English local elections 2011

[You kip if you want to...]

Labour underperform, but still, the LibDems destroyed from John O'Groats to the White Cliffs.

[You kip if you want to...]

Is there a list of councils which are up in 2012?

[Peter]

Wikipedia's list of council elections in 2008 should be accurate for working out the 2012 elections.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

A Labour majority in York. Which will be more of a surprise to those that know its boundaries than those that think it's just the city proper.

Labour underperform

In some places, yes, in others no. Usually it's hard to tell; there's no decent baseline to measure off.

[You kip if you want to...]

A Labour majority in York. Which will be more of a surprise to those that know its boundaries than those that think it's just the city proper.

Labour underperform

In some places, yes, in others no. Usually it's hard to tell; there's no decent baseline to measure off.

Would "Tories overperform" be a better view?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Would "Tories overperform" be a better view?

Isn't that an entirely subjective question? They didn't suffer a mid-term meltdown, but I don't think anyone actually expected that.

Look, the media (and certain academics who would, perhaps, know better but for the lure of cash in a time when there's not much of that around) like to focus on the total number of seats won, but that can be highly misleading at the best of times. Wards are not the same size across the country for one thing, and Labour is simply not at all competitive in the vast majority of district councils, especially not after most of the more historically industrial went unitary.

The Tories certainly did well in parts of the south where they were mostly facing up against their coalition partners. But results elsewhere don't look so good; for example, they lost six seats in Birmingham and were lucky not to lose a few more (they came within a whisker of losing Edgbaston, for example). Of course both of those comments are generalisations.

Basically, they should be pleased that any discontent with the government has passed over ordinary Tory voters, and they also have a right to be pleased that they are capable of benefiting from poor LibDem results in some areas (there had been some speculation to the contrary, probably based on a handful of local by-elections). Against that, they should be concerned that they are clearly on the way out in most large local authorities.

None of which tells us anything about the next General Election.

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

Is there a list of councils which are up in 2012?

Keith Edkins has an excellent one: http://www.gwydir.demon.co.uk/uklocalgov/

[You kip if you want to...]

Why are Sky reporting different figures to BBC?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Why are Sky reporting different figures to BBC?

Probably they're including some councils that the BBC aren't (or vice versa).

[You kip if you want to...]

BBC says the projected share is 39-37-15

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Going back a few posts, the issue is - and I always get annoyed by this - the way that the media and the professional pundits always attempt to shoehorn local election results (I am only commenting on those in this post) into a predetermined narrative, whether that narrative is appropriate or not. In this case it was mostly for a (heavily trailed) one-year-one retrospective; how wonderful Cameron is doing gloriously, how pathetic Clegg is drowning, and how boring Labour are failing to make any kind of impact whatsoever. No matter what the results, figures would have been brandished around to 'prove' the accuracy of that narrative. Of course the narrative in question isn't entirely untrue; Cameron remains a popular figure in the parts of Britain predisposed towards the Tories, the LibDems have taken most of the flak for the unpopular things that the government has done, and Labour is rather inward-looking and focused on rebuilding. All of these things were reflected in the results. It's just that other things happened as well.

It's not an issue of systematic bias (at some point the pushed narrative will be broadly favourable to Labour and I'll still hate it) so much as the increasingly apparent tendency of the media to distort and compress information into brightly coloured chunks in order to throw at an audience presumed to be insufficiently intelligent to understand that in a British election you cast your vote by marking an 'x' on a piece of paper.

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Yes, I'm still bitter about the boat. And what it represented. And still represents. God damn it.

[You kip if you want to...]

Going back a few posts, the issue is - and I always get annoyed by this - the way that the media and the professional pundits always attempt to shoehorn local election results (I am only commenting on those in this post) into a predetermined narrative, whether that narrative is appropriate or not. In this case it was mostly for a (heavily trailed) one-year-one retrospective; how wonderful Cameron is doing gloriously, how pathetic Clegg is drowning, and how boring Labour are failing to make any kind of impact whatsoever. No matter what the results, figures would have been brandished around to 'prove' the accuracy of that narrative. Of course the narrative in question isn't entirely untrue; Cameron remains a popular figure in the parts of Britain predisposed towards the Tories, the LibDems have taken most of the flak for the unpopular things that the government has done, and Labour is rather inward-looking and focused on rebuilding. All of these things were reflected in the results. It's just that other things happened as well.

It's not an issue of systematic bias (at some point the pushed narrative will be broadly favourable to Labour and I'll still hate it) so much as the increasingly apparent tendency of the media to distort and compress information into brightly coloured chunks in order to throw at an audience presumed to be insufficiently intelligent to understand that in a British election you cast your vote by marking an 'x' on a piece of paper.

