Just a dull day at the office for BoS
Reluctant as I am to criticise my successors at BoS, I had difficulty in believing what I read about the borough elections which it relegated to an inside page.
The headline was ‘Few new faces as borough sees no shocks or surprises’ and the intro quoted me as saying the biggest saurprise was that there were none.
At the time we spoke maybe that was true but by the end of the day it certainly wasn’t.
No surprises? Just Bedford going the opposite way to the rest of the country; just the Conservatives losing four seats while England was turning into a sea of blue; just the Liberal-Democrats becoming the biggest party for the first time in Bedford’s history; just Labour holding on to its share of the seats when everywhere else it was in meltdown; just the Independents taking two Tory seats to achieve parity with one of the major parties for the first time.
It was one of the biggest political upheavals in Bedford’s history yet the BoS attitude could be summed up as: ‘Small cataclysm in Bedford; not many interested - especially us’.
June 8th, 2009 at 12:50 am
Hi Frank
I have to say, when I eventually found the article, I was completely baffled - I wondered if I had been to the same count! As you so rightly point out, there were many surprises to me also, none least the difference to the Labour candidates retaining their seats(pro-rata), whilst the Conservatives loosing several of theirs. Additionally, their were real ‘casualties’ amongst the ‘Tory’ ranks, particularly where they had contested very hard, to oust a couple of hardworking Independents! In addition, there was the challenge in the Roxton Ward, that witnessed a huge downturn in the majority the Conservatives have held for many years, if not decades! Probably the most noteable result, was that of Barry Huckle (Elstow/Wilstead) where he regained his position leaving Lyn Faulkner behind, following what I understand a bitter selection process some months ago - well done Barry! Having seen almost all the results in from the EU elections, I suggest the Conservatives might like to re-think their position in ‘Bedford’, and attempt to get back some of their longstanding supporters, and leave out the “petty party politics” the Bedford Conservatives appear to enjoy, and have done for many years - hence my position in the local elections, I might add.
June 8th, 2009 at 4:17 am
I wondered about that, too.
I thought that maybe the paper had been printed in the middle of last week, when I saw the front page! Your successor believes that all politicians are the same and that nothing ever changes: if we all thought like that, nothing ever would change, (at least not for the better) of course. I can think of more succinct descriptions, but you’d moderate them.
Nationally, Zanu Labour is now polling below 20%, and thanks to their own gerrymandering of Parliamentary Constituencies in order to secure a majority out of their usual third of the vote, this will lead to them getting fewer MPs at a General Election than the Lib Dems, even if their vote is a few percentage points ahead. They over-finessed the boundaries and deserve everything they don’t get. Cameron needs to stop fighting Labour and work out how he’s going to deal with UKIP: pretending that they are just ridiculous lunatics will no longer wash -and it’s a charge that might come back with interest.
June 9th, 2009 at 3:38 am
Any wonder Tories got trounced by Lab/ Lib-Dem and Inde?
What do you expect when you are led by the likes of Nikki Attenborough. Will you be making her you deputy this time around.
June 9th, 2009 at 7:47 am
Frank - Your post of 3 posts ago - Get your figures on number of Cllrs right. At dissolution, it was
Cons 20
Lib Dem 15
Lab 9
Ind 9
thanks to the Elford and Stewardson defections.
Proportioning them down to 36 Cllrs gives
Cons 14
Lib Dem 10
Lab 6
Ind 6
Therefore the actual results last Thursday showed
Cons -5
Lib Dems +3
Lab +1
Ind +1
Matthew - Under the current crazy electoral system we have, there is no way the LDs will get more MPs than Labour with Labour having a higher %. It is perfectly possible for the LDs to get a higher % than Labour but get far fewer MPs…see the 1983 result.
June 9th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
Thanks to the political nerds of the Lib-Dems for their corrections. I should point oput that elsewhere in this blog Paul White head comes up with sl;ightly different figures to Big Tall Tim.
Nevertheless it confirms that it was possible to work out the pre-election status quo in terms of post-election figures and get a right-ish figure on what really happened.
