English Local Elections 2006

[Filuwaúrdjan]

And two county councillors.

Not quite so shocking (although I do recall being shocked to find even that out) because of higher turnouts but...

...o/c there are a couple of Tories on County Durham CC (representing divisions largely made up of the area annexed from the North Riding in 1974) but Durham is a much more varied county than post-1960's Surrey.

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In news somewhat related to the local elections; the LibDems are reported to be reviewing Ming The Merciless's performance...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

One thing to remember about the results for Districts is that while the seats contested hadn't been up since 2002, the wards almost all had... meaning that we can compare this years results to 2003 and 2004 just as easily as 2002... and use it to make predictions (sort of) for next year.
An example of this is Pendle DC in Lancashire; while Labour lost seats, in terms of wards won it was their best result since 2002. It also showed up the absurdity of the current local government boundaries; there was a clear division between Nelson (where Labour has clearly recovered a lot from the nightmarish results of the past few years, and took four out of six wards, and only narrowly lost a fifth to the BNP) and Colne (which was a disaster for Labour and good for the LibDems; better for the BNP as well. Thank God it's not as large as Nelson and only has a few wards...) and the rest of the district... (the results in both Nelson and Colne seem to indicate a return to traditional voting patterns, btw). Based on that, methinks that the LibDems will start to lose the Nelson seats gained off Labour in 2003 and 2004, while doing well in Colne (which means a return to NOC at some point).

[afleitch]

http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/research/rp2006/rp06-026.pdf

Commons Research Paper now up.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/research/rp2006/rp06-026.pdf

Commons Research Paper now up.

As always, very interesting. Interesting to see a semi-reliable popular vote estimate. Bad news for the LibDems indeed...

Some nice little tables on there; the most interesting part was the full Mayoral results. Hackney is pretty Toryphobic isn't it?

[afleitch]

Hackney is pretty Toryphobic isn't it?

Probably a little homophobic too as Tory candidate Andrew Boff was openly gay.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Hackney is pretty Toryphobic isn't it?

Probably a little homophobic too as Tory candidate Andrew Boff was openly gay.

I take it you think that the Ultra-Orthodox block vote in Stamford Hill didn't vote heavily for Boff?
It's possible that Boff might have hurt Tory council candidates a bit in Stamford Hill; Labour came close to winning seats in all Stamford Hill wards... even in Springfield (where a Communist polled a suprising 113 votes; now was that because Marxism is popular in North Hackney or because said candidate was called Monty Goldman? Not quite as Jewish a name as one of the winning Liberals in Cazenove ward; Joseph Shlomo Zvi Stauber). O/c it's also possible that block-voting is in decline for several reasons (including the growth of the community perhaps?) that have nothing to do with Boff (who lost his ward in South Hackney, but still polled over 300 votes more than the next Tory).

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Just seen the map Pete posted and it gave me an idea. The following ward maps are nicked from the Boundary Commision's site and coloured in according to which party won which ward this year.
Cheap and Cheerful I hope...

Manchester, Salford & Trafford first:

[Filuwaúrdjan]

All the boroughs in the former Met. Co. of Merseyside now (basically the Liverpool metro area for non Brits, although it's actually larger than Merseyside now)...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Next be the Met. Boroughs of Wigan and Bolton... the green represents the Community Action Party... (and the orange in the previous map is the "Continuity" Liberal Party)...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

A Tory counciller in Lincolnshire has defected to the BNP

[afleitch]

A Tory counciller in Lincolnshire has defected to the BNP

Excellent news Robert West is a member and spokesperson of the 'Christian Council of Britain' nothing more than a front for the BNP anyway. He was under investigation by the party, kicked off the Racial Equality Council.

He now wants to 'set up his own church, based in a house in Holbeach, to preach "traditional bible beliefs.' The fact that a bigoted fundamentalist is leaving the Tory party is good news all round.

[Jake]

A Tory counciller in Lincolnshire has defected to the BNP

And the beat goes on, and the train won't stop.

[afleitch]

A Tory counciller in Lincolnshire has defected to the BNP

And the beat goes on, and the train won't stop.

It's a very slow train.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Excellent news Robert West is a member and spokesperson of the 'Christian Council of Britain' nothing more than a front for the BNP anyway. He was under investigation by the party, kicked off the Racial Equality Council.

