent seen a result yet and Bordesley green is LD but is the other controversial ward due to being the epicentre of postal vote scandals etc- i havent heard if there was any trouble or arrests ?
78, if you look closely at Enfield’s ward results, you’ll see the Save Chase Farm Hospital campaign did real damage to the Conservative vote, particularly in Enfield North. UKIP also got some fairly good votes, probably at Conservative expense.
84, Well, he asked to put right the mess, ostensibly he can be said to have at least put the process in train, now its goodbye.
Although I really don’t like to say this, the results appear to actually support the Blairites - the core Labour vote is surprisingly solid in its Northern heartlands, but they are losing a lot of support to a resurgent Conservatives in the South. Consequently the electoral priority for Labour would be to recover the ’swing voters’. Mind you Blair’s been trying to do this all along so it isn’t obvious what else they could do.
I had thought that the opposite would be the case, that by concentrating on the right-wing edge of the big tent, the left-wing would collapse, but that simply hasn’t happened. Has this got anything to do with the repositioning of the party away from “left-wing” policies such as the 50p higher rate of income tax?
Previously the Lib Dems were in the envious position of being liberal/centrist enough to appeal to such voters in Tory-held southern areas and simultaneously left-wing/social justice enough to appeal to disgruntled Labour voters in Labour heartlands.
It’s possible that this dichotomy could be reversed with the Lib Dems being seen as “left-wing” in Tory areas and “right-wing” in Labour areas. Ouch.
Jack Straw - Leader of Commons
Thats for saying no to bombing Iran probably.
Sky says Clarke out !
80 Sean re LD result. I agree, seats won and good percentage of vote BUT we LDs expected more and said so, so the spin will be justifiably against us.
Let Charles Clarke loose on the world because he’s such a national treasure here? Is Blair having a laugh? At least sending Mandelson to the European Commission took him away…..
Oh, and yes, it is indeed a red herring to say that the Conservatives can’t form a government without winning seats in the big cities outside London and Birmingham (which will account for 81 seats between them next time) in Manchester (4 seats), Liverpool (four and a half, Newcastle (three), Sheffield (down to five)and a few others.
The constituency arithmetic clearly says they can - whether it’s healthy is another matter. But we should never have said either that Labour couldn’t form a government without seats in Surrey, Cornwall etc …..
Any announcements confirmed on the shuffle ?
85. crossland. The Respect woman gained Sparbrook too.
Labour gained back one of the wards lost after the postal scandal
87. He’s too ambitious for a goodbye….Hazel Blears new Home Secretary?…the NU Patricia Hewitt!
88 Sooner or later the LibDems duplicity in appealing to different sets of voters will be exposed.
Re 79: Robert I am correct in saying that Richmond is as you were pre 2002 to the exact number of councillors. BTW fans of the Apprentice might be amused to know the first guy to be fired this year Ben was elected as a Tory councillor in Barnes (part of Richmond). Tories in this area will be less amused to see Marc Cranfield Adams the Double Dirty Double Rat (surely a record) be elected in Richmond as a Lib Dem.
Giver the local elections results in Richmond in 2002 (big swing to the Tories) and in the GE in 2005(easy LD holds), it seems a bit premature to predict now with any certainty the GE result in Sutton in 2009/2010.
95, All my commens above are confirmed.
The BNP has officially won a seat in Kingstanding, but it was later announced this was not correct and it should have been a Labour win.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/4975326.stm
Jack Straw looked seriously unhappy…apparently Blair camp lost trust in his increasing closeness with Brown. Clarke on the back benches famously said Brown would never be PM…..Clarke turned down Foreign Office…..
A major reshuffle of this kind means Blair ain’t going anywhere soon.
Sky report that Clarke was offered the Lord High Everywhere Else at the FO and demured.
I thought people were saying it was the Home Office that needed breaking up, not the Foreign [+C] Office? Seems a strange thing to do when Europe is currently a non-issue.