June 9th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
Big Tall Tim is thinking with his hymnsheet instead of his brain: anyone who calls our electoral system “crazy” is a member of either the Lib Dems or the BNP.
It is a fact that a party which has gerrymandered boundaries to glean the most seats from 30%+ of the vote, will fall through the floor with anything below 20%, whereas one that depends on a core vote in cider apple country, will return quite a few MPs there, even if it vanishes from East Anglia and the North completely.
Trust me, Tim, you will have more MPs than Labour, but this might not be anything to write home about. I wasn’t actually predicting delirious success for the Lib Dems, just recognizing that Labour has become a minor party, in which role the Lib Dems are more experienced, so they should swiflty get the better of them.
As of last Sunday, the two “main” parties are UKIP (got more than Labour OR Lib Dems) and Tory (only about 2.6% short of getting more than Labour AND Lib Dems put together.) The minor parties are: Labour, Lib Dem and BNP. The SNP are a main party in Scotland, but, surprisingly, Plaid Cymru are not really a main party in Wales anymore. That’s the other seismic event that no-one has even noticed! Would that it were the other way around, but I fear that Mr Salmon’s smug gloating grin is going to be with us for a while.
June 9th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
Stop press!!
If Big Tall Tim wants proof that ZANU Labour is now a minor party: Gordon Brown has suddenly been converted to Big Tall Tim’s point of view and wants, wait for it: electoral reform!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8092235.stm
Tim may not believe that Labour’s gerrymandering of boundaries (since 1997, so the election results of the eighties mean nothing) has put them in danger of getting nul seats, but LABOUR knows it alright, or you wouldn’t have seen such a sudden, tyre-smoking U-turn.
So, instead of anyone who calls our current electoral system “crazy” being automatically a member of the Lib Dems or the BNP, they might now be Labour.
Straight fight between Tories and UKIP, then.
June 10th, 2009 at 3:46 am
Big Tall Tim is, of course, right, in his earlier post and I was wrong. I’d forgotten about the defections. In any case, the results in Bedford were certainly interesting and they challenge the preconceptions of some in the media that the Tories are leaving everyone else in their wake.
June 11th, 2009 at 4:04 am
Probably I should have discounted the Lib-Dem defection of Myrtle Stewardson and compared this election with the last to get a true difference, In that case the standstill for the Lib-Dems would have been 11 (to the nearest whole number) in which case their seat count would have gone up by 18%.
In the Independents case, that would have made their standstill position four (not counting me). Their current position is seven so that would be a 75% increase and make them the electoral champions this year.
June 12th, 2009 at 9:29 am
Matthew - UKIP got 15% in the 2005 Euro elections and then got a pathetic 2% in the 2007 General Election. I’ve seen nothing over the past week to think that they won’t get the same sort of result at next year’s General Election. Being incurably isolationist, vaguely racist and slightly strange gets them votes in a Euro election but people rightly ignore them at a General Election. They were even too wierd for Kilroy Silk.
But maybe Frank’s defection to UKIP will give them a boost…..see Frank’s entry in the Borough Council web site in the “Your Councillors” area…….Why the UKIP badge Frank unless you’ve joined them ?
As for we Liberal Democrats getting more MPs than Labour but less votes than Labour at the next election, that is just not going to happen under First Past the Post. The only way it could happen is if the Tories get about 2% nationally.
BTW The Plymouth Centre For Polling Studies that putting the local and Euro election results together and doing some necessary adjustments would give the Tories a massive majority of 6 with the LDs increasing their seats to 63.
Frank - thanks for the compliment calling me and Paul “nerds”. That must be the nicest thing you’ve ever said about the Liberal Democrats !
And just look where her defection got Myrtle !!!!!!!!!
June 12th, 2009 at 9:31 am
Matthew - how can Plaid Cymru not be said to be a major party in Wales ? They got 2% less than the winning Tories and 1% less than 2nd place Labour. Get yer facts right mate.
June 12th, 2009 at 9:35 am
It also worries me greatly that becasue of their very poor result in Bedford Borough last Thursday, the Tory Group of 9 has 7 ex-County Councillors in it.
