Is evens on Ming surviving a good value bet?
May 5th, 2007
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Will he still be leader at the General Election?
In the immediate aftermath of the election results the Lib Dem leader, Ming Campbell, was forced onto the back foot with questions in TV interviews about his leadership style. In response he is quoted as saying: “Let me make it absolutely clear. I will be leading this party through this parliament, into the next election and into the parliament beyond.”
William Hill have announced that they are offering evens that he will NOT lead the Party into the next General Election, and 8/11 that he will do. This market is not available online but you can put a bet on over the phone.
I can’t work out whether this is a good bet or not. For the party, surely, has not got the stomach to depose two leaders in the same parliament? Persuading Charles Kennedy to step down was traumatic enough and the scars still remain.
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For the only way Ming Campbell is going to step aside is if he does it voluntarily - and judging by his determined response he appears pretty resolute
From a betting perspective there’s a major catch. The terms of the bet state that it is on him being leader at the next election so you probably would not get paid if he stood down in the meantime. After all he could possibly return after that. Your stake could be locked up for three whole years
Mike Smithson
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Sorry I have not been around much, I have fought the hardest few days of my life, and been at a 13 hour count.
Can Ming survive? I hope so, we are kind of banking on it
Hm. The Libs and Lib Dems have never been particularly ruthless in ousting a leader. This is partly because they’ve been on a steadily upward trajectory for the past 30 years; stalling (if they genuinely ARE stalling) is an unknown for them. I think Ming will stay; I don’t think there is the appetite for an internal battle.
On a personal note - I think Ming has injected a pleasantly cerebral note to Lib Dem debate. I would never, ever have supported CK’s cheerful 6th form populism; Ming can at least argue his case. I’m more prepared to lend my support to someone whose arguments are coherent though I may not agree with the basic premises. I disagree with Ming because he holds different values to me; I disagreed with Kennedy because he hated Tories. I’m much more comfortable with Ming. Though I’d be happier still with Laws. But this is all for the Libs to decide and none of my business.
Benedict - what happened - were you successful?
Re 3, Cookie, it is on my blog, do keep up
I did not win in a safe Lib Dem seat, but am going to keep them under pressure!
Oh, and we did well in the council, despite losing 4 seats, we gained 9, and the council is safe, we have overall majority in Haywards Heath Town, (the flower beds are safe) and largest on Burgess Hill Town.
Good night, bar the losses, that said we will have those seats back.
Anyway, after the longest count in history and a hard campaign, I am off to bed!
Good night!
Well, Benedict, politics needs the people who come second too - it’s only by their efforts that those who come first are moved to look after their constituents. So well fought, and hopefully you will be out again next time.
Quick stat before I go to bed - over a third of Labour’s non-London English councils are in the north-east (i.e. in a region which covers less than 7% of England’s non-London population).
I think that there would be signs of internal discord if Ming really was in trouble, as there was with Kennedy. But all the whispering seems to be from the media/opposition. Unless he steps down voluntarily, there would be many many signals before a revolution, so I’d hold off from putting money on this one.
The Lib Dems are between arock and a hard place on Ming.
There are likely another two years before the next election.
The most worrying aspect of the locals waa the loss of supprt in the strogholds of the South west with N devon going and two Cornish councils.The two main party squeeze will intensify,although likely coalitions in Scotland ans Wales will keep up profile.
To change leaders is a risk,but to do nothing is criminal.Since the Tories and Labour would be happy to see Ming stay in place,the Lib Dems have the answer to the question of what to do.
Roger H
Does anyone know what the actual vote shares (as opposed to projected) were on Thursday?
O/ France
I notice Sarkozy is now down to 0.04/1 on Betfair.
the very last poll of the campaign was yesterday night’s Ipsos which gave a 55/45 gap (what I defined earlier as “ladnslide territory”).
What is amazing is that this is the highest gap shown by Ipsos during the whole campaign. Royal’ s suicidal last-minute scare strategy [ “Democracy is in danger if the candidate of stock exchange and CEOs win” she said yesterday?!!! ] seems to have misfired badly.
The campaign is over : no leaflet delivery or public speech is authorized before the results, because the vote starts today in the overseas territory. So Royal cannot expect anything to help he to correct the very ad impression she made in her last three days of campaigning all of agressivity and insults against Sarkozy who just had to show gravitas and smiles to gain votes..
One thing you can say about Ming is that even if he is ineffective as a leader he is no fool. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him weigh his options over the next few weeks and perhaps call it a day himself rather than forcing the party to push him out.
