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Official election thread (English locals plus mayors)

Reform aren’t standing anyone in anything here so I’ll be spoiling my vote. Tories and Labour are two wings of the same bird. 

Absolutely correct.

This liberal democracy thing is a con on the great British people.

Now I’m not going to say who is behind this con, but you all know who it is.

What this country really needs is a strong leader eh cryppers? 

One who is not afraid to take decisions and if the biased courts and so called international community don’t like those decisions then who are they anyway in the face of the will of the British people (as interpreted by the aforementioned strong leader).

Only 600 council seats will be declared overnight, along with Blackpool South and three PCCs. The first mayoral results won’t start coming in until Friday lunchtime, and we could be waiting until late on Saturday for London and the all-important West Midlands. In the meantime expect all parties to seize on early results to build a narrative … or to say it’s too early to tell … or both. Choose your own adventure!

from politico on timings etc

just voted.  There were people arriving with their dogs.  This indicates that the dogs are pets so I assume they were liberal / labour voting types as Tories only have "working" dogs.

Just voted and took my (rl) daughters along.  When they asked my why I was voting for Sadiq I said I read in the DM he gave out free knives to poor young people.

Some of my more Right-wing m8s are doing the same in the absence of a Reform candid8. Apparently, the Tories have "gone woke". I can't say I've noticed it myself. 

Barney02 May 24 15:17

All three of my papers had Britain First on them. Wonder if that’s the case across the country.

________________________________________________________

are britain first still a thing?

I have voted, and I didn’t spoil the ballot.

A tall young man, dressed well -  everyone in the room knew I wasn’t voting for one of their touchy feely, bleeding heart parties, and they judged me for it.

Turnout seems to have been fooking dismal here 

(Central London metro elite ward with  >65%  Labour supporting electorate in almost every election for 20 plus years)

A tall young man, dressed well -  everyone in the room knew I wasn’t voting for one of their touchy feely, bleeding heart parties, and they judged me for it.

THAT WAS MY EXPERIENCE AS WELL: AS SOON AS THE LEFTIES SEE THE ARMBAND YOU CAN JUST TELL THEY ARE JUDGING YOU!!

When I voted this evening I noticed a board outside the polling station showing the numbers if people who had voted. By 6pm the count stood at 425. I have no idea how many people my (central London) polling station covers, but that seems ridiculously low, surely?

My pet dog came with and insisted that one of the votes went to the Animal Welfare Party,which I duly obliged.  

Local democracy in the UK is properly in crisis. Turnout in some deprived areas is expected to be below 20% maybe even below 15%.  There is no political community organisation in these places anymore and frankly a lot of the time people don't feel safe campaigning. 

My favourite Brita line.. "I thought you were vegan?".. "Yeah but I ate a hamburger last night and now I'm not cold anymore"

Watching a tory on Laura Kuensberg this morning saying this was most certainly not a referendum on Rishi's leadership... good god the gaslighting is unreal with these people

I’ll give the tories this, I am quite surprised they managed to retain Harlow, not natural tory country really, a fairly blue collar new town.

The swing midlands however is giving Dunak an absolute panning

 

donny, i agree UK local democracy is a problem. 

turn-out in affluent areas is often also woeful.

I suspect average turn-out vis-a-vis local elections in other countries is poor too.

I don't pretend to be a local govt expert but i think a material part of the problem is the lack of uniformity in local govt across the UK. we have a hotchpot system across the UK where virtually nobody understands how every system works in every area/region.   If you had uniformity, I think that would encourage turn out, and you could have much simpler explainers on govt websites on how local govt works everywhere.  Not a very sexy subject and nobody will be loved for fixing it so I doubt much will change.

i also like the idea of 1 member wards.

I also think metro mayors are a mistake. It just adds another layer of politicians and adds to widespread confusion about who is accountable for what. 

also, a greater proportion of local spending needs to be collected from local taxes, otherwise you have infantilised local politics.

 

Of course i don't expect you - as a labour man -  to agree with my last 2 points!