Sky report that Prezza stays as Deputy PM ……. ministerial duties ??
Prescott stays! he has no shame.
Blair won’t be missing any PMQs anytime soon.
Second place in popular votes, 27% share, Gains of concils in the South…..Whilst we would have happily taken this result 5 months ago it does seem a bit disappointing this morning. Perhaps the gains have been offset by the unwinding of the less relevant Iraq effect.
Danger is that Tories will get some momentum. Luckily there is time. At the last GE Iraq overshadowed other policies - now we need to promote our policies on Education, Health and the Home Office.
Anyway thanks to sportingoddds and the voters of Richmond (to win on 51% turnout is impressive).
O/T I have a spare (ie free - though might cost you a pint!) season ticket for Leicester vs Bristol tomorrow ko 3pm.
swalkley@filigree.org - if interested.
Prescott will have lots and lots of time on his hands - oh dear, watch out ladies.
Sky report Margaret Beckett to FO as Lord High Everywhereelse !!
Does a big reshuffle signal the government was working well?
PRESCOTT MADE MINISTER FOR WOMEN AMONGST OTHER THINGS!
(just kidding)….i think……(he’s lost his department, seriously)
Sky report Prezza largely stripped of ministerial duties !
11. Will mean some saving of taxpayers money - she has enough airmiles to pay her own way for a while..
Just read that Eugene from Big Brother was an unsuccessful Labour candidate in Crawley. Would have swung the council had he won.
dot dot dah
Sky report John Reid as Home Secretary.
Clarke states he is unhappy at being sacked.
Beckett Foreign Secretary
John Reid - Home Secretary
Margaret Beckett - Foreign Secretary
John Prescott - Deputy PM - loses Department
Geoff Huhne - Secretary of State for Europe
Jack Straw - Leader of the Commons (should have resigned)
Clarke upset.
Very good night for the Tories.
Very bad night for Labour.
Disappointing night for Libdems who have pretty well marked time.
It’s all about expectations of course.It used to be accepted that whenever there was a Tory revival it would be a bad night for the Libdems. What has happened is that the Libdems have held steady overall at a time of Tory revival. Although disappointing for the Libdems it could have been a lot worse.
Reminds me of a lot of local election nights during the Thatcher/Major years. After a night of Labour gains, gains, gains, it was sobering the next day to wake up and realise that the Tories were still in power and nothing much had changed.
119. God what a laughing stock Britain will be in the world now…! Two complete imbeciles as Foreign Sec and Europe Minister. Talk about scraping the barrel.
98 This is an old chesnut. You focus on what is relevant and the issues of your electorate and who you are fighting, which varies depending upon whether you are in a wealthy area, a poor area, rural, urban, fighting Lab or Tory etc, etc. You can do this without being hypercrites. All parties do the same and rightly so. Play to your strengths and the needs of your electorate, but keep to your core beliefs. I don’t see any significant differences between the views and policies of LDs say in Richmond or Liverpool. However I would expect their priorities to be different, because they are very different places and they will focus there campaigning accordingly.
And yes I’m sure you can identify inconsistencies (eg congestion charges in Edinburgh) and I’m sure I can come up with plausible explanations and come up with example of Tory and Lab campaigns which do the same.
What has Jack Straw done to deserve this ?
Hi All,
I managed to reduce the Lib Dem majority in my ward by 1400 votes last night to 400. Major victory without actually winning !
I hope all candidates on the site did ok. Hold your heads up high. You stood up for what you believed in and for that your deserve credit.
Only just looked properly at the national results. Looks like Cameron is on his way to number 10 but we won’t know for sure until Brown takes over and things settle. LD’s..? - well in local pockets they are very strong, but nationally I really don’t know where they are heading. Well done to them in my area (Derby), you can’t argue with the public at the end of the day and they have made their choice.
We fight on.
Cheers,
Matt.
99, Andrew, you may well be right but as I’m at work and don’t have all my old council results to hand can’t confirm, sorry.
