Elections round-up
I’ll be posting interesting snippets from the English local government, Scottish and Welsh elections as they come in. Meanwhile, please can readers add details from where they live in the comments box? Opinions welcome, too.
As most commentators are already pointing out, the night was bad - but not as bad as it could have been - for Labour. At the time of writing, it was down 163 councillors and had lost five local authorities.
In Scotland, the SNP’s progress was muted. But Labour looks to have lost control of the Welsh assembly. The Tories topped 40% of the vote share, which is generally acknowledged as the benchmark needed to be in with a shout of winning a general election.
On to specifics. Let’s start with news from the Guardian website. Both Tommy Sheridan and Rosie Kane are out of the Scottish assembly. Whatever judgement one makes of the Sheridan libel trial antics, that’s not good news for the far left. But thankfully, the BNP did not make its threatened electoral breakthrough:
The Holyrood parliament loses two of its most colourful characters, as leftwing leader of Solidarity, Tommy Sheridan, fails to get elected on the Glasgow regional top-up list.
Sheridan broke from his former party, the Scottish Socialist party, last year when they refused to back him in his libel battle with the News of the World.
Meanwhile, his former colleague Rosie Kane, who was sworn in with "My Oath is to the People", also lost her top-up seat …
BNP deputy leader Simon Smith says the party's "mixed" results are "disappointing". They failed to make significant gains.
And this from the Respect website:
Respect won its 3rd victory early this morning when the count in Bolsover District Council, Chesterfield, revealed 295 votes for Respect and 264 votes for Labour.
In a close fought election, Respect candidate Ray Holmes took the Shirebrook seat, winning 53 percent of the vote.
With a number of councils still to count ballots this morning, so far Respect has made breakthrough progress. Michael Lavalette in Preston managed to keep his council seat, defeating Labour by 462 votes, and in Birmingham Respect gained one councillor in Sparkbrook ward, winning by over 1,000 votes.
Out of the 25 wards in which Respect has stood and where ballots have been counted, it has come second place in 4 councils and third in 10 councils, securing 18,919 votes across the country. Respect is expected to make further progress once more results come in.
UPDATE: This also from the Guardian website. The SSP also lost all of its seat, wiping out the far left at Holyrood. The Scottish Greens appear to have lost five of their seven seats.
In Wales, Davies and Marek -the former Labour MPs aligned to Forward Wales – didn’t make the cut either, although Trish Law is back in:
[T]he Scottish Socialist party, which went into the contest with six seats, was wiped out.
With not all the results in Scotland expected until afternoon, the Greens were predicting they may have lost five of their seven seats …
In Wales, the maverick former Labour Welsh secretary, Ron Davies, failed to win Caerphily standing as an independent, while John Marek, another disaffected former Labour MP, failed to get elected to the Cardiff assembly standing under the banner of "Wales First".
However, in Blanaeu Gwent, Trish Law, the widow of another Labour refusenik Peter Law, won the assembly seat as an independent.
UPDATE II:Voting figures for the SSP and Solidarity, courtesy of the Workers’ Liberty website, which also reports the loss of one seat for the Socialist Party in Coventry:
The Scottish Socialist Party, hard hit by the split forced for personal reasons by Tommy Sheridan, crashed to only 2,579 votes in Glasgow (it had 31,000 last time, in 2003), and lost its MSPs.
Sheridan himself, standing for his new ‘Solidarity Scotland’ group also lost his seat, though he kept a stronger personal vote (8,544) …
In England, the Socialist Party went down from three council seats in its stronghold, Coventry, to two. I don't yet have an overall picture of the scores for SP candidates.
UPDATE III: Green Party results here … and Respect results here.
I’ll be posting interesting snippets from the English local government, Scottish and Welsh elections as they come in. Meanwhile, please can readers add details from where they live in the comments box? Opinions welcome, too.
As most commentators are already pointing out, the night was bad - but not as bad as it could have been - for Labour. At the time of writing, it was down 163 councillors and had lost five local authorities.
In Scotland, the SNP’s progress was muted. But Labour looks to have lost control of the Welsh assembly. The Tories topped 40% of the vote share, which is generally acknowledged as the benchmark needed to be in with a shout of winning a general election.
On to specifics. Let’s start with news from the Guardian website. Both Tommy Sheridan and Rosie Kane are out of the Scottish assembly. Whatever judgement one makes of the Sheridan libel trial antics, that’s not good news for the far left. But thankfully, the BNP did not make its threatened electoral breakthrough:
The Holyrood parliament loses two of its most colourful characters, as leftwing leader of Solidarity, Tommy Sheridan, fails to get elected on the Glasgow regional top-up list.
Sheridan broke from his former party, the Scottish Socialist party, last year when they refused to back him in his libel battle with the News of the World.
Meanwhile, his former colleague Rosie Kane, who was sworn in with "My Oath is to the People", also lost her top-up seat …
BNP deputy leader Simon Smith says the party's "mixed" results are "disappointing". They failed to make significant gains.
And this from the Respect website:
Respect won its 3rd victory early this morning when the count in Bolsover District Council, Chesterfield, revealed 295 votes for Respect and 264 votes for Labour.
In a close fought election, Respect candidate Ray Holmes took the Shirebrook seat, winning 53 percent of the vote.
With a number of councils still to count ballots this morning, so far Respect has made breakthrough progress. Michael Lavalette in Preston managed to keep his council seat, defeating Labour by 462 votes, and in Birmingham Respect gained one councillor in Sparkbrook ward, winning by over 1,000 votes.
Out of the 25 wards in which Respect has stood and where ballots have been counted, it has come second place in 4 councils and third in 10 councils, securing 18,919 votes across the country. Respect is expected to make further progress once more results come in.
UPDATE: This also from the Guardian website. The SSP also lost all of its seat, wiping out the far left at Holyrood. The Scottish Greens appear to have lost five of their seven seats.
In Wales, Davies and Marek -the former Labour MPs aligned to Forward Wales – didn’t make the cut either, although Trish Law is back in:
[T]he Scottish Socialist party, which went into the contest with six seats, was wiped out.
With not all the results in Scotland expected until afternoon, the Greens were predicting they may have lost five of their seven seats …
In Wales, the maverick former Labour Welsh secretary, Ron Davies, failed to win Caerphily standing as an independent, while John Marek, another disaffected former Labour MP, failed to get elected to the Cardiff assembly standing under the banner of "Wales First".
However, in Blanaeu Gwent, Trish Law, the widow of another Labour refusenik Peter Law, won the assembly seat as an independent.
UPDATE II:Voting figures for the SSP and Solidarity, courtesy of the Workers’ Liberty website, which also reports the loss of one seat for the Socialist Party in Coventry:
The Scottish Socialist Party, hard hit by the split forced for personal reasons by Tommy Sheridan, crashed to only 2,579 votes in Glasgow (it had 31,000 last time, in 2003), and lost its MSPs.
Sheridan himself, standing for his new ‘Solidarity Scotland’ group also lost his seat, though he kept a stronger personal vote (8,544) …
In England, the Socialist Party went down from three council seats in its stronghold, Coventry, to two. I don't yet have an overall picture of the scores for SP candidates.
UPDATE III: Green Party results here … and Respect results here.