6 of whom were their at abolition. In the group that set the 2nd highest County Council tax in the land and couldn’t resurface a road or footpath even when we regularly pointed the defects out to them
Even more worry ing is the only 2 who have never been County Councillors are Nikki Attenborough and Mark Smith……..where’s a cliff I can jump off ?
June 14th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
Big Tall Tim must have his brain in rareified air. Not only am I not a member of UKIP, I haven’t the faintest idea of what their logo looks like.
The Tories won’t be setting the next council tax - the executive will of which the Tories hold 20 per cent of the seats.
I don’t know the nearest cliff he can jump off, but Beachy Head is not too far away and appears to be effective. Or, if it needn’t be a cliff, there’s the bridge at Hornsey Rise on the A1.
And stop monopolising the comments section. Get your own blog.
June 15th, 2009 at 9:20 am
The UKIP logo is no longer there
June 15th, 2009 at 10:10 am
Earlier today I discovered what you and Matthew were talking about. Apparently the UKIP logo attached itself to and councillor’s name which didn’t identify group membership, which is why it was on both Barry Huckle’s and my blog.
June 15th, 2009 at 2:05 pm
Actually, it was Big Tall Tim talking about the logo, Frank, he lost me there as well.
It is interesting that Tim thinks that UKIP is “mildly racist”. As with all fanatics, there has to be an explanation for the mainstream failing to go along with them, and “mild racism” is a suitably trite smear for all the Lib Dem’s opponents, except perhaps Arthur Scargill’s Socialist Labour Party, to which I warmed a bit, but for which I did not vote.
Firstly, there is no evidence of UKIP racism from anything that UKIP itself put out, only in words put in their mouths by their opponents, and the one UKIP election broadcast that I saw had a personable asian vox pop for most of the film. I can’t remember a brown or black face anywhere near the foreground of Lib Dem camera work.
Secondly, since the advent of Blairism, black faces have featured in Labour campaign material only in the context of those faces having “problems” and “issues” which Masa Blair could listen to, understand, empathise with, and solve with a few sincerity hand-gestures. Lord Tebbit describes the BNP as “Labour, with Racism”, but perhaps he was too busy flying fighters in the fifties, when Labour was every bit as racist as the modern Labour Party: encouraging unions to threaten strikes against Enoch Powell’s plans to bring in workers from the Commonwealth.
Thirdly, this may astonish all, but in the eighties, I voted Liberal or Lib Dem, on the Yellow Dog principle: I would have voted for a large yellow dog if it wasn’t Margaret Thatcher or Neil Kinnock. It will be beyond Tim’s comprehension how anyone could become disenchanted with his cause, but here goes:
In 1992, largely because the Tory leader was now John Major who was not only comfortable with black people, but actually liked them (so unlike Blair, except perhaps when trying to be in camera shot near Mr Mandela), the Tories chose a black man John Taylor, to stand for them in Cheltenham.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Taylor,_Baron_Taylor_of_Warwick
Beside themselves with glee, the Lib Dems skipped and pranced around the constituency, reminding everyone that their man was “local”, which they quietly ensured was universally understood to mean “white”.
This wasn’t “mildly racist” it was brazenly racist on the level of vicious playground bullies.
So, Tim, the reason that I loathe and despise the Liberal Democrats is not because I am a wicked Eurosceptic and “mildly racist”, but because, in 1992, scales fell from my eyes and I finally saw the Liberal Democrats for the utterly unprincipled, opportunistic, power-seeking closet racists of the very worst kind that they actually are.
When I was growing up, the neighbour whom I most respected was a middle-aged gentleman from Montserrat, who was kind, courteous and resolutely moral. But if I’d looked at him through the eyes of a Liberal Democrat activist, I’d have seen only that he wasn’t “local”.
Any Liberal who didn’t turn away from the Party in 1992, is devoid either of perception or honour.
June 15th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
Sorry, I meant “modern BNP” not “Modern Labour Party.” Shows that they are interchangeable, just below the surface.
June 15th, 2009 at 2:15 pm
That’s enough Tims and Spencers. This correspondence is now definitely closed.