Why didn’t the Greens hoover up the anti-Tory votes?
July 11th, 2008
Does their failure suggest that anti-Tory voting is drying up?
In all the analysis of the H&H numbers very little attention is being paid to the Green party which is making great play this morning of their 7.4% in Haltemprice and Howden - their candidate’s site suggests it’s a party record.
But in the absence of Labour and the Liberal Democrat candidates you would have thought that the Greens, the only other nationally known party with MEPs and councillors, would have swept up the anti-Tory protest vote and come in with a significantly bigger share than they got.
In the circumstances their total of 1,758 votes seems pitiful. I don’t know what their campaign was like but surely there is enough anti-Tory sentiment still left in the area for them to have done substantially better?
Maybe therein lies the answer. Could it be that H&H shows that the massive anti-Tory feeling that has dominated British politics for nearly two decades is withering away. Is this the real pointer to the general election from Haltemprice and Howden?
Mike Smithson
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I guess anti-tories just stayed at home
because they are by and large a bunch of loons massively out of touch with ordinary people who often don’t have the faintest clue about campaigning let alone engaging with voters.
That and the fact that people are now getting poorer they have less time to fritter away on attempting to save the world. The embarrassment of riches explains the recent decade of sensationalist environmentalism.
That’s funny. I saw their result and thought they did quite well.
This was never presented as a genuinely competitive by election. It is no surprise that most people stayed at home. But perhaps it was a missed opportunity if they had found an issue.
3. certainly when money concerns are high, other issues get tossed aside, although I don’t think that’s a good thing.
4. secondly DD framed the issue about 42 days and civil liberties. it is quite difficult in those circumstances to pull the argument over to environmental issues. Also with the greens seen as a sort of outside party fighting amongst 20 or so other outsiders they are going to get squeezed.
It is also why the turnout is so low in other by elections where everyone knows what the result will be.
And why didn’t Jill Sayward pull more law’n'order votes? She was the only other candidate with something of a wider profile.
172 in last thread ukpaul just my own sad typing, errors and all! Wish my fingers could work as quickly as my brain, but then again maybe not!
I think the sort of protest voters who vote Green would be less motivated to vote against a candidate, even a Tory, who was campaigning on the issues David Davis was campaigning on.
8. if you look at the lists of people and organisations campaigning for her and for Davis, it is surprising she managed 5% of his vote
It wouldn’t be because the Green Party is slowly becoming a front for the far, really loony, left would it? If there are outraged greens out there, check your membership before ranting.
I agree Mike - see my post in the previous thread. The Greens should have got well over 10% - to be battling out with the English Dems at 7% is very poor.
During the campaign the Greens made great efforts to get me to publish this.
http://www.midasoracle.org/2008/07/03/how-to-make-a-million-pounds-on-the-rotting-corpse-of-david-daviss-political-career-to-be-used-for-ethical-purposes-only/
Because Greens are a bunch of reactionary idiot Luddite Trots, and most right-thinking people want nothing to do with them?
I’d say that about sums it up.
There are a couple of things. Firstly they stood on the basis of being the “real” defenders of civil liberties. Given that Davis called the election specifically to oppose 42 days, and the Greens also oppose 42 days, the voters might think the Greens should have supported Davis instead.
After all, if Davis had done badly, the media would have paid little attention to whether his nearest challenger was for or against 42 days.
So I don’t think that their performance is pitiful in that context. It’s not much to jump and holler about either, but it is a creditable performance.
It is also a sign that the anti-Tory feeling is gone. The rebranding has worked. Personally I expect the Tories to do what they have always done when in government and seek to infringe civil liberties themselves eg as with the Criminal Justice Act of 1994.
14. Had they been reading ‘Winning Here!’ Libdem literature?
The Saward result is quite significant as she stood on the authoritarian victim platform. It clearly had little resonance.
However much sympathy you feel for victims of rape or terrorism, the emotive use of that status makes cool and collective consideration quite difficult.
Well, the Labour message was quite clearly to boycott what we saw as a stunt, and the LibDem message was quite clearly to support DD. If you subtract Labour and LibDem voters from the anti-Tories, there aren’t many left!
