Author Topic: UK Elections - Results show its not going well for Labour...  (Read 3364 times)

Offline Kelda

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Well the people of Britain are having their say.. and it seems Iraq has bit labour on the bum....

Yesterday was the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly elections as well as the council elections across Scotland and England...

For those of you not in the know here is what that means...

Quote
Scottish Parliament elections occur every four years. They elect the Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs). They began in 1999, when the Scottish Parliament, created by the Scotland Act 1998, began its first session. For elections to the Scottish Parliament the Additional Member System is used, which is a hybrid of single member plurality and proportional representation.

Welsh Assembly elections also occur every four years. They elect the Members of the National Assembly for Wales (AMs). They began in 1999, when the  Welsh Assembly, created by the Government of Wales Act 1998, began its first session. For elections to the Welsh Assembly the Additional Member System is used, which is a hybrid of single member plurality and proportional representation.

Local (Council) elections elect councillors forming the local administrations of the United Kingdom are elected. A number of tiers of local council exist, at county, district/borough and town/parish levels. A variety of voting systems are used for local elections. In Northern Ireland, the single transferable vote system is used, whilst in most of England and Wales the single member plurality system is used. The remainder of England (including all of the London Boroughs) and Wales use the plurality at-large system, except for the elections of the Mayor and Assembly of the Greater London Authority (GLA). Scotland will be using single transferable vote for its local elections for the first time in 2007, after the Scottish Parliament passed the Local Governance (Scotland) Act 2004.

Local elections are held every year, but different parts of the UK vote in each case. In years with a general election it is usual practice to hold both general and local elections on the same day.

I'm keeping a close eye on the results as I work for the Scottish Execuitve - if a new party takes over here my job could change dramatically... and it looks like the Scottish National Party (SNP) could do it...

The results are coming in pretty regularly but the BBC seems to be the place to get all the news..

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/default.stm


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Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: UK Elections - Results show its not going well for Labour...
« Reply #1 on: May 04, 2007, 08:32:46 am »
I'm keeping a close eye on the results as I work for the Scottish Execuitve - if a new party takes over here my job could change dramatically... and it looks like the Scottish National Party (SNP) could do it...

Does that mean your job is in the civil service, or is it a political appointment?

I guess you know the Queen is in the states right now, to commemorate the founding of the Jamestown colony in Virginia. And tomorrow she is attending the Kentucky Derby.
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline Kelda

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Re: UK Elections - Results show its not going well for Labour...
« Reply #2 on: May 04, 2007, 09:09:50 am »
I work for the civil service in the housing and regeneration agency.. so I work for wheoever is in power.. and of course they all have different manifestos and pledges..

At the moment as things stand in the scottish parliament, Labour have lost 5 seats and SNP have gained 15, with 35 seats till to be declared.. I think its going to be a very very close one and either will have to rely on a coalition to get a majority in parliament....


I didn't know that Jeff... she likes her races doesn't she!?

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Offline Kelda

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Re: UK Elections - Results show its not going well for Labour...
« Reply #3 on: May 04, 2007, 11:06:43 am »
SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT RESULTS SO FAR:

After 99 of 129 seats declared

Party                 Constituency    Regional List    +/-    Tot

LABOUR              36                 3                    -6      39
SNP                    21                15                  +17    36
LIB DEM              10                 3                   -2      13
CONSERVATIVE     4                 6                    0      10
Others                 0                  1                   -9      1


English Council Seats so far:

After 272 of 312 councils.

Party   +/-   Total   
CON   746   4325   
LAB   -412   1583   
LD    -229    1789   
OTH  -103    893     


WELSH ASSEMBLY RESULTS SO FAR:

Party                 Constituency    Regional List    +/-    Tot

LAB                 24                      2                  -3     26
PC                   7                       6                   +3   13
CON                5                       6                    0     11
LD                  3                       2                      0      5
Others            1                        0                      0     1

After 56 of 60 seats declared

« Last Edit: May 04, 2007, 11:15:22 am by Kelda »
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Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: UK Elections - Results show its not going well for Labour...
« Reply #4 on: May 04, 2007, 11:49:51 am »
CON: Is that the Tories?  ;D
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Offline Kelda

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Re: UK Elections - Results show its not going well for Labour...
« Reply #5 on: May 04, 2007, 03:39:06 pm »
CON: Is that the Tories?  ;D

Yup...

and now its been confirmed....
Quote

SNP beats Labour in Scottish poll

The SNP has surged to historic victory over Labour and become the Scottish Parliament's largest party on a gloomy final election day for Tony Blair.

The Scottish election, marred by huge problems with voting systems, showed "that the wind of change is blowing", according to SNP leader Alex Salmond.