“Loss of supprt in the strogholds of the South west”, Roger H? Please stop your Tory spinning.
The last time I looked at the North Devon site, The Lib Dem loss of North Devon was due to the Tories’ taking three seats from Independents. The Lib Dems were returned with the same number of councillors.
Mike, I think your question is spot on. Evens on Ming does look good value (general rule of thumb here: politicians survive longer than the media thinks they will), but isn’t particularly good value - it’s money locked up for up to three years, and Brown will go the full three years if the polls don’t improve.
He’s certainly had a poor set of elections, but then these were never going to be easy. Kennedy had lead the Lib Dems to a high point by 2003/4 and since then the Tory machine has started firing better than for 15 years. Many Lib Dem seats are in the south (where they’re the only opposition to the Tories), so a Tory revival was always going to put pressure on Ming.
In addition, the raw results based on seats skews things southwards as district council wards tend to be quite small, whereas unitary or Met councils are bigger; in crude terms, the former were the ones the Lib Dems were defending from the Tories, the latter are the ones they need to take from Labour to compensate. Whoever lead the Lib Dems was up against it. (BTW, I was at the count yesterday so missed contributing to the string on why most people got the Lib Dem score wrong - this is my reasoning. FWIW, I went for 0-150 losses: I always expected losses for the above reason, but I though 500, rather than 900, Tory gains was realistic).
If the Lib Dems dump Ming after hitting one of their highest shares of the vote ever, then they’ll have a revolving door leadership - and in a party that struggles for media coverage anyway, that’s would inflict tremendous damage on the public profile. I don’t think they will; but he’ll be gone within two months of the next general election.
Doh! Just re-read my first sentance (note to self - proof read before posting).
What I meant was that nominally, the 8/11 is probably better than I’d judge the odds on him staying as - I’d put it nearer to 1/2. But, because of the time factor involved, I won’t be taking it.
I got a very nice letter from Sir Ming following a campaign visit to Abingdon I helped organise a week before polling day which resulted in a nice spread in the local paper on polling day.
In Abingdon we gained three Vale seats from the Tories, four town council seats. We would have gained more if there were any
All that and 53% of the vote to the Tories’ 40%.
Across the wards that were up in Oxford West & Abingdon we took 50% of the vote to the Tories’ 40% and that’s without the even stronger Oxford wards being up this year.
So Ming is pretty popular with Lib Dems in these parts!
and as a Conservative can I offer my support to Sir Ming?
Mike If MC had a bit of self knowledge and was less selfish he’d go of his own accord but it doesn’t look as though he will and you lot aren’t ruthless enough to push him out so I wouldn’t take the bet. That said what matters is not the numbers of council seats lost but where they were lost-or won- as Liberal Neil fairly reminds us. Surely LD MPs will have looked closely at results in their patches to decide in how much danger they were( I would love to see a more general analysis of how the local elections played out in the marginals with detailed totals adding up the wards where possible). If there was a general panic in LD held constituencies about prospects you might get a groundswell for him to go but ‘the attempt but not the deed confounds you’. You can’t afford another long drawn out agony like last time with great unhappiness matched by irresolution to finish him off. If he stays, as I pointed out yesterday, the GB/DC nutcracker seriously threatens the LDs nether regions. If people understand that and are prepared to act after the election, why wait?
The Mirror is amusing today.
I remain of the same view that I have held since before Ming took over the leadership in that he should be an interim leader to steady the ship for 18 months or so and the leadership should pass on to the next generation ( and IMHO a female leader would be good ) this autumn .
The results this May do not affect my view one way or the other . I think even though Roger H was correct in his forecast of LibDem losses it was based on the premiss that our support would fall to 23% or so at these elections . If her were honest he would admit to being a little surprised that the losses were so many when the LibDem vote was pretty solid at 26% . Losses were concentrated heavily in a relatively small number of councils mostly in areas of Conservative natural strength and LibDems maintained or improved their position in most of their important target areas such as Lib held marginal seats Solihull , Eastleigh , Westmoreland for example .
O/T France - Last poll
BVA published a poll just before midnight yesterday giving a 55/45 split just like Ipsos did.
Will sarkozy get 20 million votes???
I’m preparing the champagne supply for tomorrow night!
18 Blue moon , I am doing an analysis of the results in LibDem held seats as you suggest . The results so far on that basis would suggest that in most of them ( Torbay is a pretty lone exception ) that most MPs will be happy with the results . If you Email me on markpsenior@msn.com , I will let you have a spreadsheet of the results when complete .