The two local by-elections last night where Labour and LibDems respectively stood down suggest the anti-Tory vote is alive and well - in both cases support for the other non-Tory party rocketed up.
19 - indeed and still davis could only get 25% of his safe electorate to actually vote for him
We are edging back towards “tactical unwind”…
There is probably some truth in it. Will Nick Palmer, for example, find it as easy to say to Lib Dem voters in his seat next time, “Look, they’ve no chance of winning and you don’t want a Tory government”. Because a lot of them really wouldn’t mind about having a Tory government even if they are not motivated enough to vote for it.
Does the Green result in H&H demonstrate that? Perhaps not. The Lib Dems effectively said their people should lend their support to Davis. And the stay at home party was by far the most attractive option for anti-Tories on an unseasonably chilly day in an election whose result was a foregone conclusion.
“safe seat electorate”
John O on the last thread - sorry, no, I don’t know.
@19:
“Well, the Labour message was quite clearly to boycott what we saw as a frightening expression of the public’s loathing of us, and to run screaming from an electorate like the WEAK PATHETIC COWARDS we are, terrified of standing up for our preferred platform of Tyranny and oppression.”
Fixed that for you, Nick.
20, remind me, what percentage of the electorate voted for Labour at the General Election?
nick Palmer have you had a Rogeroctomy?
18 - Personally I find her level of support an immense relief, I was expecting her to do far better than that. There’s an interesting article in the Guardian today from a survivor of the London bombings. Despite her experience she’s not in favour of 42 days. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/11/civilliberties.haltemprice
re 20 - that’s a pathetic argument and you know it. What proportion of the electorate voted for Labour on May 5th 2005?
@28:
It’s not an argument at all. It’s LALALALALACAN’THEARYOU, no more, no less.
Once again, the people of Britain have told the Labour filth to go f*ck themselves. Once again, the self-centred bastards don’t want to hear the message ringing loud and clear across the UK.
Ah, glorious afternoon! England 389 for 3 against South Africa, Brown comparing himself to great literary figures and appearing almost certifiable, New Labour’s nasty authoritarian bandwagon run into the sand thanks to the mighty DD…
Scottish sub-sample from this week’s Times/Populus Westminster voting intention poll. Usual caveats regarding sub-samples of GB-wide polls apply. (% change from UK GE 2005)
1. SNP 44% (+26%)
2. Lab 25% (-14%)
3. Con 15% (-1%)
4. LD 9% (-14%)
5. Grn 2% (+1%)
BNP 1%
UKIP 1%
oth 3%
http://populuslimited.com/uploads/download_pdf-060708-The-Times-The-Times-Poll—July-2008.pdf
On yesterdays topic on VED increases - Mr Brown’s Green Policy advisor doesn’t support the VED backdating proposals
http://tinyurl.com/578nrc
I suppose Mr McNulty will claim that “For all that solid public service over 30 years ….I respect enormously ….but his experience in car taxation… is very limited, which he’d freely admit himself, particularly as he cycles to work.”
27. Yes, splendid article. She puts case better than Davis did, actually.
28. more than the proportion that voted for clear alternatives
also arguably, staying at home on that day was tacit non-objection to all the possible winners, whereas refusing to back Davis on his one-man referendum could be considered as mild objection to his cause.
Good Lord. Nick Ferrari and Zoe Williams are dreadful. I can’t watch this anymore, although I quite like Anita Anand.
On topic, I don’t think one can infer that the anti-Tory vote had dried up because the Greens didn’t do well. Anti-Tory voters are not necessarily pro-Green and are probably pro-Labour. But this was all about Davis so national trends aren’t so relevant. Good on him, by the way.
It’s still the Greens’ best-ever by-election result!
I think ballot-fatigue didn’t help. The 29% who turned out to vote against Davies were faced with a confusion of candidates, and many would have effectively just stuck a pin in the ballot paper. Had the ballot-paper been shorter, the Green might have done better.
Goodness me, there’s an extraordinary amount of rallying to the official Labour message today.
Anyone would suspect that Labour supporters are touchy about the subject…
28 - It appears to be the Labour line to take this morning.
