Local Election Night 2008 continued
May 2nd, 2008BBC Projected National Shares are Con 44, Lib Dem 25, Lab 24
PB - the place to be on election night
Double Carpet
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BBC Projected National Shares are Con 44, Lib Dem 25, Lab 24
PB - the place to be on election night
Double Carpet
24. This must, surely, give Labour pause for thought. 24!!!!
How low does it go? 23? 21? Wow.
Portillo is winding me up now!!
Hoey may be a soft Boris supporter but Portillo is acting like a soft Ken supporter.
Can anyone tell me the result of Hatfield ward in Doncaster?
Doncaster council’s website wont be updated until tomorrow.
I detect a personal history twixt Portillo and BoJo. Just a hunch. But… hmmm….
Portillo’s gone lemon.
5 - not a bad call, Sean
Burnham’s false smile and then little grimace is as unpleasant as its telling.
Kudos to Mr Double Carpet for all the different thread names!
This result does look extraordinary - unfortunately I am at work so can’t catch UK Sky News on the TV at home, but having seen one government lose here when the tide went out and people decided “it’s time”…. (and I am glad PBers made some dosh off my updates!)
I do wonder looking at these results whether Labour is at that same point too. If so, it’s extremely hard to turn that mindset around. I’ll leave it to others to judge if Brown has reached that point tonight.
5 - Seems to be a recurring theme if Heffer’s attack was anything to go by
Just doing some number crunching of the Salford results as I can’t sleep.
Labour outpolled the Conservatives across the whole City of Salford by a huge majority of… 400 votes. That’s 0.83%.
“Can’t win in northern cities”, eh?
283 (from previous thread) PtP, good to hear from you, It was indeed yours truly who spotted the 43% turnout bet which Mike featured the the following day at rather lower odds and of course it was Caveman who spotted the brilliant Hillary +16% opportunity in North Carolina.
11 - Hazel “chipmunk” Blears must be a little worried about that.
DD: When was there last a gap of 20 between Tories and Labour?
TK: That’s easy - never!!
Thanks NS Correspondent - am running out of permutations….
Think Labour are past point of no return, unless Brown quits.
Not watching Portillo, but how exactly are the Conservatives supposed to be doing better? With others always on c.7% in these projections, how much worse is he actually expecting Lab/Lib to do to provide a corresponding higher share?
from previous thred - thanks to PtP for info about high London turnout. Which ought to help Ken. Except that if its really high, would think Boris may have turned out his lazy voters also. Plus it’s clear from results from rest of England that people are voting Tory to “send them a message”.
Tomorrow will be very interesting!
Portillo probably upset knowing he would be Mayor of London if he had been brave enough to stand for the Conservative nomination. Just like he chickened out of the Leadership.
Man is a bit of a sorry charachter….
18 - you’ve been doing an outstanding job tonight!
288 (Previous thread) A well earned hat-tip then, PfP.
I haven’t gone mad on any of these markets but I did pick up the turnout bet, and NC, and I stand OK on Boris. Looks like a bright start to the month, bettingwise.
Sorry I haven’t been on here so much - distractions. But I have been following with interest.
All the best. Bed now.
Sack Vine now.
21 - Hear Hear!!
21, 22:
Ah, no. That one was quite funny!
Vine comparing different polls. That is disingenuous!
James @ 13
It’s Barbara Keeley who will be most worried, we outpolled Labour by 12% in the wards making up the new Worsley & Eccles South constituency.
Well done Iain!
In 2004, Ken won 55-45.
I THINK (not 100% sure) that since 2004 locals the changes are Lab -2, Con +7, ie 4.5% swing.
If you apply 4.5% swing to 2004 Mayoral result you get Ken 50.5, Boris 49.5.
I’m not saying Ken has won but it does appear possible.
19 - Sorry, no disrespect to David, but was trying to give my thanks & appreciation to DOUBLE CARPET for all his hard work tonight & into the wee hours!
2009 with the Euro elections and the shire counties going to the polls could be an absolute Labour car crash. Will they win any votes?
Burnham shafting Ruth Kelly. Would love to be a fly on the wall in the next Cabinet!
27 - In 2004 the Tories won everywhere else but London. All that has happened is a few Tories have deserted Ken to kick him out.
I’d be stunned if Ken held on.
28 I was rather suprised as said nothing until now - was holding my views until haringey/Enfield declares…
I am so angry with the BBC coverage. It simply is beyond a joke.
Just compare it with the wonderful results programmes we get on CNN and the other US networks on the White House race.
