General election open thread
Posted on Thursday 6 May, 2010
Filed Under Politics
AFTER a full day on the stump for John McDonnell, I’m too cream crackered to come up with any complex analysis of tonight’s proceedings. But the feedback from Hayes and Harlington is that Labour will hold with a substantially reduced minority. That’s not just my prediction; I’ve spoken to some leading Tories in the constituency, and they privately conceed defeat.
Instead, I’m just going to sit back and veg out in front of the TV coverage. Indeed, Stroppy and I are just about to open la deuxieme bouteille du vin. Expect a post tomorrow. In the meanwhile, the comments box is open for readers’ observations.
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12.45 pm: so far, not quite the catastrophe I’d feared. The Lib Dem surge seems to have fizzlede. Rumours of sit-in and protests over polling stations being closed before queuing would-be voters had cast their votes. Entertaining though Channel 4′s coverage is, I’m now off to bed (maybe to be lulled to sleep by Radio 4)…some of us have to go to work in the morning.
“pm” should, of course, be “am.” And I’m relatively sober too.
Both Parliament and the Labour Party would be poorer places without John McDonnell as an MP.
Not quite a catastrophe? Pollyanism Jim, its awful. 10% and 12% swings all round, worse than I could have feared. Fuck it sideways [slumps to bed -1:45am, prove me fucking wrong morning.....]
[sorry, meant 1:20am, like it makes a fucking difference..]
The Tories are not quite going to get there, are they?
And as for the Lib Dems … egg on Guardian faces, no?
An appalling result for Rob Williams (TUSC) in Swansea West – the lowest number of votes of any candidate. Well behind UKIP and the BNP.
Time to dig out my well-thumbed copy of ‘Far Left Excuses for Rotten Election Results’ by Cliff, Taaffe, Rees & Smith.
My comment is exactly the same as you made elsewhere – even by their appalling history of dire results, the far left vote tonight is abysmal. Average of 0.6, 0.7?
A better man would say why and what we do. Correction, not a better man, just a better bullshitter. None of us know.
We’re fucked, but what’s new?
It’s just a new, deeper level of fuckedness. .
Hung government, Brown will not concede, it looks like a deal may well have been done with the liberals who have had another poor showing, which might see Clegg hang on it he can do a deal with Labour, I doubt he will go near the Tories.
A few have gone Clark, Jacquie Smith, and a few others
Interesting battle to come…..
Arthur Seaton: Thursday Night and Friday Morning?
I see Caroline Lucas got in but Salma Yaqoob didn’t. So a mixed result for the confused petty bourgeois “left.”
Comrade Les Abbey is right!
What would the Provisional Irish Republican Army do without the fearless John ["brave volunteers"] McDonnell as their Parliamentary spokesman?
The results are not yet all in, but one thing is certain: the country is borrowing, and will continue to borrow, half a billion quid a day to stay afloat, thanks to the the financial acumen of McBroon!
“So a mixed result for the confused petty bourgeois “left.””
But a triumph for the lets tail the bourgeois left?
Seems like there have been big regional differences, Labour did well in London, Lancashire, Scotland and Wales but poorly everywhere else.
BNP challenge fails to get anywhere, UKIP make no impression (I know Euro elections are odd, but compare last night with their performance then). Jon Cruddas held his seat reasonably comfortably in the end. Have to take comforts where we can. Too tired and confused to come up with much else. Was I the only one thoroughly fed up with Nick Robinson and all the other talking heads pretending they had a clue what was going on?
McDonnell has comfortably held – will he manage to raise a challenge to Brown (or even make the ballot paper in any up-coming leadership election?).
Great really really great that McDonnell won so well.
Good result in Brum with Yaqoob losing and in Luton with Esther going nowhere.
Here the Tories won.
Ugg.
Andrew Coates feels that Semtex McDonnell holding his seat is good news but that Ms Yaqoob failing to gain a seat is bad news?
Esther the Teeth deserved to be punished for having made such a silly fuss about the Mapplethorpe exhibition, but one doubts that 1% of the electorate have even heard of it or remember what she had to say.
I was watching the BBC election coverage earlier and that Lord Ashcroft, you know – Lord Whatsisname of Belize, came out with something that smacked me sideways.
He said that an independent poll had been taken of ordinary people and the “brand recognition” of Lord Ashcroft of Belize was lower than that of a wholly imaginary person thrown into the mix in the same way that non-existant shampoos and soap powders are added to the list in High Street marketing surveys.
“Andrew Coates feels that Semtex McDonnell holding his seat is good news but that Ms Yaqoob failing to gain a seat is bad news?”
Why would anybody be surprised that Coates is happy to see a Muslim women lose out in an election?
[Friday morning, sprightly] Wow, nowhere near as bad as when I went to bed! Tories hung good and proper, Greens in, BNP out, DUP out, all three Labs returned in my hometown. Compared to last night I’m positively ecstatic!
Jim Fitzpatrick Labour 18,679 40.0 +4.7
Tim Archer Conservative 12,649 27.1 +2.6
George Galloway Respect-Unity Coalition 8,160 17.5 -0.7
A special thanks to the Respect Party without whose help this result would not have been achieved.
Dave ~ “And as for the Lib Dems … egg on Guardian faces, no?”
My thoughts entirely ~ what happened to that much hyped new dawn?