Also Anatole Pang, sometime of this forum, stood in my ward (Twickenham Riverside) for the Conservatives, and lost by about 2 to 1 (there were 2 of 3 C elected in a split ward in 2002).
Ah, I see, splitting the Foreign Office in two enables Blair to stuff it with a couple of nobodies [Hoon and Beckett] and effectively removes the “third biggest job” from the Cabinet - so that no-one can use it as a power base against him [Straw said to be getting too friendly with Brown].
This is scorched-earth politics at its most desperate!
Jack Straw = Geoffrey Howe. Will he inflict the same damage?
Rice and Beckett? Interesting. Will Beckett take her caravan with her on foreign trips.
Sky Report that Hain stays put as does Tessa Jowell.
John Prescott - Deputy PM
Gordon Brown Chancellor of Exchequer
John Reid - Home Secretary
Margaret Beckett - Foreign Secretary
Geoff Huhne - Secretary of State for Europe
Jack Straw - Leader of the Commons
Dont anyone dare call this a Dream Team - the Trades Description act still applies.
I think it’s a bit unfair to call people imbeciles, you may not like their politics, but they are no more imbecilic than you.
Bludy hell, Becketts profile on Wikipedia amended already!
131 - Geoff Huhne …I guess he has Chris’s charisma :wink
Margaret Beckett? To the “Everywhere else” FO post? I thought what was needed was new blood. A steady pair of hands maybe, but the Foreign Office?
(Am I the only one that thinks splitting up the FO is going to cause serious problems in the long term?)
23 agghhh ‘there’ ‘their’ - why do I do that? It is not as if I always get it wrong. 50% success rate on that post.
Blair is typically rubbish with reshuffles - he is tries to win people over with stupid titles - thus Hoon gets a Secretary of States title for the Europe role!
Is this not the first woman ever to be Foreign Secretary? Something else for the papers to pick up on at the expense of the local election results.
Oh, and as an aside, removing Straw seems little else but Blairite sniping. Could backfire, possibly….
I think their was already a minister for Europe, this just bumps up the position. Beckett will be busy with Iran I feel.
44 Notts County: “The real concern for the Lib Dems must be that not only have they lost seats to the Conservatives in much of non-metropolitan England, but their advance against Labour in the Northern cities has apparently ground to a halt too. So both legs of the chair are falling off at the same time. They are back to the odd spectacular against the trend gain, like Richmond. Oh dear.”
How much more do we have to liste to this Tory spin?
Let’s not forget the facts. In whole of England, Lib Dems gained three Councils and lost two, which means a net gain of one, and gained 18 Councillors (so far) in total. That might not be much, but it hardly means, that the trend would be that the Lib Dems were losing.
Again, whats the final score at tower hamlets?
Wasn’t the workd split into Foreign and Colonial - each with a sec of state. Blair has just revived this.
Lets hope theres nothing more to the cannabis story now Reids Home Secretary.
Alan Johnson to Education
Des Browne - Defence
A genuinely interesting reshuffle all in all. Although it has the useful side effect of overshadowing the local election results, it is hardly the major motive (indeed, the local elections were bad but not awful for Labour). It is a major statement of intent from Blair in a broader context - or perhaps a last roll of the dice.
In London, Lib Dems have certainly exceeded the number of councillors elected in 2002, and may have the highest number elected ever.
Poor Gordon - 4 years to go..
45. Indeed. It looks to me to be the “Blair Legacy Team.”
A Scot in charge of the Home Office, though, with another Scot as Chancellor - that could get the West Lothian Questioners out again.
When do we expect the West Yorkshire results, anyway?
55,85 et al: Birmingham
The Conservatives gained Longbridge (as in car plant) and Erdington and held all their other seats; Respect gained Sparkbrook, the Lib Dems won in the Bordesley Green with that very high ‘turnout’ in 2004 but Labour regained the other seat involved in the disqualification; Kingstanding one of two false-farce declarations, both involving the BNP (other in B&D), with BNP declared initially the winner of one of the two vacancies …. lots of interest. Anyway, as I said, most councils’ websites seem to have the results by ward up already.