Labour spin lines are particularly poor at the moment. One reason I am very doubtful whether Labour will recover is that its PR seems so atrocious. Gordon Brown should have been forcibly muzzled rather than let him comment on likenesses to Heathcliff. With that and the “eat up your greens” exhortation, followed by a particularly lavish state banquet at the G8, the Prime Minister is descending from a figure of contempt into a figure of fun. While I appreciate that you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, surely they can do better than this?
8. 18. Indeed, Labour will be very disappointed at the performance of their proxy candidate.
14. Was this guy for real?
“Please also consider sending me 1% of your earnings at paddyhedges@gmail.com, as a reward for having come up with the idea. ”
WTF?
Glasgow East - best prices
Bookies:
Lab 8/13 (William Hill)
SNP 6/4 (Ladbrokes)
LD 100/1 (Ladbrokes)
Con 200/1 (Sporting Bet)
Betfair:
Lab 1.72
SNP 2.16
Con 210
LD 210
Any Other 210
Antifrank it seems the professionals agree with you.
http://www.order-order.com/2008/07/byrne-fires-on-downing-street.html
Stuart Dickson - from previous thread (18 I think?) I don’t post this out of spite, but as a staunch Unionist I find these figures VERY encouraging:
“The Scottish government should negotiate a settlement with the Government of the United Kingdom so that Scotland becomes an independent state.”
Disagree 48%
Agree 36%
NR/DK 14%
- The poll also found that most Scots were keen to see Labour lose a 13,000 majority in Glasgow East - its third safest seat in Scotland - in a by-election on July 24… Forty-nine per cent said they would like the SNP candidate John Mason to triumph in Glasgow East over Margaret Curran, the Labour candidate, who had the support of 33 per cent of the voters interviewed across the country
- Fifty five per cent are in favour of keeping the Queen as head of state and 29 per cent against.
- In addition, a majority of Scots want to keep the pound (73 per cent) rather than the euro
- They also want to continue contributing troops to Britain’s armed forces (66 per cent), rather than having their own separate armed forces (23 per cent)
- And they want UK immigration laws to apply north of the border
- and want Scotland’s athletes - such as the Wimbledon quarter-finalist Andy Murray - to compete for Britain in the Olympics.
- They also want Scotland to be represented abroad by the UK
- and are opposed to a so-called Scottish Six news bulletin, preferring the existing arrangement with Scotland watching the BBC’s Six O’Clock News from London, followed by a local bulletin. Sixty per cent back the current arrangement
Maybe there’s hope for saving our country yet?
Well done my fellow Scots. Good decision.
42 - I hadn’t seen that beforehand, cub’s honour.
36. Second place and 7+% is very respectable in isolation. Nearly tying with the English Democrats and polling fewer than 2000 votes with no mainstream centre-left opposition is not.
Mike’s right: this was a poor result for the Greens. They get more votes in my local council ward, and that’s with Tory, Lib Dem and Labour opposition. I suspect this is partly down to campaigning techniques: they simply have no idea how to win votes when they’re not an ‘also-ran’. They can win council elections usually based on hyper-local issues, and can win other votes on their policies (though not many), but going and playing the bigger game is something unknown to them and they fluffed the chance.
@43:
How does the polling stack up if you offer Scots ‘independence in all but name’ fiscal autonomy?
The Greens are poor election campaigners.
Attention will now shift onto Brown and the Labour party. Thirteen days with the media focusing on the poverty and deprivation in Glasgow East is I believe going to turn into a referendum on the nuLabour project. The only question is whether the voters sieze the chance to create an electoral shock.
After 11 years people have a life expectancy in some areas under 60 years old… Frankly it is so shocking that it should become a tombstone for the Scottish Labour (SLAB) and its rotten core.
“Telegraph” to-day. Article by John Kampfner “The Labour party could well disappear after the next election”. I know nothing of Kampfner - the article is devastating, particularly the last two paragraphs.It contains a number of references to Labour Member’s opinions from all sides of the Party.Can anyone on site give some comment on his reliability or otherwise(excluding Coldstone, of course)? I see NickP is here .I am sure he knows the party mood,but we won’t get anything out of him. Incidentally, Nick, I did not see your Commons disgraceful slur on Conservatives repeated on site as requested - perhaps I missed it.
Antifrank, I just admired you judgement.
