Registered: Jan 2002
Location: UK
Posts: 13002

For anyone mildly interested there have been local government elections in the UK this week. The bottom line is that the Labour Party losts over 300 seats and the Conservative (Tory) Party won over 300. The Tory Party also polled 40% of the vote which is the golden figure needed to win a General Election.

I however, did not win my seat for the Tories. I chose to fight one of the safest Labour seat and see what soprt of inroads we could make. It bordered one of our target seats so the idea was to stretch the Labour Party into having to work the ground in their own stronghold, and it worked a dream.

All the Council seats were up for grabs so where I stood the top three placed people would gte on the Council. Thus there were 3 Labour candidate, 3 Tory candidates, 3 Liberal Democrats and 1 Independent.

Last time round the third place Labour person won with 1200 or so vote and we were fourth with 450. This time round they got 1300 and we got 800. The swing was in our favour and all wee did was deliver six leaflets over about three months. We had no operation on the day to egt our vote out (we had no idea where it was as we've never even bothered before because it was so stringly Labour), they had an operation though which was unprecedented and meant that we had achieved a double whammy. Not only were they nervous but they were really nervous about their voters not bothering to vote. The fact that they had an operation and managed to poll only about 100 extra votes as normal suggests that there support is at it's limit. We on the other hand doubled our vote without an operation. Next time we will run a proper campaign centre on the day (if I can find the numbers).

The great news is that in our target, whilst we lost, we turned a 1000+ majority into a 150 majority. We had a 16% swing in our favour from Labour aqnd we were stretched on manpower so weren't able to get all our cnvassed vote out.

Overall we got the largest Tory Group on the council for 15 years. Total 13 to Labour's 36. This is good considering Labour has controlled the Council since the 1970s and its only been Tory once in 1968 for four years. Across London though we rocked. In Bexley (where I used to live) Labour majority of 1 was destroyed and replaced with a Tory majority of 23. They now only have 9 councillors.

Oh yes, I hammered the Lib Dem candidate as well who was a former Parliamnetary candidate too, this made me happy as I am a former member of that party.

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Registered: Aug 2001
Location: Hilbert Space
Posts: 35561

I saw your results, not too bad at all.

I think that the Labour Party need to consider changing their rules so that they can more easily get rid of their leaders, in future.

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Registered: Sep 2000
Location: The Bottom of the Toyem Pole
Posts: 9453

Too bad that you didn't make it this time, but it will just make you hungrier for the next fight.

In the meantime, we should get a game of Diplomacy started amongst us. Me, Smug, Phil, ChipsJr, Paint, Simon, Mugtoe, Mord, Trench...among that group, we ought to be able to find 7.

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Registered: Jan 2002
Location: UK
Posts: 13002

I guess the most important thing is that I DID something rather than just talked about it.

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Registered: Jan 2001
Location: library
Posts: 19562

That is very significant, putting you in a very small percentage.

Good show.

-m

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: A New England
Posts: 9166

Yeah, nice one.

Congrats on the putting yourself forward part. Still, no one likes a loser. (sorry, loser. It's true)

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Registered: Jan 2002
Location: UK
Posts: 13002

767 people liked me.

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Registered: Aug 2001
Location: Hilbert Space
Posts: 35561

Maybe they felt sorry for you.

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Registered: Jan 2002
Location: UK
Posts: 13002

probably.. actually it's only 766.. the other one was me and I certainly felt sorry for myself.

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