Local election results

Sonic67

Fury as Conservative wins council seat by single spoiled ballot scrawled with word 'Brexit'

A defeated independent candidate at the local council elections has demanded a recount after his Conservative Party opponent was awarded victory thanks to a single ballot that had “Brexit” scrawled on it.

richp007

Crazed dictator May really is going to need to be dragged out of No. 10 kicking and screaming.

Labour are a joke. Raving Loony Party.

Lib Dems can do one as well.

Happy for the Greens, about the only bunch I have any time for currently.

Sonic67

nheather

So bad day for the Tories, I thought it was going to equal out when you combined these unusual results with the equally unusual results of the 2015 election (2015 saw LibDem virtually wiped out, big gains for Tories and UKIP).

So if you combine the two results to compare now, with pre-2015 you get something like this

Councillors

Conservative - Down 793 (3562)
Labour - Down 285 (2023)
LibDem - Up 292 (1350)
Green - Up 204 (265)
UKIP - Up 31 (31)
Ind - Up 481 (1045)

Councils

Conservative - Down 12 (93)
Labour - Down 9 (74)
LibDem - Up 6 (18)

There have been some new councils and seats added so the numbers don’t work perfectly but they are close enough.

So definitely bad for Conservatives, worse than I was expecting.  And good for LibDem.  Independents actually have seen the biggest gain, but haven’t be able to convert that to councils.  UKIP still up overall.  Labour are the only party to see a continual fall, though overall not as bad as the Conservatives.

Cheers,

Nigel

nheather

Overall, no real surprise.  The tories are hated equally by remainers and leavers.  The remainers see May as someone trying to deliver Brexit, and the leavers see her as a remainer who has failed to deliver any of her clear and tough worded promises.

LibDem have never accepted the referendum result (clearly they don’t like PR as much as they profess), support a second referendum and probably unilaterally cancelling Brexit if we are honest, so clearly a good  option for the remainer vote.  Had we left on 29th March I doubt the LibDem results would have been half as good.

Where did the leave vote go?  I suspect to many of the Independents who claim to want to see Brexit delivered.

I don’t think the Local Elections have helped the focus the Brexit debate, just added to the stalemate.  The Tories are already reporting that the results tell them to “just get it done” but Labour are saying their poor performance was down to not fully supporting a people’s vote (aka 2nd referendum) so what hope the cross party talks.

The biggest losers are the councils.  They have lost so many skilled and experienced councillors. Okay there is always a case for new enthusiastic blood, but that should be joining an established team who can support and give guidance.  But many councils will now be a sea of new faces, with no previous experience, all looking at each other shrugging their shoulders saying “what do we do now?”.

Cheers,

Nigel

Supersonic

Since most of the lost councillors were Tories, I don't see that as a problem.

Our formerly-Tory council (it's now NOC) didn't do much other than cut services and start charging for the rest, while still raising the council tax. That's classic Thatcherite shrinking of government. I accept that to a point, but not when it comes to core services like waste disposal.

I would actually trust Vince Cable to empty my bins over Theresa May...

nheather

You do realise that it isn’t Theresa May that arranges your refuge collection.  Of course, you do, only joking.

Local government is very different to national government. For a start, local councillors do not get paid, other than legitimate expenses.  Also they do not set your council tax for the most part - that is set at county level.  And show me a county council of any colour that does not increase its council tax each year?

For the most part, although the councillors do have a party affiliation, what they do is nothing to do with the party.  They use their skills and experience to utilise the budgets they are given to the best of their ability.  Where councils have had a smallish change, I doubt you’ll see any difference even where they have changed overall control.  But they will miss the expertise and experience that is lost, and where councils are mostly fresh faces their will be a severe drop in knowledge and ability that will take some months/years to re-establish.

Imagine your team at work.  Say an experienced guy left and was replaced with a new guy with no previous experience.  You would probably manage and be able to bring them up to speed.  Now imagine that all or most of your team are replaced with new guys with no previous experience.  I imagine you would see a drop in capability of your team that would take some time to build back up.

Cheers,

Nigel

chopples

Greens done very well in our neck of the woods, would have went for them myself but they didn't field a candidate here. Apart from Brexit there is a bit of a stink on the Wirral due to potential developments on the various greenbelt sites we have. I expect that contributed to there success

I held my nose and went Lib Dem. Corbyn needs to do one asap....

cheers

danwel

No candidate in my area either or there is a good chance they would have got my vote.

Bl4ckGryph0n

That stink has been there years, decades, literally Ever since my first trip out to that region in 1992 to our factory they advised me to stay land inwards in a hotel.