Friday 4 May 2012 Friday 4 May 2012 Friday 4 May 2012
A horse but no mares
UPDATE: A majority in Bristol have voted "yes" to an elected mayor. The margin is said to be very small, 41,032 (53.35 percent) in favour compared with 35,880 (46.65 percent) against, on a 24 percent turnout. That means approximately thirteen percent of the electorate have voted in favour of the proposition. On that "democratic" basis, there is to be an election for a mayor on 15 November.
Wakefield, however, has joined the list of refusniks, rejecting the proposition by 62.2 – 37.8 percent on a turnout of 72,967 - 28.94 percent in precentage terms. This is close the Coventry in the degree of rejection. By comparison, in the 2011 local elections there was a turnout of 35.5 percent, and in 2008 32.28 percent used their vote. In 2010 the turnout was 59.5 percent, although that was a general election year.
On the basis that there's always one, Council leader Coun Peter Box says: "Clearly the people of Wakefield have come out in favour of the existing system. This shows people have confidence that we have got a strong Labour council and they do not want change".
Newcastle-upon-Tyne adds itself to the list, with 61.9 percent saying no, to a mere 38.1 for the propostion. The total vote runs to 64,719. Just two more to come - Leeds and Birmingham. And the Brummies throw it out, voting 57.8 percent against, against 42.2 percent, on a turnout of 208,696 - the best hope they had went west.
Then, Doncaster, having been given the opportunity to rid itself of its incubus, has voted to keep the town mayor. Of the 68,075 voters who took part in the referendum, 44,571 (62 percent) voted for the mayor. The turnout was 30.5 percent, putting support for the proposition at 18.6 percent.
Of the four results (of ten) so far in, Manchester voted against by a margin of 53.24 to 46.76 percent and Nottingham rejected the proposition by 57.5 to 42.5 percent, both on a turnout of 24 percent. Coventry delivered a vote of 63.58 to 36.42 percent against.
In Bradford, the vote was 55.13 to 44.87 against, despite a higher turnout of 35 percent and the support of George Galloway. Even he could not enthuse enough people to make it happen.
With the rest of the cities expected to reject the proposition, this is a humiliation for The Boy, who invested considerable political capital in the idea. But only a politician completely divorced from reality, or a political groupie totally locked in the bubble, could argue that the answer to the current anti-politician sentiment was to have more politicians.
Thus we have Tim Montgomerie whinging about sabotage "by the vested interests of existing councillor establishements (sic)", failing completely (as so often) to understand what is going on.
Not only were councillors unenthused about elected mayors, people simply could not see the point of having yet another layer of elected official to argue over the same set of powers. This is not "decentralisation" in any way – merely spreading the power more thinly between more professional politicians, a sop to compensate for the popular feeling of alienation from government, arising out of our membership of the EU.
As a political option, this makes no more sense than appointing a horse a consul, and just about as cynical. The Cameron projet deserved to fail.
COMMENT THREAD
Richard North 04/05/2012 Victory begins at home
Richard North 04/05/2012 The face of defeat
Greenwood's seat was the last to declare in a nail-biting finale to the local elections, which went to four recounts.
On the night, Labour gains two seats overall. Respect now holds five. This leaves Labour with 45, exactly half the 90 on the council, preventing the group taking overall control of the city. The Tories have 24 seats and the Lib-Dims have eight.
In a bizarre twist, the balance of power is held by the dubious Imdad Hussain - the councillor recentlykicked out of the Labour group after being disqualified as a director when £314,873 disappeared from his failed business.
It is thought that Hussain, who was not standing for re-election this round, may vote with the Labour group, giving it a de facto majority, preventing Respect from being king-makers. Such an arrangement, though, cannot improve the already tawdry image of Bradford politics.
But, even than it was not all Galloway's night. In the Wibsey ward of the South Bradford constituency - once very briefly a Labour marginal - UKIP stormed into second place with 781 votes to Labour's 1,753 – against 399 for the Tory candidate and 384 for the Lib-Dims.
The steadily strengthening local performance of this party, in the absence of a BNP candidate, may have it holding the balance of power in the next general election, preventing the Tories taking down the Labour incumbent.
The possibility of this is marked by the fate of the Queensbury ward, which returned a Tory candidate with 1,073 votes, while the combined UKIP and BNP vote came to 1,433. Labour struggled to make 956.
Needless to say, the national focus is on the "good" performance of Labour, which has taken the equivalent of 39 percent of the national vote. The Tories trail on 31 percent and the Lib-Dims pull in 16. The number of Lib-Dim councillors has fallen below 3,000 for the first time since the party was formed in 1988 – all against the lowest turnout since 2000, on 32 percent.
But snapping at their heels are the so-called "insurgent" parties – not enough yet to make the difference, but enough of a presence to prevent the establishment calling the night its own.
COMMENT THREAD
Richard North 04/05/2012
Friday, 4 May 2012
Bristol was one of the three "most likely to" cities, along with Birmingham and Sheffield. The result is unsurprising, therefore, less so says one political commentator living in Bristol as: "Bristol is full of hippies and Communists who have never bathed". This may be a slightly exaggerated view.
On the other hand, voters in Sheffield have rejected The Boy's mare. Against were 82,890 (65 percent), with 44,571 (35 percent) for the proposition. This is in a city otherwise known as the Democratic Republic of Sheffield, where baths are used for storing coal. The left-wing, non-bathing theory is not holding.Caligula got his horse as consul, but it looks as if The Boy is not going to get his mares.
The Wail notes, with not a little malice, that The Boy "will be most embarrassed by losses in his Oxfordshire constituency". Labour has taken the seats of Witney Central, Witney East and Chipping Norton.
If he can't even keep the home fires burning, there is not much chance of him sweeping the rest of the country to victory. But this is a man who has totally failed to enthuse the political process, so the Witney result is only to be expected.
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