22:12 A bit late and my apologies, but now we are on track
22:14 Well a brief intro is in order. voting seemed a bit quiet in my own ward today, where there were just a Liberal Democrat and Conservative standing. Yes I did vote, and no I am not saying who for, suffice to say I voted with my political instincts and avoided hypocrisy. As for now, no results yet and not even any sexy graphics (a la Peter Snow) to show us the possible results and what this might mean at the next general election, but if I come across any it will be mentioned here
22:14 Well a brief intro is in order. voting seemed a bit quiet in my own ward today, where there were just a Liberal Democrat and Conservative standing. Yes I did vote, and no I am not saying who for, suffice to say I voted with my political instincts and avoided hypocrisy. As for now, no results yet and not even any sexy graphics (a la Peter Snow) to show us the possible results and what this might mean at the next general election, but if I come across any it will be mentioned here
22:20 Behold we have a graphic (courtesy of the BBC). The BBC are predicting heavy losses, but we will wait and see. Election results have been celebrated and commiserated in the past before the well-proportioned lady sung and the same goes for now.
22:25 Have now 18 Doughty Street on in the background. They don't have champagne bottles so that's a good sign perhaps!
22:35 Left a message on the 18 Doughty Street e-mail thingy. I should have mentioned this earlier, but from what I have heard we shall see a couple of surprise Labour and Lib Dem gains in Conservative-held North Hertfordshire. A buck of the trend hopefully :)
22:48 BBC Prediction, Scotland: SNP 45, Lab 41, Lib Dem 18, Con 17, Green 5 among others. If, if that is true, who would be prepared to join the SNP in a coalition
22:50 What have I let myself in for. Head in a whirl with Newsnight on the TV, 18 Doughty Street on the computer loudspeakers and BBC website being periodically delved into
22:53 Alex Salmond taling about "Historic moments" steady Alex
22:57 With regards to Baldock Baldrick, I am predicting just two Tory losses in North Herts. Would be nice if there were more, but am being careful and realistic (one hopes)
23:09 A bit quiet, and Newsnight are doing a piece on Northern Ireland. Donal Blaney on 18 Doughty, crowing on possible Tory gains
23:15 Eh up! Hull seems to have gone Lib Dem. 18 Doughty Street are doing graphics. Consensus seems to be a net loss of NOC which must be good news to all concerned (depending who benefits of course)
23:17 Hull is not confirmed yet, but I think it is now a fact that those of us who are Labour must brace ourselves for a kicking tonight. Please let me be wrong here!
23:20 Poll on the BBC, Brown is trusted over the economy slightly more than Cameron. This is obviously encouraging, but don't forget Cameron was an adviser on Black Wednesday
23:31 Four alleged Tory gains in South Ribble. Am having a short break, will be back within twenty
23:48 Am back, and Tim Roll-Pickering (see comments) says that the Lib Dems have denied Salmond, Gordon. The things you miss when you leave the engine room that is the study
23:52 Lib Dems have apparently gained some more seats. This looks like it might be their night. If so, then that is as much a statement against the Tories
23:54 The avalanche of results have started. News every two minutes or so. Tories gained some seats in Tamworth, SNP surge of votes alleged in Scotland. Tories gain Pembury (previously Liberal Democrat)
23:57 Jack McConnell's seat shortly to declare
23:59 Hold the presses, Iain Dale is about to Live Blog!
0:00 Lib Dems gain Kingston Upon Hull from Labour. This is not good
0:04 Tim (see comments), it's all slightly unconfirmed at the moment, we are all relying on info and intuition
0:09 I see Emily Mathis is in my favourite Westminster local, St Stephen's Tavern, along with Portillo, Oaten, Oona King etc..
0:16 Tories keep Peterborugh, Brentwood, and Broxbourne. No surprise :/
0:18 Tories failed to make a breakthrough in Luton. Yessss! :)
Thing is, if they need to make a headway for the next election, Luton is where they need to pull through
0:24 BNP has lost it's only seat in Broxbourne :)
0:27 Low turnout in England but high in Scotland apparently
0:30 Key results so far. 127 key wards are in. Lab up 1%, Con up 1%, Lib Dem down 2%. This is not as bad as I feared then :). These results are changes from 2006.