I don’t think I can improve on what David Herdson has said.
Round here Hinckley and Northampton gains but lost control of Harborough (we held our one Lutterworth seat - my leafletting making the difference!) - The last Labour councillor on Harborough was ousted. Oadby which is mostly in Harborough constituency, was a good hold - gaining 4 from the Tories.
O/T the Betfair market seems to have made its mind up that when Tony declares that he is stepping down (next week) means that they will pay out for Q2 but I think the 4.7 available for Q3 (i.e. from 1st July) looks interesting - Changeover for me looks like 2nd or 3rd of July.
1]Disappointing results for Cameron
2]Steady progress but definitely no breakthrough
3]Have the Tories peaked too early?
The BBC have checked with the spin doctors and settled on option 2.
Chris from Paris All the ingredients are plainly in place for a landlslide but I suppose everything depends on turnout. Will the polls produce a lower turnout among Sarko supporters who think that he’s got it in the bag, particularly among Le Penistes who might be a bit more inclined to follow their ‘chef’ in these circumstances( although IPSOS suggests a bon report for Sarkozy here)? Or will demoralisation produce a lower turnout among Sego voters? Whatever. Elle est cuite.
Reviewing results a couple of things stood out for me - that in polling we are regularly seeing Others getting 10% plus of voting intentions but with exception of the two Nationalist parties this doesn’t seem to be reflected in results (Greens got some more seats in England but nor great result in Scotland; UKIP. BNP nowhere really and overall independents and others have fallen in results terms). These are the sort of elections where you would expect people would be more likely to vote for smaller parties - why the difference between apparent disenchantment with the big Three and yet worse perormance for others?
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The other is that in 4 seats in Wales the UKIP vote exceeded the margin by which the Conservatives lost; Clwyd South, Gower, Vale of Glamorgan where Labour won and Montgomery where LDs won. Not convinced no UKIP candidate would have meant Conservative victories but shows the damage small parties can achieve in FPTP seats with three or more contenders. As an aside in Yns Mon the combined Peter Rogers, Conservative and UKIP vote would have taken the seat.
Thanks Mark I’ll do that. Actually Sky’s analysis-presumably by Thrasher- suggested 62 LD MPs on the local election figures but I don’t know how this figure was arrived at. Bottom line if most LD MPs are reasonably relaxed about their own patches the chances of a putsch against MC are near zero.
24. Round here (W Yorkshire), even that would be an optimistic spin. The Conservatives went backwards on three of the five councils in the county. Partly that’s down to local factors - Tories have run or had a hand in running the councils here for a while and some decisions taken are still at the ‘pain but no result’ stage - but also Cameron isn’t going down quite as well as other parts of the country. That’s not a problem if people like Hague and Davis can get a higher profile in the north - but at the moment, that’s not happening.
Option 2 is probably underplaying it a touch, but not too far off the mark: for the Conservatives, it’s good rather than steady progress - but no definative breakthrough.
25 - it’s an interesting factor in an election where so many people are “reluctant voters”. However one would think that the number of people deciding not to vote Sego due to the “inevitable result” would at least match those for Sarko, especially as she has more “reluctant voters”.
13 Reuben my comments are not Tory spin as I am not a Tory!
20,22 Mark I accept that if the LD vote share has only gone down by one then the loss figure are bit higher than one would expect.However the BBC vote shares are somewhat unreliable and I suspect when we eventually get actual shares we will see a larger drop(ang Labour dropping to third place).The council position is substantially better than I thought,with the expected losses being lower than expected and being offset by some surprise gains.Will be interested to see your spreadsheet of the detailed position.
I share your view re Ming being an interim leader.
Roger H
27 - they were probably just plugging 26% into some electoral calculator.
I personally think it was a terrible night for us (and marvellous for the Tories but perhaps not quite fantastic), but other parties have endured terrible nights without an orgy of destruction and I expect us to do so also.
It does seem to be true that in areas with an LD MP we have done pretty well, so that is not so worrying.
On the specific subject of Torbay (and Plymouth) everyone in this part of the world knows that running these councils only ever hurts you. If the GE is 3 years away as I believe it will be there will be plenty of time for his councillors to stuff Marcus up and I suspect he knows it, despite his joy at the victory on Thursday.
BTW what was Nick’s reaction to the unexpected reverse in Broxtowe?