Another point. The BBC said this morning on the Today prog that the BNP had won 13 seats, but as I pointed out above, several councils like B&D have not yet been added into the tallies. That makes it at least 25 - with W Yorks and Burnley to come. It’s going to be over 30, could even be 40ish - almost all gains.
#135 - Yes, maybe, depends. Will one of the two be more senior than the other? Who will handle the high-octane diplomacy at the UN between the US and France? Would Beckett be ‘allowed’ to talk to European foreign ministers or would that be encroaching on the brief of her cabinet colleague?
I think the foreign ministers of other countries would be right to assume that the UK has now combined the roles of PM and Foreign Minister, and that the pair of “Cabinet-rank” ministers at the FO are mere flunkies. This will surely increase the demands on the PMs time from foreign governments, taking his time away from the “domestic agenda” he’s supposed to be concentrating on.
It’s a political mess-up of the first order.
I wish we still had Spitting Image so that they could have done a Zaphod from Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy]-style spoof of Beckett’s and Hoon’s heads sharing the same body, but contradicting each other at every opportunity. Maybe one of the political cartoonists will coe up with something similar?
137 - Apparently not according to Adam Boulton on Sky, seems Hoon’s supporters have been spinning about this. Hoon is essentially replacing Douglas Alexander as MINISTER (not Secretary) of State for Europe, which is formally a NON-CABINET post (but attends cabinet when requested or required).
Looks like Ruth Kelly has been sacked. Jackie Smith as new Chief Whip is strange??? Also looks like McCartney’s gone. Might have stepped down though.
Kelly? Thought she was well enough in with Blair.
“Greater love hath no man…”, yes I know I know, but someone had to say it.
So where does Douglas Alexander go? DEFRA?
53. Now that first one was unexpected. Not a brilliant Secretary of State for certain but she seemed to weather the storm over the Education Bill. Strange decision to sack her.
Who gets health?
Who goes to Transport to replace Darling?
Struggled through the awful Lambeth results service (they scan handwritten returning papers and put them up as pdfs - ridiculous!) and see that Labour won Prince ward by an enormous margin, which means (a) that Bullseye has lost (sympathies!) and (b) that my tactless (to the local activists) prediction that we wouldn’t make it was wildly off the mark. I think the Con-LD pact there did them real damage, as Peter Pigeon suggests.
I think we’re reaching a sort of consensus on the outcome, aren’t we? Good but not fantastic for the Tories, weak but not awful for Labour, disappointing for the LibDems, and a lot of surprising variability with some anti-incumbent trends. The spin that we each weave around these core facts varies according to how one interprets what should have been expected at this point. I wouldn’t think that the results are decisive enough in any direction to leave a visible and lasting impact on the national scene - the reshuffle was clearly coming anyway.
Palmer’s Paradox (”the better the Tories are expected to do, the less they are likely to win”) worked up to a point - quite a few Labour voters who I talked to were coming out because the media were predicting a Tory carnival across the country. Left-wing voters on the whole do rally round when there’s a clearly-defined right-wing threat, whether Tory, Tory-LD alliance or BNP, and I think we can largely count on them in a Brown-led party under serious Tory challenge at the next GE. The battleground will be the pragmatic middle-class “I want the country run well” people, who like Labour on the economy but are turned off by reports of chaos and blunders.
Has Kelly been sacked, or are we just awaiting more news? DEFRA still to be filled.
A disappointing night for the Liberal Democrats - but not a bad one! Not surprising to see a continuing drip drip drip of council seats in the shires to the Tories - one here, two there, three elsewhere… However, former LD run councils like Wokingham are now out of reach.
More surprising is losing seats to Labour in Liverpool and Manchester. I guess we had already hit our high water mark there. As for London, it seems there were big swings against incumbents almost everywhere (except the three safe Tory councils, where the opposition is not organised enough to take many seats).