According to the Scottish National Party press release about today’s YouGov/Daily Telegraph poll, there was actually another question on the constitution, which was missing from the weblinked DT article. Also, the dates of fieldwork and sample size, which were missing online too:
“On Independence in Europe:
11% believe that Scotland should continue to be represented by the UK in the EU
66% believe Scotland should become an independent member of the EU
17% believe we should leave the EU
5% don’t know
The poll sample was 1,131 adults across Scotland between 8-10 July”
http://www.snp.org/node/14048
FTSE now a bear market 5329.
I just wait to read the numpties say that it is the fault of the Conservatives talking down the economy…
48 - There’s a thumbnail on wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kampfner
Here are some articles by him in the Guardian for you to peruse and consider:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/johnkampfner
The central point I guess is that he is a man of the left, not the right. His prediction seems highly excitable to me, but it’s not wishful thinking by a Tory.
43. Casino Royale
That’s OK Mr Royale! You can re-post my posts any time you like.
49 - It’s a function of monkeys and typewriters. If I put up enough posts, sooner or later I’ll say something sensible.
Another Glasgow piece by Fraser Nelson.
That Jo Moore wasn’t a very nice lady, was she?
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/830056/the-glasgow-east-byelection-shows-us-the-two-scotlands.thtml
50 Stuart Dickson, doesn’t that rather contradict the other parts of the poll?
Perhaps some misunderstanding of the EU and nation states within it?
@50:
So, what, Scots want to be an independent member of the EU, but remain part of the UK for all other International purposes?
Is that possible/allowable within the EU’s institutional framework?
Never mind the fact that such a move would almost certainly be vetoed by several EU States that don’t want to give their more autonomy-minded regions ideas.
54, doesn’t seem to work for Gabble:p
@58:
Ah, that’s because Gabble always writes the *same* post.
I have always said there is no substantial anti-Tory *vote* there was a Tory voters strike and now there will be a Labour voters strike which depressed relative turnout and boosted the vote share for the other side by default.
What all the polls reveal is that at any time roughly 40% of the population aren’t going to vote for anyone at a GE.
This is not a static number of people who never vote, as anyone who canvasses knows there *are* people who refuse to vote for anyone, ever, but they are in a much smaller proportion than 4 in 10 - I’d say less than 1 in 10.
So that leaves up to 30% of the electorate who won’t vote in this election but don’t see themsleves as non voters - they ‘normally’ vote but not this time, thank you.
Since the mid 1990’s these voters came from our pool of support; now they come predominantly from the other side.
In Torbay the 1005 Lib Dem vote was - at some 19,000 in number terms nearly identical to the 1983 Liberal vote, the 1987 Alliance Vote and the 1992 Lib Dem vote - we lost the seat because our vote sank from nearly 30,000 in the 1980’s to 21,000 in the 1990’s and just over 17,000 in ‘01 and ‘05 - a movement that is in direct proportion to the number of stay-at-homes increasing during the same period.
I would have voted Green quite happily. I’d expected them to come second, but I thought they’d get well clear of 10%. I agree with Mike on this.
No doubt the Greens put very few leaflets through very few letterboxes. There are only about three places where they’re capable of mounting a proper ground war in a Parliamentary seat: Brighton, Norwich and at a pinch perhaps Oxford. Nevertheless, they once got 15% in a European election, and as the only non-Tory party with Parliamentarians i thought they’d do much better.
55.
I love BrianSJ’s comment on Nelson’s Spectator blog:
- “Thank you very much.
Your analysis illustrates the dreadful problem of government ‘averages’. Nassim Nicholas Taleb has written eloquently about the huge practical difference between a gaussian analysis and an 80/20 analysis.”
Huh?
Well done Brian! That’ll have 99.9% of readers reaching perplexed for their Googles and Wikipedias!
Not much of a political future ahead, I fear, for Miss Saward who finished a very disappointing 6th with fewer than 500 votes, sandwiched between Gemma Garrett (aka Miss Great Britain) and Mad Cow-Girl Monster Raving.
Still, from a personal perspective, I suppose there are worse things to be sandwiched between.
And as for the deal with the Lib Dems, well after Crewe and Nantwich he’d presumably have seen them off, but it wasn’t entirely certain. And he didn’t fancy risking his Parliamentary seat.