 

wokester, I've met harlow mp rob halfon a few times and i suspect harlow types relate to him. i think he's standing down though...

i also  think Halfon fought and lost harlow a few times before becoming its mp and some people respect that kind of tenacity

I was referring to the council really.

Central governments of all stripes have been mugging local government of real impact and power for decades now.

Restore debt-raising, bond-issuing power to municipal governments and put social housing back in the hands of councils, Give local councils greater power to raise and lower the tax burden (including a portion of income tax) on local people and more say in NHS services, which actually (despite “postcode lottery” BS) should be allowed to vary from place to place, as responsiveness to local demand is a good thing.

It's a vicious circle isn't it? They have no powers and no budget (and you have to do it for free), get blamed for the railways, actions of of private landlords, busses, utility cos etc. The only people who are going to do it are precisely ones who shouldn't.

 

Agree re simplification, go back to counties, get rid of unitary authorities, uniform mayors for cities above a certain size. Make it clear what local authorities do (and allow them to have different answers).

I still favour compulsory attendance at polling stations (but not compulsory voting)

The Sun political editor tweeted that she was ahead in NW London and there seem to be various other tweets based on this. Don't know how she knows this or how this would translate into a London-wide vote even if true.

The Conservatives have failed to get any candidate elected on Castle Point Council

Simon Dedman

BBC Essex political reporter

It had a Conservative majority for two decades up until 2022.

The authority will now be entirely filled with local independent party councillors.

The Canvey Island Independent Party (CIIP) was the largest party before these local elections and took control in 2022 with the support from the People’s Independent Party (PIP).

But now PIP have a majority they don’t necessarily need to continue to work with the CIIP.

13 Conservative candidates had their nominations annulled in this year’s local elections in the borough due to admin errors by the local tory party.

is it the postal votes? it wouldnt be surprising for conservatives to be doing well in those. I thought they weren't counting the main votes until tomorrow. it's just BS frankly. it might well be closer than was thought, as it was last time.

Sky News saying that Labour has not done well enough at the council elections and if this voting pattern repeats in the GE, they will be the largest party but not get a majority

 

https://news.sky.com/story/sky-news-projection-labour-on-course-to-be-largest-party-but-short-of-overall-majority-13128242

 

Basically, the Tories are losing badly, but those votes are not going to Labour - they are going to Reform and others - so Labour has only raised its vote share from 33 to 35 percent. 

Now in reality Labour probably will get a majority - either some kind of power sharing deal, or they'll pick up Scottish seats from the SNP (or a combination) etc, but it would be absolutely hilarious to see a hung Parliament after all the "Labour 450 seats" talk on here..

This has been less than brilliant for labour, but totally catastrophic for the tozzas. 

Big rumours that (((Khan))) has lost London based on borough turnout, but the actual count hasn't started yet so let's see. 

Starmer might be in trouble tbf. 

Tories have lost every single council seat here in Larkrise. The sort of place that has been Tory since the civil war (although with a few whiggish villages out west). Town all gone labour and the villages all Lib Dem

They are going to get absolutely pasted in the GE

but it would be absolutely hilarious to see a hung Parliament after all the "Labour 450 seats" talk on here..‘

What als be hilarious if Sir Beer has to buy off the Lib Dems 

Wonder what he will offer them…

FF even as a Labour member I would to see no overall majority with a lib lab coalition forcing PR so the total shit show  of the last few years can never ever happen again 

The Libs are not going to get enough seats in an election to force anything guys (much less a fundamental change like PR). 

If anything, Labour might have to do a deal with the *SNP* - I wonder how comfortable Starmer will be going down in history as the PM who lost Scotland after 4 centuries as the price for power...

I don’t think SKS should be celebrating too hard (maybe just a small korma). He couldn’t even manage to win the WM mayor and Harlow seems like a classic bellwether (although I don’t know the area). I think the talk on here of a “megamadge” is premature and the Tories will remain a sizeable force in opposition. 

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