Author Archives: The Voice

The story so far: in England, the number of Liberal Democrat-run councils is up (including some spectacular gains from the Conservatives, such as Eastbourne and Hinckley & Bosworth along with dramatic slumps in Torbay and Bournemouth) but the number of councillors overall is down. The overall share of the vote looks like being within 1% of last year’s figures for all the main parties.

The Lib Dem performance looks like it is significantly better in those Parliamentary seats the party holds or would be looking to gain at the next general election than in other areas.

In Scotland and Wales it looks …

Scottish Parliament election gain from fourth place with a majority of 476. Well done Jim!

Long-time Liberal Democrat blogger Nick Barlow has defeated the Greens in one of their top target wards to become a councillor in Colchester. Congratulation, Nick!

Nora Radcliffe increased her vote from 10,963 to 12,588 but in a much higher turnout election that wasn’t quite enough – and Alex Salmond took the Gordon Scottish Parliament seat with an 11% swing.

Liverpool and Stockport – predicted Liberal Democrat holds. But the bigger news … Liberal Democrat gains in Eastbourne looking very likely. Another Lib Dem – Tory Westminster seat in southern England where the local election results are going well for the Lib Dems.

UPDATE: Liberal Democrats take control of Eastbourne council. Promising news for this marginal Tory seat come the next general election.

Very significant losses in Torbay – LDs lose control of the council, and fifteen seats.

This is a new seat, partly created out of Steve Webb’s Northavon constituency, which could be a Liberal Democrat gain at the next general election. So it is of particular interest to note that the Tory prospective candidate has failed to get elected to the council – in a three member ward where the Tories won two seats this year, he failed to win the third. Not exactly a personal endorsement!

Still on Tories. One Liberal Democrat gain from Labour (in John Leach’s constitutency – continuing the pattern of the Liberal Democrats performing well in the key Westminster constituencies).

Mixed news in Waverley
Significant Tory gains from the Liberal Democrats on the cards, but (so far) the Liberal Democrat vote within the Guildford constituency (another key Tory/Lib Dem marginal at general elections) is holding up very well.

Preston
Liberal Democrats beat Labour finance portfolio holder.

Wirral and Maidstone
One Liberal Democrat gain from the Conservatives, and same story in Maidstone.

Total share of the vote in John Prescott’s Hull constituency:

Liberal Democrats 46%
Labour 40%

It is a similar story in Alan Johnson’s Hull West seat:

Liberal Democrats 44%
Labour 35%

Lib Dems defeat Tory Mayor to gain a seat in Sefton, within the Southport Westminster constituency.

News from the counts – the Liberals may well out poll the Conservatives across the city, leaving David Cameron’s party in an entertaining fourth place.

Gain in Chelmsford means Labour lose their last seat.

Congratulations to m’Lord Greaves.

More bad news for the Tories in key Westminster battleground areas – this time Eastleigh. Rather than making gains from the Liberal Democrats, they have lost two seats to us.

Looks like the majority will be up by one.

Bad news for the Conservatives from Cheadle, one of the frontlines in the Lib Dem / Tory Parliamentary battle. Not only have they failed to gain seats from the Lib Dems, there is a recount in one of their wards with the Liberal Democrats close to gaining a seat.

Apparently there are lots of smiling Liberal Democrat faces at the Hull count. Looks like at five gains at least; six are needed for control.

UPDATE: Control of council likely to come down to one ward where there is currently a recount underway.

UPDATE 2: Liberal Democrats take control of Hull. Recount must have gone the right way 🙂

News from Bristol – big problems with the postal vote in one ward as more postal vote ballot papers have come back than the council issued! Most likely explanation so far is a bad printing error which results in one ward’s ballot papers going out across a much wider area.

First gossip from the counts – look out for a poor Tory performance in Hinckley & Bosworth (East Midlands) as the Liberal Democrats make gains … and worst bit of media coverage so far: ITV thinking that Wales is currently run by a Labour – Lib Dem administration. Err…. no.

First a Conservative candidate for Hull council wrote a New Statesman blog post predicting a “yellow revolution” in Hull.

Then a senior Labour candidate for the Welsh Assembly predicted on the same site that Labour would lose two seats – only be told off by his party for daring to suggest as much. (Hat-tip: Peter Black.)

Batten down the hatches and keep an eye out – our own Mark Pack has written a yet-to-be-published blog post for them too…

Answer: One four-letter word.

Those present in the hall on the final day of party conference in Harrogate may recognise this excerpt…

HRH Sir Mr the Merciless (© Millennium Elephant) would like to thank all we activists who’ve been pounding pavements, littering letterboxes, procuring poster sites, setting up stakeboards and canvassing communities for the local, Welsh and Scottish elections this Thursday. To make it extra special, he’s decided to do it through the medium of song and expressionist dance.

OK, not really. It’s a YouTube talking head:

In response to recent questions raised about the party’s diversity fund, Steve Hitchins has provided Liberal Democrat Voice with a piece that will soon be run in the party’s official newspaper, Liberal Democrat News.

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Last summer, Ming Campbell announced the launch of his diversity fund “to assist women, disabled, black and ethnic minority candidates to contest winnable seats for the party”. This fulfilled a pledge made in his leadership campaign and he asked Steve Hitchins to work with him on these issues. Steve has an excellent track record in promoting women and ethnic minority candidates based on the time that he was the Lib Dem Leader of Islington Council.

In September Ming was able to announce that £200,000 had been pledged from the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust to help improve the diversity of the parliamentary party at Westminster. The party is gearing up for a General Election at any time from when there is a new Prime-Minister. So selections are speeding up, quite a few of the most winnable seat selections have already taken place and over £50,000 has already been allocated to help make the difference in a number of the key seats where the result could be crucial to improving the diversity of our MPs.

No money is offered prior to a selection, but objective assessments of targeting policy are being made, support allocated professionally by the party’s Campaigns Department and additional support provided from the Diversity Fund in some cases where winning would improve the diversity of the parliamentary party.