In Reading, a few years ago, the Tories were down to 3 councillors, all in one ward. They were good councillors, but there was a lack of effective structure and organisation. It is noticeable that they are much more professional campaigners now, and are fighting to win. They are using many LD tactics.
The high turnout did not help the Lib Dems. In years of low turnout we have got our vote out effectively. Labour and Tories have struggled to do this. This year the Tories have got their vote out effectively when it has previously stayed at home.
Difficult to see where we LDs go from here. I feel Ming is not doing so well at the moment, but I don’t think this was a factor in the locals. There may be some worried LD MPs, but not too many.
Perhaps only by getting BNP councillors elected in numbers, will we be able to expose their lies. Perhaps not but I’m trying to think of something positive to say about it. Did you see the interviews with Griffin and the B&D guy last night? These people can be exposed.
So well done to Tories. It hurts but I can say it! Allow me some schadenfreude when smiling at Labour results.
158. The BNP are left wing not right wing as has been repeatedly demonstrated on pb.com and elsewhere.
154 - That was a truly great quip by Jeremy Thorpe, wasn’t it…and that after Macmillan’s own Night of the Long Knives reshuffle in 1962 that quickly rebounded on him being seen as borne out of panic.
Eerie similarities….
Well, I do admit, the reshuffle does seem to be a bit of a “screw you all, I’m staying put” statement from Blair. Of course it will only be seen as cosmetic, however. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one cabinet reshuffle that has had an actual effect on party support.
Where do Prezza’s other “responsibilities” go?
162 John O. Fraternal anarcho-conservative greetings !!
I’ll chalk you up as another Jacobite hold !!
Nick - hope you get something in the reshuffle - “for services to political anoraks”. I know I am biased but it doesnt look very inspiring so far does it?
But turnout was down 3% on 2004 - I would have thought that this was mainly former Labour voters who stayed at home.
65, According to most people on here yesterday, turnout was up! What does that say.
Interesting that we haven’t heard anything about Hewitt, yet. Surely if Blair has got rid of Kelly (not confirmed, of course,) dumped Clarke and demoted Straw for no real apparent reason apart from some Brownite leanings, Hewitt can’t stay on?
Beckett as Foreign Secretary! Well, I guess she has the Airmiles…
Hoon is a more credible figure, but Europe has been a bit of a graveyard (I had a lot of time for Denis MacShane, who was well liked at the FCO, but was dumped) It will be interesting to see where Douglas Alexander ends up.
“If you can keep your head when all around you are losing theirs….” Was that one of the Nicholsons at the same time - he was a Tory, back benchers were braver in those days.
I wonder if Beckett’s appointment signals a tough line with Iran as unlike Straw she is pretty certain to be standing down at the next election and therefore does not have to worry about the views of her constituents. Just a Theory.
Kelly came out of the front door in Downing St, which certainly doesn’t look like a sacking.
sorry missed the vital “…around you, better men than you, are losing theirs”
NickP, I hate to puncture the sweet mood of early summer concord, but the weak result for Labour is only in the light of your truly dreadful expectations. Though maybe that is understandable, with the week you had.
You came third, lost nearly half your councils, won barely a quarter of the vote, and were wiped out in areas of london and the south-east. ‘Weak’ is perhaps a timid way of phrasing it.
However, your spin machine is still working to an extent - as the results were sufficiently pre-spun for this to appear ‘bad but not disastrous’ and for Blair to therefore stay in power. Trouble is, do you want or need Blair to stay in power? I’d have thought not. The longer he remains, the worse for you: the worse in-fighting, the less time Brown has to establish himself, the more everyone is reminded of Iraq and sleaze, etc etc.
But congrats on Haringey.
NickP at #158 - It seems to me that New Labour are there worst enemies when it comes to the people you describe as the “pragmatic middle class”. It’s become a serious problem for them that they are unable to approach any problem wit