He now wants to 'set up his own church, based in a house in Holbeach, to preach "traditional bible beliefs.' The fact that a bigoted fundamentalist is leaving the Tory party is good news all round.

I can see that point of view, but I'm a little worried about the possibility of the BNP establishing another foothold somewhere; South Holland is a very conservative area (although that it's agricultural rather than commuterland means there's a reasonable minority Labour vote) and has seen a large growth in Eastern European immigrants working in the fields. The BNP actually came close (182 votes) to winning a seat in the district in 2003, so they clearly have some potential out there, which is quite a worry (although not from a narrow electoral perspective; a rising BNP vote in South Holland could see a fair few Labourites win council seats by the back door; we were very close in some of the Spalding wards and about 170 off beating West himself in 2003).
Hopefully it'll be more like when Militant got thrown out of Labour though...

Just spotted an irony; "traditional bible beliefs" rather obviously contradicts with the sort of racial theories the BNP is very much based around...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

A Tory counciller in Lincolnshire has defected to the BNP

And the beat goes on, and the train won't stop.

Not at all; while they did gain Queensbury, this year alone the BNP have lost three seats on Bradford MDC (Wibsey, Worth Valley, Keighley West) and will lose Wyke next year.
They're also likely to lose seats to both Labour and the LibDems in Burnley next year, are slowly declining in Calderdale and their surge in Longton (one of the original Potteries towns) is over. They also failed to get back on Thurrock UA and were heavily beaten in the Castle & Priory ward in Dudley.
Basically in areas where they've won in the past and that have ended up with BNP councillers, the BNP are losing ground. Can't think why...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

And now for the Pennine Fringe/East Manchester Suburbs...



This area is home to some of the weirdest voting patterns in the country... and it's even worse at local level than national level... Rochdale MBC topped the weird poll this year though. While Labour voters across the borough stayed at home due to the bizarre coalition with the Tories resulting in a series of LibDem gains... Labour overturned a huge LibDem majority in Rochdale Central (one of the most suprising results anywhere in the country). The LibDems failed to win a majority on the council by a single seat.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

And now for Brum...



Couple of notes needed; first off I've decided to go with the corrected results in Kingstanding (now there's a row that seems set to rumble on forever...) rather than the original results (in which case the ward, which is no. 15 on the map, would be coloured brown). The green in no.30 (Sparkbrook) is Respect.
And I should warn you; in local elections Birmingham is notorious for "doing different".

[Filuwaúrdjan]

And now for the Black Country (well... most of it...)



Orange is as in Liverpool.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

And the former Met. Co. of Tyne & Wear...

[minionofmidas]

More blue than I'd a expected... what's pink and grey?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

More blue than I'd a expected...

Upmarket seaside resorts for the most part (there's a reason why Tynemouth had a long Tory history) along with some affluent suburbs (and in Sunderland) posh residential areas. In the Tynemouth constituency a lot of people vote for Tories locally but Labour nationally (the North Tyneside Mayoral election in 2005 was very close while Labour won the usual huge majority in Tyneside North and won a reasonable majority in Tynemouth).

In Newcastle the Tories ed up their nominatation papers in some wards (ala Respect), btw, neatly confirming the LibDems as the centre-right party of record in the city.
Hard to believe that the Tories had a majority on the city council (with the old boundaries even) until the early '70's.

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Pink: South Tyneside Progressives
Grey: Indies

[Filuwaúrdjan]

And now for the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire...



Labour run all four councils in the old Met. County... light green is the Community lot again, while the dark green is the Green Party

[Harry Hayfield]

If you're colouring maps for the local elections in 2006, can I put in a request for Nuneaton and Bedworth in Warwickshire?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

If you're colouring maps for the local elections in 2006, can I put in a request for Nuneaton and Bedworth in Warwickshire?

Ta Da...



I'm a little suprised that Labour held one ward while losing another; methinks you know which two.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

And now for the former Met.Co. of West Yorkshire...



Two boroughs here (Calderdale, Kirklees) beat even the likes of Rochdale for the sheer insanity of their local politics and local voting patterns. See all that yellow in Calderdale? In all probability not one of those wards voted LibDem in the last General Election and that's not likely to change.