Although Tories like Test and Benedict like to tease the LDs about Ming, the LD problem is not the leader - to have ‘the serious, seasoned alternative to Gordon Brown’ is not a bad position to be in when people suspect the Tory leader may be a bit callow and naive. The problem is simply the potential coming squeeze.
Take Beeston West as an example. It’s a middle-class ward with (roughly speaking) a mixture of Guardian and Telegraph readers. A week before the poll we were clearly well behind (in fact a LibDem source told us that their impression was that the Tories were first and we were third - certainly we were only barely second): a chunk of our voters was bent on one more protest about Iraq and Tony Blair and were telling canvassers that they were definitely, absolutely, not voting Labour this time, though they’d maybe come back at the GE.
I’d mostly been elsewhere with much more encouraging results, as reported here, but I switched full-time to the ward. I spent most of the week canvassing it with one main message: the Tories are going to win this one unless you come round. Scores of people started conversations with “I wouldn’t dream of voting for you this time” and ended with “well, I suppose I’d better then”. The LibDems saw it happening and counter-attacked in the final two days, while the Tories remained mysteriously quiescent, so in the end the LDs won by 69 votes, with the Tories close behind us. But we were much closer than we had been, and it was exclusively the anti-Tory message that did that.
This sort of thing gives the LDs a positioning problem. If, as Tories here suggest, they swing right and make Labour their main target, they will cheese off a large part of their core middle-class vote: we’ll not only say that they might let the Tories in but that their rhetoric shows they actually *want* to! I know councillors and possibly MPs who will actually defect to us if that happens. If they effectively say “well, I dunno which of the others is worse” and maintain equidistance, they look feeble and irrelevant to a close two-horse race. So I don’t think they have a good alternative to attacking both sides but making it clear that they think the Tories aren’t ready for power, which is pretty much what Ming is doing. That satisfies their base, tries to undermine the two-horse picture, offers a serious alternative to Labour, and leaves the door open to a possible Lib-Lab pact, which is intuitively more plausible than a Lib-Con pact.
It’s all quite difficult for them, but changing the leader is not relevant to the problem.
To quote the Great Man….”My advice: never underestimate Tories; never overestimate the Lib Dems.”
Tony Blair, Labour conference September 2005.
33: see previous threads. I was pretty relaxed about what happened in my constituency - we gained one and lost two with the LDs, and lost two in split wards to the Tories, one of which was expected (hence my bets about “not losing more than one”). The problem was in the borough in Ashfield constituency, where we lost three out of six (two to the LibDems and one to the BNP). That said, the Tories went into the election expecting to win control, and ended up with a gain of two seats, falling seven short, so they’re not very thrilled about it. They did much better elsewhere in Notts except in Nottingham itself, where Labour won big, and possibly there is a demographic factor at work as Labour-leaning voters in the city move out into nearby Beeston.
26 I too noticed the (impressive) size of the UKIP vote compare to the tiny Labour majorities in the Vale of Clwyd and Glamorgan, amongst others.
But would these votes have gone Tory?
UKIP stood on a platform that the Senedd should be disbanded as a waste of time and space. My guess is that almost all the UKIP supporters would have not bothered to vote, if UKIP had not stood.
The thing that goes in Mings favour is that there isn’t a compelling alternative. The last leadership election was brutal and effectively boiled down to a process of elimination as the tabloids got stuck into the extra-curricular activities of each of the contenders.
Could Kennedy come back? Possibly, but I believe it would be a mistake. Having seen him on Question Time on Thursday he appeared a shadow of his former self.
The sense I have is that the LD’s will continue to benefit from Labours troubles in the north of England (long memories will prevent people from buying the Cameron story up here). They still have a decent share of vote and will still have a sizeable Westminster contingent post the next GE.
One additional comment on the results.For the second year running,Thresher and Rawlings forecast of results based on local by election results has proved way wide of the mark.Maybe the BBC will notice?
Roger H
34. If the Lib Dems can’t sit on the fence because it looks weak, and can’t move right because their activist / MP base won’t allow it, then the other option is to move left - the thing that worked so well under Kennedy (except that he mislead himself into talking about replacing the Tories rather than replacing Labour). However, the boat’s probably been missed on that one. Ming’s probably not the man to do it anyway - it needs an SDP type rather than a traditional Liberal - and for it to work, much more progress should have been made before Brown becomes leader. It would also create big tensions between the leadership and activists on the one hand - who would approve and/or gain from it - and the MPs on the other, who mainly have seats to defend from Tories and could be left in the lurch by such a strategy.