Agreed though, he would have won very likely, and got a lot more attention for it.
56. - “… doesn’t that rather contradict the other parts of the poll?”
Yep. That’s opinion polling for you folks!
We will know more next week when the detailed data sheets are published on YouGov’s website.
50. Clearly, the answers are confusing and contradictory.
Scotland are represented separately in Euro competitions and the 6-Nations, maybe that’s what they were thinking of?
Personally, I think the YouGov answers are almost *too* good to be true - 73% supporting the pound?
I can’t recall that level of support in *England* for a long time!!
Interesting answers on immigration and defence too, it would seem that the Scots are saying - most of the reserved powers are ok, but we’d like fiscal autonomy, tax-raising powers and control over our mineral revenues please.
In truth, I think Scots are saying; “we want more autonomy and self-respect, but not independence.”
I still think most Scots, when faced with the ultimate question, would not want to make their neighbours, family and friends in England citizens of a foreign country and lose the international influence they get from remaining part of the UK.
Poll showing SNP four points clear in Glasgow East
67. http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/jul/11/glasgoweast.byelections1?gusrc=rss&feed=uknews
60 - You are making an error of statistical analysis there, Marcus. The fact that your vote fell by approximately the same amount as abstainers increased does not imply that the abstainers are all or largely people who used to vote for you.
Were that the case, you would expect turnout to have fallen much more in seats with historically more Tory voters. If anything, that is the opposite of what has happened - turnout has fallen more in seats where the Tories are weak.
It would also imply that there are few people who were down on the canvass sheets as Tory in the 1980s who voted for Adrian Sanders in 1997, 2001 and 2005. I just don’t believe that’s credible.
67. 68. Ignore these posts it’s a misleading guardian headline, I apologise.
65, hmm. In psychometric testing questions related to a specific topic (ie how likeable are hamsters) are checked to make sure that answers given correlate to a reasonable degree so that the topic you’re attempting to measure is what people are responding to. The key is to get the same number of eigenvalues (if memory serves, statistical derived number of topic) as the areas you’re trying to get answers to.
Sometimes you end up with more eigenvalues the first time because the questions are designed to tie in closely enough with the central theme.
I wonder how much like opinion polling psychometric statistical analysis is like. The problem is, I suppose, that psych questionnaires can be a little long (to acquire more robust results) and that people approached with a 50 item political survey will run away.
I’m actually surprised at the H&H turnout. I thought it would be much lower. Compared to Hillary Benn’s 19.9% in Leeds in 1999, its a very creditable performance.
I hope DD focuses for the foreseeable future on preserving civil liberties in this country. Along with his colleagues for Henley and Crewe & Nantwich, he is valuable in actually having the voters support the position his party has taken on 42 days. It’s a moral authority Labour MP’s can’t claim.
From that Kampner article “On the ground, many local Labour parties are effectively moribund. Much of the work is now done centrally, by email shots, social networking sites and telephone canvassing, but the financial state of the party nationally is so parlous that even much of this work is in jeopardy.”
Labour created a dependency on centrally driven voter communication systems which require major funding. With them in a perilous financial position they will be unable to fight an effective GE.
73, importantly, hahahahaha.
Centralisation playing a role in a Labour defeat? Delicious irony.
73 second para is my words.
I still think most Scots, ………., would not want to ……….lose the international influence they get from remaining part of the UK.
I am sure that most Scots would consider that having 100% control over their own seat at the EU & UN is far more appealing than having next to no say over the UK seat!!!!!
Glasgow East from the Fraser Kemp article
“Moral long-sightedness This is a phrase from Rabbi Lionel Blue. He means the ability of people to see (and get worked up) about problems thousands of miles away or hundreds of years away (global warming) but be blind to poverty on our own doorstep.”
Brown focuses more on poverty in Africa than in his own back yard.
28 - do you mean how many voted lab in 2005 in their safe seats with the other major parties also campaigning? Compared to a tory in his own safe seat with no opposition. Sorry Mike if this doesn’t fit in with your anti-lab editorialising.
In Torbay the 1005 Lib Dem vote was - 1005? Those Vikings responsible for depressing turnout then.