0:31 Motherwell result. McConnell in again :)
0:39 This is a bit of a strange night. Small nudges rather than the waves the media predicted, but that is no bad thing :), although it would be good for Labour to make some waves
0:50 Will turn in shortly. A small return will be made first thing in the morning, but hey I do work and I am going to London for the weekend tomorrow evening
0:52 Looks like the disaster predicted for Labour isn't so bad. We have gained some seats in Bristol and Harlow for example
0: 55 No of Councillors so far. Lab 163, Con 212, Lib Dem 76, Oth 34
0:58 In 2004, the Tories made a 3% gain and then lost the next election, failing to break the 200 seat barrier. This year it looks like just a 1% gain. There is the pearl of wisdom that I leave you with tonight. Am now very tired and as I have said earlier, I need my beauty sleep, so all the best and I shall return at around 8-9AM this morning
8:48 Just found out how bad it's been in Scotland with thousands of spoilt ballot papers, because of, from what I have heard, the Council and Scottish Parliament ballot papers are on the same paper. If true, then I wouldn't want to be in the shoes of the person who dreamed this ill-thought out scheme.
More results to come through as some councils (inc the one in my area, North Hertfordshire), have their results today.
8:56 The results for Labour are clearly not as bad as the attacks the Tories suffered in their last years in office. There is hope yet, but we do need to pull our socks up, stay alert, and remember that we are being carefully assessed
9:11 Cameron hails "stunning results", well the Tories have not got such a clear lead as they need and he fails to publicly take into account the poor council results the Tories had in the 1980s.
9:13 Yes, Wales was a difficult night and we will have to grit our teeth and go into coalition with the Lib Dems, but we are still in power and in that sense, we have not done badly.
9:17 Just looked at Iain Dale's blog. If Tories have switched votes towards the SNP it shows that for all their posturing ten years ago, they care far less about the Union than many Labour Party members (inc myself) have done. George Osborne being annoying and smug on BBC News 24, crowing over the results. Claims the Tories will win the next general election. In 1997, Labour had the humility not to do that
I think I shall leave it there for now, but for those who have been following this live feed, thanks for dropping by :)
12 comments:
Not so sure about that many gains in North Herts...I think you should expect a loss in Hitchin. One or two Labour councillors could go. This blogger expects Deepak Sangha (86 ahead last time) and Derek Sheard to struggle to regain their seats.
The Lib Dems are predicting that they've held onto Gordon - and that the SNP won't get a top-up seat in that region.
So Alex Salmond could have been the first victim of the Gordon era!
The Gordon situation gets more complicated - Sarah Teather has cast a sceptical note claiming it's too close to call, although she admits she doesn't know who has the most up to date information. She may be trying to manage expectations, but this could get more complicated.
The great news about Brouxbourne is their only BNP cllr was defeated.
I got it spot on with Derek Sheard losing his place in Hitchin but no spot on with Deepak. One out of two isn't bad.
How were things in Baldock East and Arbury, I have not been able to get hold of the specific results for North Herts and Arbury yet?
North Herts - 30 Conservatives altogether (3 down), Labour have 10 (1 up) and the Lib Dems have 9 (2 up).
F John Smith was a bit annoyed he lost cabinet memberSarah Wren in Hitchin.
oops, just realised I misread your question regarding electionresults.
M Kirkland won by about 84 seats and Arbury stayed the same.
Thanks for the updates, Paul. I was concentrating on my election result so missed all the news. It's good to catch up on it from you and Iain. Oh, and I got elected by the way, so the LDs didn't do that badly! ;)
The Parliament and council ballots were not on the same paper. There are two votes for the Scottish Parliament: the first-past-the-post constituency vote and the proportional regional-list vote.
Those were both on one paper (unlike in previous years, when they were separate papers) and were to be marked with Xs as is habitual on this island. I hear that papers on which there was an X on only one ballot were rejected, thus discounting votes that might well have gone to the smaller parties (if people didn't want to vote in the constituency ballot, in which mostly only the bigger parties stood).
The council ballot was on a separate paper, but the same day. That's not a new phenomenon, but the single transferable vote was. Thus, although the number of ballot papers was reduced from previous combined Scottish elections, the system was more complicated because voters were asked to rank candidates 1, 2, 3 etc. That seems to have led to confusion.
I haven't seen any figures that break down the rejected papers by type of spoiling. Without that information, we can't tell how many people have been disenfranchised by the decision to have one paper for the two Parliament votes and how many were simply confused by the different forms of voting system.
Chimpette, congrats for having got in, you will have to let me know the full details. e-mail me at Paul_Burgin2003@yahoo.co.uk
Andrew, thanks for the clarification. BB you mean 84 votes don't you ;), so it looks like the Tories in Baldock are starting to sway in the wind. The no's are what I expected, but not necessarily the geography
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