In Wales Labour lost three seats but remains the largest party. In England the Conservatives made big gains.

Mr Blair said the results were better than "the rout" that had been expected.

BBC projections based on the English council results put the Conservative share of the vote at 40%, the same as last year, with Labour on 27%, one point up, and the Lib Dems down one point at 26%.

Lib Dem leader Sir Menzies Campbell said he had always known the elections would be "tough" and called the results a "mixed bag" for his party.

The Tories, who have gained more than 870 extra councillors in England, say they are now on course to win the next general election.

'Take a hit'

But Mr Blair, who is due to announce a date for standing down next week, told the BBC: "People thought it was going to be a rout and it's not turned out like that.

"You always take a hit mid-term, but these results provide a perfectly good springboard to win in the general election."

   

His likely successor as Labour leader and PM, Gordon Brown, issued a statement promising to "listen and...learn".

In Scotland the counting process was complicated by an unprecedented number of spoilt ballot papers - predicted to be as many as 100,000 - with voters and counting machines struggling to come to terms with complex ballot papers.

The Electoral Commission has launched "a full independent review of the elections" into the chaos.

In the Scottish Parliament, the SNP won 47 of the 129 seats, compared with Labour's 46.

The Tories won 17, the Lib Dems 16, the Greens two, with independent Margo MacDonald also re-elected.

SNP leader Alex Salmond said Labour had lost its "moral authority" to govern and promised a "full judicial inquiry" into the vote-counting "debacle" if he becomes first minister.

He added: "Scotland has changed for good and forever. There may be Labour governments and first ministers in decades still to come, never again will the Labour Party think it has a divine right to government."

Mr Salmond will now seek to form a ruling coalition. The maths mean three parties will be needed to form a majority.

Labour's Jack McConnell, who was hoping to remain as first minister, had earlier told his supporters it had been the "toughest and most hotly contested election in Scottish history".

And Lib Dem leader Sir Menzies Campbell, asked on Thursday morning if he would consider forming a coalition with the SNP if they insisted on holding a referendum on independence, said: "Absolutely not ... We are against independence, that's our position and it ain't going to change."

In Wales, Labour remains the largest party in the assembly but it has fallen short of the 30 seats needed for a majority, with both the Tories and Plaid making gains.

Labour has 26 seats, down three, Plaid has 15, up three, while the Tories remain with 12, the Lib Dems six and other parties one.

First Minister Rhodri Morgan said: "I feel very upbeat about the situation of Welsh Labour and our relationship with the people."

But Plaid leader Ieuan Wyn Jones said the electorate had "voted for change".

In England, the Tories increased their tally of local authorities - including Plymouth, Chester and Blackpool - and claimed the scene had been set for general election victory.

Tory leader David Cameron said his party, which has gained at least 870 more councillors, had secured a "stunning" set of results, especially in the north of England.

"We're the one national party speaking up for all of Britain... I think we can really build from this point, really go forward... the Conservative Party is really where it should be at the moment and I'm very pleased about that," he said.

Home Secretary John Reid said of the Tories: "They are in a much stronger position under David Cameron than they were under Michael Howard, Iain Duncan Smith or William Hague.

"But that doesn't make them league leaders."

BBC political editor Nick Robinson, assessing the picture across Britain, said: "By any conventional measure, if we look at Labour and don't think about their opponents, this is pretty dire."

He added that politics was a "comparative business", with Labour supporters maintaining the hope that the Tories "aren't far enough ahead to guarantee their victory" at a general election.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/uk_politics/6620905.stm

Published: 2007/05/04 18:37:22 GMT

© BBC MMVII

So... it'll be an interesting few weeks at work.. while a coalition is decided and us civil servants work out the practicalities of all the manifesto negotiations... I'm hoping it doesn't bring major major major changes to my job.. we'll see!

But interesting (busy!) times ahead!

« Last Edit: May 04, 2007, 03:47:16 pm by Kelda »
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Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: UK Elections - Results show its not going well for Labour...
« Reply #6 on: May 04, 2007, 05:03:01 pm »
Quote
In Scotland the counting process was complicated by an unprecedented number of spoilt ballot papers - predicted to be as many as 100,000 - with voters and counting machines struggling to come to terms with complex ballot papers.

Hmmm. Forgive me, but it's comforting to know that the U.S. isn't the only country to have problems with ballot counting.  ::)
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline Kelda

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Re: UK Elections - Results show its not going well for Labour...
« Reply #7 on: May 04, 2007, 05:39:31 pm »
Heh,  ;D its totally ridiculous that there was that many spoiled papers - in a few consituencies the spoilt papers were a bigger number than the majority for the winning candidate. They've changed the way the ballot paper was filled in this year and it seemed to cause confusion and mistakes... it totally needs to be sorted out...