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...


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Yes, I'm still bitter about the boat. And what it represented. And still represents. God damn it.

Atleast we didn't have any of this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSZbvnVfqfE

[Filuwaúrdjan]

My eyes! They bleed!

[You kip if you want to...]

My eyes! They bleed!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7JX8D1Kb88

EDIT: Watching that, it could be even more worrying for Clegg and Co if we're still following the "LibDems go down at general elections" rule of thumb.

[YL]

Do the BBC even understand elections by thirds?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-13284970

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Of those, only one Green (Jillian Creasy in Central) was defending on Thursday; the other Green in Central and the Independent in Gleadless Valley aren't up until next year.

(And while at least the article doesn't refer to a certain Staffordshire town with an H in its name as if it were a ward in Sheffield, it does refer to "Greaves Park".)

[YL]

Would "Tories overperform" be a better view?

Isn't that an entirely subjective question? They didn't suffer a mid-term meltdown, but I don't think anyone actually expected that.

Look, the media (and certain academics who would, perhaps, know better but for the lure of cash in a time when there's not much of that around) like to focus on the total number of seats won, but that can be highly misleading at the best of times. Wards are not the same size across the country for one thing, and Labour is simply not at all competitive in the vast majority of district councils, especially not after most of the more historically industrial went unitary.

The Tories certainly did well in parts of the south where they were mostly facing up against their coalition partners. But results elsewhere don't look so good; for example, they lost six seats in Birmingham and were lucky not to lose a few more (they came within a whisker of losing Edgbaston, for example). Of course both of those comments are generalisations.

Basically, they should be pleased that any discontent with the government has passed over ordinary Tory voters, and they also have a right to be pleased that they are capable of benefiting from poor LibDem results in some areas (there had been some speculation to the contrary, probably based on a handful of local by-elections). Against that, they should be concerned that they are clearly on the way out in most large local authorities.

None of which tells us anything about the next General Election.

I can't find much to disagree with there.  In particular, I wish the media would find a better way of summarising the results than councillors gained/lost; maybe this is because I live in a Met with large wards.

As for Tory "overperformance", in Sheffield their share was 11.7%, which is their worst result since 1999 and worse than in that well known Tory triumph which was the 1996 locals.  In what ought to be their heartlands (and once were) they didn't come close to winning Dore & Totley, and came third behind Labour in both Ecclesall and Fulwood, with a share below 20% in the former and not much above in the latter.

[YL]

I think the swing map I posted yesterday gives the real story of this election in Sheffield, but here are the vote share maps.  Shades are in increments of 10% for Labour and the Lib Dems and 5% for the Tories and the Greens; the darkest Labour shade is 70% to 80% and the darkest Lib Dem share 40% to 50%.



And for a bit of silliness, here's the "Second Past The Post" winner in each ward.  Magenta is UKIP and dark red is TUSC.



Again the base map is due to Jonathan Harston.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The Labour candidate in Washwood Heath polled 89%!

[Peter]

South Oxfordshire
ALL seats up for election (last election 2007)
For those of you that don't know, I now live in a rural Oxfordshire village!

Conservative - 38
LD - 6
Lab - 1
Henley Residents - 1
Independent/Other - 2

New Council:

Conservative - 33
LD - 4
Lab - 4
Henley Residents -2
Ind/Other - 5

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Quick map of winners in Brum:



The stunner of the night was Hall Green; Labour have only ever won there once. In 1945; and the ward covered a larger area back then.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Telford & Wrekin:



Note that Labour only ran one candidate in Madeley, leaving the other seat for an Independent (Tories ran two candidates).

Yeah, didn't expect Labour to win a majority of seats in Wellington; of course the one gain was a bit of a fluke (incumbent in Park had been elected as a Tory but had since jumped to UKIP and sought re-election), but the others weren't. TAWPA were wiped out in Dawley, which is great news.

[joevsimp]

Quick map of winners in Brum:

The stunner of the night was Hall Green; Labour have only ever won there once. In 1945; and the ward covered a larger area back then.

I assume that Salma Yaqoub's seat wasn't up this year or we'd have heard more, any idea on the prognosis for Respect?

[You kip if you want to...]

So that's what someone looks like going to their own funeral.

http://nickclegglookingsad.tumblr.com/ Just found this!

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The first election with the new system of local government in Stoke; no more elected Mayors, no more elections by thirds and less councillors from more wards.

[minionofmidas]

So that one red-blue ward has three seats?