39. No - the BBC wants bad looking projections for the Tories. Maybe they will ask your namesake next time instead, though…ha ha
26&37. Doubt it. Voting UKIP is the upmarket way of spoiling your ballot paper. Abstention wopuld have been next likely, and if those votes had been chased the Tories as previous experience shows ship many more voters than they gain.
Well nearly right on Vale of Glamorgan. But John Smith should not sleep easy. The momentum is now clearly very Tory. Right on CW&SP. I knew Plaid didn’t have the manpower to mtach the Tories there and in Aberconwy as well, especially outside North Wales. Cardiff West, well I predicted Rhodri’s majority would be halved, but I though Lib Dems not Conservatives. A first class result for them. Maybe they could dream of the seat again one day. Lib Dems, Cardiff South, build on 2005 progress. I think they’ll be in second at General Election, next time with potential to win when Michael retires. Great result in Newport East Lib Dems well on their radar now, and Newport west Tories, Paul Flynn watch out I think.
Overall though having pushed Labour hard in many and taken key seats you have to say the Conservatives are back with a bang in Wales.
So did Rik W win.
42 Agree that UKIP votes are the equivalent of spoiled ballots - perhaps more charitably protest votes - and that Tories should continue in their successful centrist direction. But the low margins in those 5 seats does give hope to Conservatives of making them next time. The selection of seats in Wales by UKIP showed that damage to Tories is high on their objectives though. Shame that Glyn lost in Mid Wales.
43. You mean at the General Election or Assembly Election. The Tories are back in Wales you think. Cardiff West was very good news for them.
“So did Rik W win.”
Yes.
Rik W(on)
30 I’m working on the Met districts so far , and the vote shares and turnout are almost identical to last year 2006 with major parties within 1% of last year . South Yorkshire is a bit of an anomaly with LibDem vote down around 3.4% but this is all caused by substantially fewer candidates in Rotherham . A typical result is for example Doncaster Central where last year Labour led the LibDems by 8117 votes to 6524 but this year in the same wards LibDems led by 7916 to 7743 . The LibDem vote in Nick Clegg’s constituency wards increased from 14,567 to 15,959 Con down from 7785 to 7550 and Lab up 3519 to 3799 .
I was surprised too see that the Tory vote only went up about 2.5% in Wales. UKIP also went up, but only slightly. What will please Cameron and central office must be the performance in marginals (did they put a lot of money in?), they are now serious challengers in about 10 Welsh seats and even giving Labour something to think about in places like Bridgend and Newport West. The nagging feeling though is that this may be a reaction to Rhodri Morgan’s core vote strategy in the valleys, not really a love for the Tories.
Plaid are stagnating - not good enough against a weak Lib Dem and tired Labour. Still hard to see what they are really about; just pressing socialist credentials in the valleys and and a completely different Welsh language/independence message rurally.
42 Well done, Punter, your predictions were pretty good. You were right about CWPS.
The worry for Labour is that in many seats were the opposition is fragmented, it is now much, much clearer who the strongest opponent is. I guess this is what ultimately causes 1997-style meltdown, as disgruntled voters pile behind the principal opposition.
Both Plaid and the Tories can be pleased with the election — Plaid are still in second place both in seats and votes, but the next tranche of seats to fall look as though they will all be Labour to Conservative switches.
You will recall I forecast heavy losses for the Lib Dems, a good to very good Friday for the Cons, and reasonable for Labour. Some might think, on the whole not too bad a prediction, although the Labour losses were heavier than I anticipated.
The Lib Dems have another difficult, very difficult year in 2008, when they are defending the 2004 gains.
I have never thought it sensible for the Lib Dems to be led by a 67-68 year man or woman at a General Election, however good and respecful he/she may be.
Interesting the Lib Dems did very well at Eastleigh and Sheffield Hallam. Messrs Huhne and Cleggs’s area.
PS Managed to hold my seat.
‘just pressing socialist credentials in the valleys and and a completely different Welsh language/independence message rurally’
who does that remind you of?
Rik winning here…..
I’m sure most Lib Dem voters vote that way because they see them as the in-between option. Neither Socialist nor rabid right wing. Ideal for the tactical voter. This worked wonders for them in ‘97 and also in ‘01.