Quote

Review under way on voting chaos

The Electoral Commission said it had begun "with immediate effect" an investigation into the Holyrood election voting chaos.

The polls have been hit by major problems with seven counts suspended and up to 100,000 ballot papers spoilt.

Technical failures, confusion about how to fill in ballot papers and problems with postal votes have all been blamed.

SNP leader Alex Salmond said if he won power he would hold an independent judicial inquiry into the problems.

He insisted it "would go further than the current" investigation by the Electoral Commission.

Mr Salmond added: "The inquiry will have the fullest powers and the most searching remit. It will be charged with laying bare the outrage of why over 100,000 Scots were denied their democratic voice."

The Electoral Commission is an independent body which, although it does not run elections, reports on all major elections.

Separately, the Scotland Office said the failures must be investigated by DRS, the company which operates the electronic counting system.

It said that the Scotland Office shared the public's concern about the high number of rejected ballot papers.

   

A statement said: "The independent Electoral Commission will undertake a statutory review into the conduct of this election.

"It is important that they look as a matter of urgency into delays in postal ballots, the high number of spoiled ballot papers, and the performance of the electronic counting machines."

A commission spokeswoman said she could not comment on whether the election would have to be re-run.

She added that it was not up to the organisation to re-play elections, but anyone, including members of the public and candidates, can petition the Royal Courts of Justice to dispute a result.

The prime minister's official spokesman described the matter as serious and said he shared the public's concern.

Concerns have been raised about the decision to stage the Scottish Parliament and the local authority elections on the same day.

Voters were presented with two ballot papers and different voting systems.

The local authority ballot used the new Single Transferable Vote system.

The returning officer at the Glasgow Shettleston count said there had been 2,035 spoilt papers, while in Airdrie and Shotts, Labour's majority of 1,446 was less than the 1,536 rejected ballots.

There were 1,850 spoilt papers in Glasgow Baillieston and 1,736 in the Anniesland constituency.

The counts in Aberdeen, Argyll and Bute, Edinburgh, Eastwood, Perth and Tayside North and Strathkelvin and Bearsden were suspended until later on Friday due to technical problems.

The problem at the Strathkelvin and Bearsden count occurred when the computer system could not validate the votes that had been counted so far.

BBC Scotland political editor Brian Taylor described the situation as a disgrace.

Sonya Anderson, head of elections for DRS which implemented the automated counting system, said there was a problem with the "consolidation" of the votes.

She said: "As we scan the ballot papers we are capturing the votes and recording the fact we are capturing those votes.

"Once we have recorded all those votes we need to use a calculation to pull those results together and produce the results the returning officer is going to declare from.

'Totally inadequate'

"That process is taking longer than anticipated in some of the centres and some returning officers have decided because of the long wait that the staff and the candidates are experiencing that they are going to ask staff and candidates to go home while we resolve the issue."

During his acceptance speech as the new MSP for the Gordon constituency, SNP leader Alex Salmond criticised the voting arrangements and also earlier problems with postal voting.

He said: "The postal voting arrangements for this election across Scotland were totally inadequate.

   
SUSPENDED COUNTS
Aberdeen
Argyll and Bute
Eastwood
Edinburgh
Livingston and Linlithgow
Perth and Tayside North
Strathkelvin and Bearsden

"It is also the case that the decision to conduct an STV election at the same time as a first-past-the-post ballot for the Scottish Parliament was deeply mistaken.

"As a direct result, tens of thousands of votes across Scotland have been discounted. That is totally unacceptable in a democratic society."

David Henderson, who worked as an information officer at Thornwood Primary School in the Glasgow Kelvin constituency, said he had "no doubt" that the decision to hold two elections, under different voting systems, on the same day, had led to the high number of spoilt votes.

In a response to Brian Taylor's blog, he wrote: "I would say 60% of people coming into our polling station were unsure of how to vote.

"I'm sure the electoral commission will find that spoilt ballots were due to either to 'x's' or '1's' and '2's' on the wrong ballot paper."

Alex Donnelly, a voter in the Airdrie and Shotts constituency, said many voters had been told to fold their ballot papers despite national advice to the contrary.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/scotland/6623287.stm

Published: 2007/05/04 15:54:30 GMT

© BBC MMVII
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Offline delalluvia

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Re: UK Elections - Results show its not going well for Labour...
« Reply #8 on: May 04, 2007, 10:37:25 pm »
Hmmm. Forgive me, but it's comforting to know that the U.S. isn't the only country to have problems with ballot counting.  ::)


My thoughts exactly.  Not that I wish ill voting on anyone.

Offline Kelda

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