Have you noticed the big void in BBC coverage - they have almost no data on actual votes.
The graphics are still in the 1980s.
17 Sorry SSI, but you must pay the customary fine of £1.00 into the collection box for PB’s next party, for confusing me with PtP.
Labour lose Blaenau Gwent. No surprise.
Labour also lose Flintshire.
Just disappointing tonight that there has been nothing, absolutely nothing about London.
33 - Sky News was better but not as good as CNN. I have to say, Mike, we’re sat in the Sun newsroom shaking our head at the BBC graphics. Vince Cable’s face was priceless.
What on earth was all the rubbish of Ken as Dennis the Menace and Dobbo as Desperate Dan?
Shocking, absolutely shocking.
What is the point of this Vine Parliament thing?
BBC House of Commons projection:
Con 394
Lab 169
LD 59
Con maj 138
40 - pointless.
BBC GE prediction of a majority of 138 on current projected shares!
Labour lost 13 seats in Flintshire.
Flintshire.
Labour have lost at least a dozen seats and control of the council, with 3 seats still to declare. Good night for the Tories there who have more than doubled their group to 9.
Right I’m off to bed.
Just seen Vine do the “just for a bit of fun” HoC with Labour down on 169 & Con majority of 138.
And that’s a good night for me.
Thanks all for comment tonight, and to Paul, Mike & Robert for keeping the site going for us all.
33 - Agree totally. The BBC have an excellent research unit and unparalled resources - why the hell don’t they use them?
Betsan Powys “Disaster for Labour in Wales tonight”
OUCH - Labour are going to get an absolute STUFFING in Wales if the early results are indicative.
Lost helf their seats on Merthyr and THIRTEEN seats in Flintshire.
33 - As a BBClover must reluctantly agree, though I’m not watching the video but rather catching the radio 5 audio online.
What the real election junkies want - and who else is the audience at 3:30 am? - is data, not spin.
34 - Will be happy to pay, am saving up for my bus ticket!
Agree with Mike, one of the worst coverage I have ever seen. Is someone really liking what Vine is doing? It just seems pathetic…
Yes indeed - a big thank you for our hosts this evening. You just realise how much PB would be missed when the site went down briefly earlier this evening.
Merthyr Tydfil, LDs make significant gains from holding no seats, and of course Labour collapses. The LDs are only just behind Labour now.
I really do hope MPs of all parties are watching this BBC broadcast.
The total charade of the pretence of “public service broadcasting” to justify a compulsory poll tax to fund a nationalised broadcasting organisation has yet again been exposed as a total farce.
As soon as everyone has a digibox in 2012 it must end.
One piece of analysis. This is a worse night for Labour than it is a good night for the Tories.
The Lib Dems are holding their own from a good position in 2004 and that is stopping the Tory night being an unmitigated triumph.
Having said that, it’s a total total disaster for Gordon Brown and Labour.
Hm, I thought BBC election coverage was supposed to go on until 6am? They’ve cut to BBC News 24 and it’s only 3:30..
33. Mike you are completely right, its a complete sham. I think strong representations have to be made to the BBC that their coverage is simply not good enough. Jeremy Vine has been utterly pathetic, and insultingly patronising.
Nick Robinson - ending BBC coverage saying about London;
“…with a clear consensus building that Boris Johnson will be the next mayor”
47 I hope you are right but suspect they will do better where they are in opposition.
54-With that kind of coverage they could have stopped a long time ago!
Final comment and then really am going to bed.
BBC coverage has been absolutely woeful tonight. I hope BBC top brass have had a look in on blogs tonight. Universally they all seem to point up the dreadful Vine, inane comment and lack of insightful analysis.
Sky seemed to have by far the better programme.
53. One way to measure that is that Labour losses are now above Tory gains, and that discrepancy is likely to increase as Labour loses seats to independents, Plaid and the Lib Dems in Wales (to the Tories, too, but only some).
And Blaenau Gwent falls!
As predicted.
Conservatives lose Coventry to NOC.
Tories LOSE COventry
Ok - off to bed shortly - big day tomorrow after a lie-in!!
Thanks for all the comments & updates tonight and once again the internet coverage has been streets ahead of the BBC.
62 - why would that be?