In Wales Labour did better than predicted (worried core vote fearing “tory” cuts hold tight to nurse?), Plaid was as full of wind and puffery as usual, and my local Green candidate got only 450 votes (inc mine). And she tried very hard. Plus ca Change.
But at least Lembit gets to spend more time with his mirror.
Just now from the Grauniad…
“Our economics editor Larry Elliott, who has been highly critical of the Liberal Democrats, joked the Guardian should continue to back the party as it would “probably finish them off”. He said Nick Clegg had been “exposed” in the final leaders’ debate.”
Rev. Kettle is backing Cameroooon ~”Labour’s finished”. No surprise there. Polly (the curse of) wants “the reformist postman” to take over. ditto.
Commiserations on losing a one-er on Salma. Does seem like the appeal of Not Washington but Mosque were limited after all. I see that Barry Kade has said at socialistunity that “Still – a powerful second place, Salma is a growing force in Birmingham politics” which will presumably be the official holding line, the truth is that given the claims that Godsiff was the most despised candidate ever, who a couple of days ago Respect was claiming was out of the race, if they can’t beat him they can’t beat anyone. Hype we can’t believe in seems to be their forte.
An asian woman was elected in Birmingham last night. Just not the next MLK.
Caroline Lucas’ victory might force the other parties to say they’re taking Green issues a bit more seriously. I saw Ed Vaizey use the environment this morning as an example of where the Tories and the Lib Dems had something in common. So perhaps more talking the talk than walking the walk.
A few weeks ago an ex-SWP friend in Barking and Dagenham, who had previously mentioned that unlike in 1997 when noone he knew supported the Tories now knew noone who was planning to vote Labour, and who voted Green at the Euros, had no problem with voting for Hodge when he heard that Griffin was standing:”Vote for the crook not the Nazi, obviously”, so it wasn’t a great shock that he made no more than a dent.
Re: Graun
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100038453/could-the-guardian-possibly-have-got-this-election-more-wrong/
As someone once (nearly) said, just because something is in the Telegraph doesn’t mean its not true….
More from the Guardian – the fabulous Mr Kettle
“Be in no doubt this is a huge personal victory for Cameron”
Jesus, what is this man mainlining?? Not even the Mail would dare spout such shite.
Not a bad result in the circumstances.
The Liberals are in the process of revealing their Thatcherite true colours, even the unwashed frauds who support them can’t pretend they’re remotely “progressive” now. The Tories will have to enact their class war slash and burn cuts in the teeth of a perpetually imminent new election and there’s some vague prospect of PR which may offer the chance for my people to wriggle out from under the Hooray-infested carcass of New Labour.
The Tories have actually done very badly when you consider all the problems New Labour have had and taking into account they had the overwhelming support of the corrupt media. They should be scratching their heads wondering why they haven’t won a landslide.
Clearly Brown must now go and McDonnell should take over.
For what it’s worth, I think this result is in line with the rest of Europe. In recent elections in Europe, it seems to me that the right has been in the ascendent, but not by very much. (Assuming that we count Labour as left). It also shows how loyal voters are when all is said and done.
SueR. The good news is the Tories were trashed again in Scotland. Labour gained two seats and held all others, majorities were up. Brown should hang in if possible. Gorgeous and Yaqoob the womans libber with the veil are oot. At least some of you English have common sense.
Your fears were unfounded. The Hayes and Harlington result was a massive victory to McDonnell and your efforts – the swing to the Tories was tiny compared to the national trend, just 1.6%. McDonnell romped home with nearly 55% of the vote.
The low swing compares favorably to many of the neighbouring constituencies too, although Stephen Pound in Ealing North actually managed a slight swing to Labour for some reason.
The devotion to Semtex McDonnell on this thread is beyond my comprehension.
Is Semtex McDonnell the Archpriest of a very secretive cult which is well-represented in Oslerian circles?
On the result:
http://liberalconspiracy.org/2010/05/07/go-caroline-lucas/
I wish Ms Yaqoob had won a seat, in spite of her headscarf.
Is this a singular mental aberration? When I read the name Yaqoob / Yakoob [i.e. Jacob] I immediately think of Begg of the Cage Prisoners, because Yakoob Begg was a former dancing boy* who caused the Russkis much grief in Central Asia in the days of the Great Game.
* This is no disparagement; Shirley Temple was a child star who went on to be a competent ambassador to Ghana and Hungary.
Dave: I would have thought that your experience with Ms Kaschke would have made you more circumspect about what comments you publish on this site. Just saying like.
I don’t suppose many of you noticed the fact, but MPACUK played a decisive part in the UK election …
http://www.mpacuk.org/
One is reminded of the late Spike Milligan’s book,
“ADOLF HITLER: MY PART IN HIS DOWNFALL”
MPAC crows that it was instrumental in defeating Andrew Dismore in Hendon. Well, he used to be my MP, and I voted against him (Liberal) way back in 2001 (much to the chagrin of his canvassers). Too New Labour for me to vote for, really, at least in more clement times. However, I am not sure MPAC was the crucial factor this time round, and they make no mention of the bloody Tory he is replaced with!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWKScA-meNE
My mum is active in Pensioner politics in Barnet and she was quite disappointed that Andrew Dismore was voted out as he had always been very helpful to various old people causes.
I would never have voted Liberal in Hendon at times (such as now) when it would have let the Tories in. But nine years ago it was a different matter. I knew that, but his canvassers were less phlegmatic.