28 - do you mean how many voted lab in 2005 in their safe seats with the other major parties also compaigning? Compared to a tory in his own safe seat with no opposition. Sorry Mike if this doesn’t fit in with your anti-lab editorialising.
I’ve just topped up my bet on the SNP to win Glasgow East at Ladbroke’s remarkably generous odds of 6-4.
I’m relying on Easterross’ expert local knowledge and the inevitability that the good people of Glasgow will be only too ready to give Labour a good kicking, just as their counterparts did in both C&N and Henley.
An outstanding must-read article on the beginnings of an Obama presidency from National Journal:
http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/cs_20080709_6213.php
79 - Yes but crime has fallen since then, there has been a decrease in the occurrence of rape and pillage!
81 The closest example to this by-election in recent times is imho Monklands East in 94. I suspect the result will also be similar.
@80:
Mr Humanist, you may as well keep typing
“OFFICIAL LABOUR LINE”
over and over again, to save yourself the bother. Or we could simply take your tedious and self-pitying parroting thereof as read.
SNP overtake Labour in Westminster support - Polling Report
81…a wise move indeed,sir!
85 - if you really think that everyone that agrees with you does so out of some natural process and that everyone that doesn’t is part of a co-ordinated conspiracy….then I think there’s a medical term for that and you should seek help
84 - Interesting analogy. That by-election was caused by the sudden and much-mourned death of a popular and important politician at a time when Labour was riding high in the opinion polls. This by-election is caused by the voluntary resignation of a much less well-known politician in rather murky circumstances at a time that Labour is nailed to the floor in the opinion polls. The only similarity I can see is that both by-elections are in Scotland in previously-safe Labour seats.
2 things.
Firstly, the campaign was about civil liberties. Many lefties may have been disinclined to vote against Davis’ stand against an authoritarian state. Secondly, I’m sure many of them are less put off by Cameron than by previous Tory leaders and perhaps don’t feel the passion to vote against the current Tory leadership when it isn’t really necessary. Bad results for the Tories would most likely see them eventually lurch back to the right.
@88:
Somebody calling themself “The Labour Humanist” is parroting the same (long discredited) Labour line over and over again.
Pointing this out is paranoia?
Hmmmm, right.
I think I made my views on the Green Party pretty clear in this post back in March.
REPOST From last thread
Should Davis have done it ? Even after the result my view is much the same as at the start. This was an unpredicted and hence unpredictable move on his part. It won’t have reduced his public recognition and it will have rendered his seat totally safe for as long as he wants to be an MP.
For the Tory Party it is good, 12 months ago a by-election in H&H would have been welcomed about as much as Labour welcomed Glasgow East last month. Almost certainly it would have been lost.
The objections to the H&H by-election here seem to have been governed by a Calvinist morality, “Is your by-election really necessary ?”.
Well, probably not but if that is the yardstick then the by-election last year in Sedgefield was even more wrong than this one. I have already said that Henley did not need to happen although I concede that my principal consideration was one of party political expediency not any high minded public rectitude.
Finally, I assume from the deafening silence that Ronnie Carroll is still alive and enjoying his moment of success. Obviously if he had died during the campaign the election would have been countermanded and rescheduled at a later date. However, what would have happened if it had emerged, as LBC were alledging in the middle of the night that he was in fact dead when his nomination papers were entered. Would it be an undue election or would DD’s victory be allowed to stand ?
Dodd claims he’s being vetted:
http://thepage.time.com/2008/07/11/obama-team-asks-dodd-for-vetting-info/
Sebelius won’t deny being vetted:
http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/vpwatch/2008/07/sebelius-a-no-1-seed.html
afternoon all. I just have to get off my chest that Tony McNulty has to be the most ignorant puffed up non-entity promoted well beyond his abilities.
Snearing at DD is bad enough but to rubbish the work and opinions of Baroness Eliza who ran our security services is just too much! McNulty makes Hazel Blears look like an intellectual.
Nick Palmer I really don’t know how you can associate with such a bunch of intellectual light-weights!
It is amusing to see all the Labour morons going on about Davis only having secured 25% of the electorate. In 2005 Labour became the party of government with 3% LESS of the electorate than that. Yep, we are ruled by a party with the support of just 22% of the electorate.