54 - BBC radio 5 is still election coverage
Portillo has a major problem. After the 1997 defeat he probably was, to his credit, the first senior Tory to recognise the party had to change so as to appeal to many in the centre. However he proved to be an inadequate Shadow Chancellor and more importantly he failed to demonstate he could meaningfully change the Party. He is now jealous of Cameron and because of this has difficulty in recognising what the “independent” experts can which is that the Tories now have a realistic prospect of winning the next Gen. Election. It is interesting that a year ago Portillo claimed the Tories had to breach the $0% barrier but now claims 44% is not enough.
65. No idea, but they only lost a single seat to Labour.
58. Well, indeed..!
66. Thanks!
67 Correction last line change to “breach the 40% barrier”
65 - We lost one single ward, it could be anything really!
Tories fairly recently gained Coventry by a defection. So it is really no change in control.
But what about the seats?
72 - One loss.
72. its a bit like the LD’s “gaining” Hull its only because a defection cost them control a few weeks ago.
Conservatives have run Coventry since 2994 there has been no recent defection there . You may be mixing it up with Colchester .
oops 2004 lol
Is anyone from the BBC a regular here? Can they explain the thinking behind tonight’s peurile coverage?
76. Sky news said it was due to defection.
77. I am about as loyal to the BBC as anyone can be but tonight was humiliating and i think most people in the studio knew it. I switched to sky about 0130.
Was drinking in Moscow and helped a bird drop her thong in public. Then had to fight off by saying was married with kids….
Then saw this!!! Gordon, out out out!!!!!
is there somewhere official we can look up gains? I have. Friends on individual councils
Norwich result not as easy as it looks:
Green +3
Con +2
Lab n/c
LibDem -5
Because Labour lost two wards - one being their Deputy Leader and the other being the Executive Member for Housing - to the Tories, but picked up two from the LibDems. The Greens then took three straight from the LibDems.
LibDems now fourth in many wards across the City; including ones they were defending. Tories 3rd or above in 12 out of 13 wards; best results for them in a generation.
Thrasher has just said “upwards of 300″ in answer to the question of net Labour losses? No ? surely not that bad? thats f**king apocalypic.
Re BBC coverage, would expect that the corporation would do extense polling and focus groups to craft their E-Night coverage. Whether that happened or not, and how it went down, would be interesting to know.
Audience for E-Night broadcast is rather diverse, at the start of the evening, so some difficulty in catering to differing tastes, interests and expectations.
But everyone responds to quality.
BTW, I tuned in very late this evening, or rather morning. (Have to work occassionally!) Anyway, did the Beeb actually cover counts and declarations across England and Wales. Think that’s a really fun feature of UK general elections.
83 - If the results from Wales continue in the vein from the first three it looks likely to be that bad. There’s also predicted lossed in Reading to come.
It’s a total disaster for Labour. There has been ZERO spinning on here from pro-Labour comments. I am having to point out Tory lack of progress against Lib Dems to stop myself whooping round the news room.
84 - Sorry SSI I was watching Sky News pretty much all night except when pausing to laugh at Vine doing his nonsense. The advantage of having tellys all over the place!
75: ‘…there has been no recent defection there’
Not according to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coventry_Council_election,_2006
Right I am succumbing to the serious yawns now and all my limbs are screaming at me to struggle to bed. I shall of course be back for the Boris show tomorrow. I think this basically all but rules out a general election before 2010. A Council near to me that I will flag up, Harlow in its entire 35 year history has never been Conservative controlled, it is now. And on that note I shall say good night!
85 Labour is taking it in the shorts big time, no doubt about it. Which makes me truly doubt that Ken can finish his high-wire act without going splat.
Acutally think Tories have done better than Lib Dems. For this reason: the legions of voters who wanted to “send them a message” have used the Conservative Party as their messengers, not the LDs. And this clearly includes many who until recently were highly allergic to the Tories.
81. I don’t know about “official” but Sky TV’s web-site doing a reasonable job.
86 - How much better was Sky?
83. it will be interesting to see the differnece between councils where they were in control and those they lost 4 years ago. From the little I can see so far there is one. I expect a bounce in Clegg shares if we continue to show net gains of any sort. Internal gloom and good expectation management had factored in double digit net losses. perhaps tommorrows mets counting will effect things but so far so over all neutral.
89. Certainly the Tories did better than the Lib Dems, but having a net gain of councilors is certainly a victory of its own for the LDs, who nearly everyone thought would lose councilors coming off a high point in 2004. Bigger than either victory is the heavy Labour defeat.
Remarkable how much Welwyn Hatfield has changed. Labour control throughout the 1980s, then tonight Labour lost half of their remaining seats to hold just 5. (Con hold, obviously.)
