Ruling party comes third in UK elections for first time

[iain]

For the first time ever, it looks like the UK ruling party (Labour, in this case) will come in third place in the local elections. Current projections are :

Conservative : 38%
Liberal Democrat : 30%
Labour : 26%

Not bad enough to cause Labour to lose the General Election I think, but an interesting event anyway.

The big cities are counting today, so we'll see this evening how the balance of power has shifted.

[Lothian]

Originally posted by iain
For the first time ever, it looks like the UK ruling party (Labour, in this case) will come in third place in the local elections. Current projections are :

Conservative : 38%
Liberal Democrat : 30%
Labour : 26%

Not bad enough to cause Labour to lose the General Election I think, but an interesting event anyway.

The big cities are counting today, so we'll see this evening how the balance of power has shifted. I am not sure how the seats so far represent the expected overall vote but I was surprised to see that after 85 declarations (out of 166) we have

Labour 773 councillors
Cons 671 councillors
Libs 539 councillors

If this is typical it again bring out the injustice in first past the post.

[Ian Osborne]

Originally posted by Lothian
I am not sure how the seats so far represent the expected overall vote but I was surprised to see that after 85 declarations (out of 166) we have

Labour 773 councillors
Cons 671 councillors
Libs 539 councillors

If this is typical it again bring out the injustice in first past the post.

Does that include council seats that weren't part of this election, and therefore wouldn't be included in Iain's voting figures?

[Lothian]

Originally posted by Ian Osborne


Does that include council seats that weren't part of this election, and therefore wouldn't be included in Iain's voting figures? Don't think so.

From here (BBC) (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/vote2004/locals/html/scoreboard.stm)

[iain]

Originally posted by Ian Osborne


Does that include council seats that weren't part of this election, and therefore wouldn't be included in Iain's voting figures? I think it does. The figure doesn't include councillors from councils with no elections (e.g. London boroughs) but it might include councils that elect in thirds - so only one third of councillors were actually up for election.

Even with a PR system, just the fact that the elections are local means you could get discrepencies.

[Lothian]

Originally posted by iain
I think it does. The figure doesn't include councillors from councils with no elections (e.g. London boroughs) but it might include councils that elect in thirds - so only one third of councillors were actually up for election.Dunno. The councils column would include part elections but I doubt the councillors does.

Even with a PR system, just the fact that the elections are local means you could get discrepencies. Yes,there are problems with PR on a local level.

[iain]

The other thing to remember about local election results is that the size of the electorate varies hugely between urban and rural areas. An urban councillor might represent two or three times the number of people that a rural councillor represents.

This means that the Conservatives, who have more rural support, tend to get more councillors than their share of the vote would suggest, because 1000 votes might elect a rural councillor, but 3000 might be needed to elect an urban councillor.

The Lib Dems and Labour have their support more evenly spread. That doesn't explain why the figures show Labour winning far more seats that the Lib Dems with less of the vote, though. Haven't figured that one out yet.

[Jon_in_london]

London elections will be interesting.

The danger here is that Labour think "they did this as an anti-war protest". While thats somewhat true, it not just the war but a whole load of other stuff- like top-up fees, sweeping constitutional reform without consultation and pouring billions of pounds of taxpayers money straight into the pockets of the shareholders of companies like Crapita and Jarvis.

Labour bangs on about how much they have invested in public services but the fact is that for the premium we pay, we should be getting first class, rather than the violates-EU-regulations-for-the-mistreatment-of-livestock class services we have at the moment.