And now of course we have a Prime Minister who is so cowardly he won’t even fight an election or have a vote on anything of importance because he is too afraid of losing.
Of course 42 days is dead and buried - just like Brown’s chances of reelection. Davis has helped with both those burials by showing how cowardly Brown is and by highlighting the idiocy of locking up innocent people with no just cause.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7501554.stm
The fact that they didn’t see fit to attack him face-to-face on the hustings says it all.
McNulty really is a tit.
Agree that in the circumstances the Green result is very poor for them. I was expecting them to get well over 10%, maybe 15%. In the end they only just scraped 2nd from the English Democrats, and only just saved their deposit.
This is a result I think of two factors, one is that the Greens are clearly an entirely urban phenomenon, and the other is that the Greens’ recent huge swing to the far-left means that they cant have a serious chance outside areas where socialism still has a strong feel.
Interestingly the Greens stood still at the last local elections (with the notable exception of Norwich, where the LDs are self-destructing), and it does look like 2006 was their big boost year. It is quite possible they have plateaued, now that Cameron has detoxed the Tories.
@97:
David Davis compared to a much-loved cultural icon?
Interesting choice.
<162 ukpaul. I don’t support the governments 42 day proposals. Indeed I have grave misgivings over 28days. I take the position that the nations hard won civil rights shouldn’t be curbed at the first sign of grapeshot.
David Davis activities are another matter. IMO it was the political equivalent of a mid life crisis, utterly ill conceived and badly executed. The fact that his high profile, media intensive campaign met with a voter indifferent raspberry says volumes.
Anyone got any ideas where Heathcliff is going to find the £4 billion that the Parliamentary Ombudsman and EU Parliament insist should be paid as compensation to Equitable Life pensioners?
Same fund as used for Northern Rock?
Did we work out what grievance is driving JackW to adopt the OFFICIAL LABOUR LINE over Davis?
Presumably some psychological trauma I’ve missed.
Mark Senior has been quiet about the local by-elections so far.
West Wiltshire
Con 452
LD 366
Con gain
Aberystwyth, Rheidol by-election : July 10th 2008
John Aled Davies (Plaid Cymru) 271 votes (40.20% +12.03%)
Alex Dauncey (Liberal Democrats) 252 votes (37.38% -30.20%)
Carol Kolzak (Independent) 98 (14.54%)
Richard Boudier (Labour) 36 (5.34%)
Luke Evetts (Conservative) 17 (2.52% -2.72%)
Plaid Cymru GAIN from Liberal Democrats
Swing from Liberal Democrat to Plaid Cymru - 21.62%
96 - so then tory troll explain how that is a statistically robust comparison
New thread - Has the Guardian made a boo-boo?
102. Maybe some people just agree with Labour on the issue. I’m sure we could start pointing out when your posts agree with the Conservative official line.
86. On Electoral Calculus that gives:
Lab 26, SNP 19, Lib Dem 8, Con 6
But with just 2% more shifting Labour -> SNP, which is quite feasible with two more years of Brown:
Lab 17, SNP 30, Lib Dem 7, Con 5
Political earthquake?
102 Martin C. I think you’ll find my position is Cameron’s unsaid OFFICIAL CONSERVATIVE LINE over Davis !!
100. I think you project your own distaste about Davis onto what was a quite reasonable turnout. Just because you think he’s a drama queen you shouldn’t knock the numbers voting in an election that was un/necessary as you wish with no major opponents. The BBC no friends of Davis called it respectable. If they’d have thought otherwise adjectives like low, tiny embarrassing would have tripped over their tongues faster than Nick Soames eats.
107 You mean the official unofficial LibDem line of the hour.
It will, of course, change at 2pm.
104
Since I am not a Tory I assume you have had another of those senior moments you Labour people are so famous for.
110 - this is premier league debating I see
You chose to make a false statement based on your own biased assumptions. I am simply pointing out that you are wrong.
And of course it is perfectly valid when the Labour morons go on about Davis only getting 25% of the electorate, to point out that Labour on got 22% of the electorate in 2005. They raise the issue as having some significance not me.