Charlie K though attracted another type of voter. Those on the left who had been disenfranchised by Blair’s pro Americanism even getting defections from lefties like Brian Sedgemore. And bizarrely he managed it without alienating his regulars. So 2005 with a seriously rabid right-winger was the Lib Dems perfect storm!
It’s not easy to go there again. Brown wont repeat the mistakes of Blair and Cameron is no Nazi. So why go for a new leader? Because they’d look fresh and nothing sells like the word ‘New’.
51 But, socialist credentials are not incosistent with the Welsh language.
The “Yellow Peril” often do say incompatible things in Tory-held and in Labour-held seats. It is perfectly reasonable to say different things to different voters, as long as they are not mutually inconsistent.
The conservatives on here are raving about their Welsh revival - To put things in perspective they made a nett gain of ONE seat.
Plaid’s recovery was muted, but made THREE nett gains. Ironically two more conservative gains in VoG & Delyn could have delivered two more Plaid list gains.
The biggest losers in Wales were the LDs who have gone nowhere, despite a couple of good second places.
For all the admirable detail showing that the Tories did not succeed across the board - see entries on this string on Wales, Vale of White Horse Yorkshire and Beeston - perception is a big factor, and in that Cameron has been a big winner
I tend to the view that the non-Tory Left has had a very good run at dominating the political agenda, 15 years dating back to Black Tuesday. Finally we may be seeing a new landscape.
A caveat:I have no idea what Cameron would do in government - and he’s my mp!! Blair was vague before 97, but Cameron has taken that to new levels. This might catch up on him
Labour’s problem is that its activist base has been severly hit (this has been happening for some time, dating back to 97). Brown needs to give the Guardian - readers something, as they often do a lot of the legwork
54. Yes but…… they leapt from one constituency seat to five. As IC Wales said who on Thursday morning thought the Tories wopulds come within spitting distance in the Gower, Bridgend, Vale of Clwyd and Newport West! Looking towards Westminster the Tories are looking good, the vagaries of thwe list system don’t apply there. Plaid did well but could really have done with a Valley’s seat like Islwyn. Can’t help but feel a HMJ or DW would have delivered. For me looking at GE the big question can PC take Llanelli at Westminster as well. That is a key sign of how much cement there is in their position.
49. Thank you. I agree that is the lethal threat to Labour. I think Tories in wales as with other paty supporters in other seats are piling and will do so more in behind the Labour alternative. They fight where they can win hard, and let others go elsewhere. Look at Newport, Labour came amazingly close to being hit from the Tories in West and Lib Dems east. Labour got their lowest share of their vote since 1918, and their bacon was saved in numerous places by unclear opposition. Now it is clear, so unless they revive there could be a real pulverising coming. Do you have the vote shares nationally.
On topic
The LD’s can’t wield the knife twice in one term!
Of all politicians, Ming is one of the few who I think is self aware enough to recognise the game is up - which it is. I hope he does for the sake of all the non Tories who need a good performance from the LD’s. Would I bet on it - probably not
Lib Dems in wales now at each others throats a leadership battle threatens.
Although much talk of marginal seats for the tories next time they still face an uphill struggle. A Labour/lib dem government in wales plus a Tory government in westminster would put Plaid in a very strong position next time.
We will build on our victories and near misses in next years local elections and on to the general election.
If the Lib Dems don’t get PR for Local Govt and go into coalition Civil War will erupt. They have a few hopes fore the future from Labour now. Their wiseset course would be to let Rhodri soldier on… So refer you 56. Can you take Llanelli at Westminster.
BTW How did the your Tory squeeze in Vale of Clwyd go.LOL.
BTW, I haven’t seen it mentioned on here, but apparently the man who attacked ballot boxes in Edinburgh with a golf club was John Swinburne, outgoing and unsuccessfully re-elected MSP for the Senior Citizens’ Unity Party…
Puts Afleitch’s hissy fit into perspective…
Punter
I was surprised by the result in Vale of clwyd. The Tories did better than I expected and the Labour vote held numerically.
We were a bit short of what we wanted to achieve but have useful data etc for the future.
The potential has always been there for Plaid in Llanelli. They need a strong candidate with significant support from the national party. The other interesting seat is Aberconwy which I suspect will become a Tory Plaid fight for the general election.
Did you make any money on the results?
Does anyone know what time the official result will be announced? Hope it won’t take all night.
suggest a coaltion between SNP and Conservatives/Greens. The Tories and the SNP both supposedly believe in lower corporation tax as in Eire, The conservatives are green. The conservatives have nothing to fear electorally from an independent Scotland.