91. Sky didn’t seem to have the regional reporter network that the licence fee can support and had a slightly dodgy “Top Ten” parliamentry seats it kept reffering to. However light years ahead of the beeb. Sober, factual and responsible as opposed to the vacous Beeb with its crap graphics and persistant cutting to dull people in search of ordinarness.
92, 93 Good points
BTW, has John Looney posted anything yet on his observation of South London postal votes? Or is that still embargoed?
Saw Tories 44, Lab 25, and LD 26, or something like that….Superb!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I presume of course Ken the rouge is toast!!!! yippeee!!!
94: ‘Remarkable how much Welwyn Hatfield has changed.’
All down to the genius of Grant Shapps and his disciples there. Okay, the later Southall business wasn’t his best moment, but we’re all human.
Have the Tories won Bury??
100. Yes.
100 - yep
Results in Blaenau Gwent, Labour lost eight seats to various independents and People’s Voice.
Gordon, fek off, no one wants you round here, booger off. Actually I’m wrong, hang around a bit longer and help consign the labour party in the dust bin of history like the commo parties. Cheers!
86 - Sky was serious and analytical and Adam Boulton even pulled up some of the MPs on some of their more ridiculous partizan statements. Much better. Though Michael Thrasher remains astoundingly dull though authoritative.
101/102-I guess the BBC will have to find other councils “proving” the Tories don’t “make it” in the North.
It looks like my Wales analysis will take a while. Lots to digest in the principality tonight.
Where’s Gabble to tell us all this is a triumph for Labour?
Who do I write to about a proposed article for the site? If I’m going to spend the next fortnight working on analysing Wales I could put together something looking forward to the GE. Just a thought.
Labour lost four seats in Barrow-in-Furness to socialists (”Socialist People’s Party of Furness”). Two recounts are ongoing.
The one consolation that Labour can take home from this is that they appear to be doing a little better than average in the more marginal wards. The sort of area where the biggest shocks have occurred are those where Labour consolidated their vote locally in the 1987-92 period, and have looked pretty safe since then.
109 - send to boss, look on right panel of pb homepage, under “links”
Just got up early for work, and have seen the results. I agree with previous comments that the story of Labour failure is a bigger one than Conservative success. The LibDems have certainly done well in holding their own.
No wonder Gordon has been avoiding elections his entire career - these are the kind of results that he will be dreading happening when the inevitable day of reckoning comes(or “General Election” to you and me)
If Brown were thinking about Labour’s interests rather than his own, he ought to prepare to go to the country swiftly. The longer he leaves it, the more Conservatives gain ground. Judging by Durham’s experience, a county council round without a GE will see one of the biggest massacres in modern municipal history, and Labour will find it extremely difficult to recover from a psychological blow of that sort.
Must be total and complete meltdown for Labour in Torfaen to have lost control, but they apparently did so. They held 34 of 44 seats, so that means they lost at least twelve.
Tories gain Vale of Glamorgan.
115 - I think the Wales story is shaping up to be the nightmare to end all nightmares. I mean Torfaen is a seat where Paul Murphy enjoys a 15,000 majority and they usually just weigh the vote. Even in last year’s NAW election they polled over double the second place vote.
Tories gain Vale of Glamorgan as predicted.
111 - Yes, it does seem that Labour are getting a total pasting in their heartlands and holding up much better in marginal areas.
But that really is crumbs of comfort. 2009 would be a calamity with European and county council elections. Where would Labour get any votes from?
2009 would be a calamity with European and county council elections. Where would Labour get any votes from?
I agree, which is why 2010 looks much less attractive for Labour the closer they get to it. With a GE inevitable within a year from then, it just won’t be possible for the party to say “Ah well, still time to recover”.
Barring the LDs going into total meltdown, we’ve probably reached the limit of the Conservative advance in the rural and suburban districts in England.
344. Vine is dreadful but then the BBC need to lose the TV tax and start cutting it big in the real world. Sky much better.
What a dreadful night for Labour. Brilliant for the Tories. Now for the big one …!
119. Well, when you control everything, there’s not much more to gain! But the Conservatives do still have room for improvement on 2005. I suspect 2009 will be the nadir of Labour’s local government woes.
121 - Yes, as 2009 is the only round where Labour haven’t been exposed to mid-term mores.
David [109] Don’t expect a quick reply from Mike. He will be too busy counting his winnings - sounds as is if his turnout call in London bang on, as usual.
And on Friday I wanted to leave some kind of dvar torah before I left for my trip, so I waited to respond to comments until after I came back. wow power leveling