109 Witan. You’ll know more about that than me as you seem to stalk the yellow peril with alacrity.
114 - there is a big difference between an uncontested procession in a safe seat and a keenly fought general election. And do believe the first place I saw this argument made was on tory boy iain dale’s site.
Yes the difference is that in an effectively uncontested seat there is less incentive for people to come out and vote and hence the turnout is lower.
So what is Labour’s excuse for polling 3% lower than that in a keenly contested general election when the turnout was higher and one would have thought there was more incentive for people to support their party.
Anyway the Labour morons try to spin this, the fact is that the H&H contest inspired a higher percentage of support for Davis and his views than for Labour and their’s at the General election.
115 - as ronnie reagan once said….there you go again
the stunt by election and the 2005 general election are not suitable for comparison, unless you’re going down to 6th form common room debate standards (although that would be better that a lot of the trolling you get on here)
I was until recently fairly involved with the Green Party. Although they are playing up this “record” by election result, it is very poor for them, and the electorally competent among them will recognise it as such. It’s further indication of their electoral decline since 2005. As things are, they will lose one or both MEPs next year.
In normal circumstances, I would expect the Greens to get about 3-4% in a seat like H&H. If the lack of Labour and Lib Dem opponents adds only another 3% to this, then the Greens are clearly going nowhere…
Even if there was more anti-tory sentiment, I doubt that the Greens would have done significantly better.
Well done Davis on a victory, but it must be galling that he got fewer votes than at the last GE. It looks less than a ringing endorsement. He deserved better. I blame Vincent Hannah for not being there.
Had I been an elector in H and H, I, a LD anorak (though not activist) would have voted for Davis. So who actually voted for Davis? What did the substantial LD vote in H and H do? If some of them voted Tory, like I would have, why did so many Tories stay at home? Don’t they care about civil liberties.
Mike - “Covering the electoral process at work should be the first priority for a public service broadcaster and they failed miserably. ” What did our other public service broadcaster, C4, do to cover the election. They may not get a slice of the licence fee, but they don’t may much for the right to broadcast, so do actually get a big state kickback on top of the advertising revenue.
I agree with former Green about this result but not our overall progress. I think most of us were expecting 10%+ and as such it was a disappointing result. For those of us regarded as Electorally competent, we’ll see how we get on in Brighton Pavilion and Norwich South in 2010 as a measure of our progress.
We had 68 councillors at the time of the last Euro Elections and we will have over 120 going into the next year’s contest. What holds us back more than anything, and I speak as someone who spent about 8 hours in Crewe, is lack of finance.
Take a look at the spending of red, yellow and blue (all £95k or more). Even UKIP spent over £11,000. We spent £284. That’s it. We don’t have the financial clout (yet) to fulfil our potential in elections like this, but our strategy is very much on course.
The London Assembly results saw the Lib Dems reduced from 5 Assembly Members to just 3, despite having many, many London councillors and controlling some councils overall. We had just 12 citywide (13 now, we won a byelection on the day) and held our 2 Assembly seats.
I think next year’s Euros will be interesting, but it will be UKIP and Lib Dem seats that will be most vulnerable. Byelections are definitely not the way to measure Green political progress.
119 - it’s a bit of a struggle to see the LDs losing many Euro seats. The one in the NW may go - where MEP has defect to Tories - and the one in the North East may well go.
I can’t really see either going Green - the NW one may go BNP, the NE one to Labour. If UKIP implode - and I am not sure they will, the Tories may be the beneficiaries, but Labour may also gain seats too. What did they get last Euronight? 22%?
116
Your continued attempt to spin this just shows how little you understand both the political system and what has happened to your rotten discredited labour party in recent years.
T%he bottom line is that you represent a discredited party which has been shown to be cowardly and incompetant. I suggest you slink off back into the shadows where you belong.
121 - more premier league debating there - congrats
I am fairly sympathetic to the Greens and I thought this was a very disappointing result.
But I think voting patterns were different in this election - it wasn’t the anti-Tory vote that needed hoovering up tbh!
I think a lot of LDs will have voted for Davis over his stand on the issue, a lot of tories and LDs will have voted for English democracy.
But I expected a large amount of the Labour vote to go green - and it patently did not - it seems to have stayed at home along with the pro-42 day tory vote.