The party’s just published the results of the selections for our European Parliament election candidates in England. More details over on the main Liberal Democrat website.
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32 Comments
So Catherine Bearder got second place in South East (very winnable place as LDs already have 2 seats there and SE shouldn’t get a seat reduction after Bulgaria and Romania entry).
Is it known the top 2 North West ranking? Did Davies top Karim?
He did according to
http://liberalrevolution.wordpress.com/2007/11/10/chris-davies-top-of-the-list/
Thanks Hywel Morgan. With a seat reduction in NW the second seat (gained last time) is not safe. It will depend on LD performance next time (the first seat should be safe anyway), so being number 1 can be important
Definitely Chris 1 Saj 2.
Both can be re-elected, we don’t need many more votes than last time.
“we don’t need many more votes than last time”
LD second seat was the 9th seat (now there’re probably just 8 seats). Last time it was
7) Lab third seat: 192129.33
8) Con third seat: 169815.3
9) LD second seat: 167531.5
so around 2,000 votes away from the Tory third seat but it may depend on Labour or UKIP performance too (UKIP can have a big drop after a positive election last time or Labour can drop further). LD second seat is certainly winnable, but not safe as the first one.
So all sitting MEP’s re-selected at the top of the list – wow!
I suppose those selected are now all free to join the ‘party establshment for Clegg’ campaign.
Bizarre use of the words ‘strong team’ by Vince Cable. ‘Euro nutters’ would be my preferred choice.
Nice to know that party members are happy to choose an ineligible person to top the London list.
detailed count here
http://www.cix.co.uk/~rosenstiel/eu07/welcome.htm
Second place in Yorkshire & the Humber? The sitting MEP’s husband. Not that any of the other candidates set the world alight, but its hardly democracy in action.
I think I have to agree with others that the rules need changing. Sarah Ludford was the only incumbent not to get over 60% of the first preference.
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pp3BYZfZrVfVV5w-5XjXKfA
Re 9 It’s a free vote amongst the membership – not sure what your point is here.
Re the remark from ‘Dan’ at 7 ‘Nice to know that party members are happy to choose an ineligible
person to top the London list’, allow me to comment as the person
in question.
Firstly I would like to thank London members for reselecting me head of the list, which I believe was on the basis of my record, and to pledge that I will work my socks off to get Jonathan Fryer and hopefully Dinti Batstone elected along with me. We are meeting soon to start planning the Euro-campaign, with our first task to see how we can best support the London Mayoral and GLA elections. If ‘Dan’ cares to identify himself, we can give him an extra-large bundle of leaflets.
Re ‘dual mandate’, it is not just pedantry to point out that I am not ineligible right now (or I would not still be an MEP) and only become so in 2009 if the law does not change to ‘liberate’ me from the Lords. The government accepts that it has an obligation under EU law, because it signed up to the 2002 decision banning dual mandate from 2009, to ensure that people can make a choice and therefore that peers can be free to stand for election as MEPs in 2009. Given that comprehensive Lords reform is almost certainly not going to happen in time, they intend to have a specific piece of legislation which enables peers elected to the European Parliament to put aside their Lords membership. I am liaising with ministers to push that along.
Hope that clarifies things, Dan.
10.
It would be useful to have in place rules that didn’t allow MEPs to be able to send out their glossy mailings just before nominations close.
I just want to say that we had a terrific choice of candidates in London and I thank them all for standing.
I do not always agree with some of Sarah’s controversial opinions, but she is a first rate MEP and always on the frontline on human rights campaigning. Great to see her on demonstrations barking into a load hailer – that is what more of our MPs should be doing. A natural politician in the best sense. Jonathan Fryer has made a terrific effort in helping out London Liberal Democrats and has a fantastic knowlege of international affairs. And Dinti Blatstone is clearly a rising star destined for great things.
OK it is a bit out of character for me to suck up to people, you probably won’t see another message like this from me for a while…
All Sarah has done is stand in an election which she is entitled to stand in – which seems fair enough to me.
I do think more could have been done internally and externally to resolve this situation though such as proposing a piece of legislation (a la Tony Benn) before now or having/threatening a legal challenge to the existing rules.
The policy seems to have been to wait for the Government to sort it out – and they are hardly going to do us a favour 🙂
My worry is the effect this would have on our campaign if the law was changed very late in the day – which is what usually happens with electoral law.
11- I was essentially echoing the criticisms of the campaign rules.
Members can of course vote however they want, and like I said its not like I thought any of the other candidates were substantially better.
However, for someone standing on a platform of “please give your first preference to my wife” to be the second best candidate in the eyes of the membership illustrates how hard to access the Euro Selections are.
Who is eligible to vote for these Euro candidates? I was half expecting to participate, but was never sent any voting papers.
You need to be a member of the party for a minimum of 12 months and to have already renewed for a further year. And you need to belong to a local party in a place that is selecting – i.e. you may not live in Northern Ireland or anywhere overseas unless your registered address is in GB. I think.
It’s certainly an odd situation in which Sarah finds herself but the very best of luck to her. I just hope that if the law doesn’t change in time she will throw her full (metaphorical) weight into campaigning for Jonathan and Dinti and then take up her seat in the Lords where a vocal Lib Dem human rights campaigner never need go underemployed.
Turnout figures
Eastern 42.72%
East Midlands 49.09
London 50.92
North East 63.87
North West 57.85
South East 45.42
South West 50.31
West Midlands 62.42
Jonathan Davies
Senior Returning Officer
Yorks & Humber 49.36
Turnout figures
Eastern 42.72%
East Midlands 49.09
London 50.92
North East 63.87
North West 57.85
South East 45.42
South West 50.31
West Midlands 62.42
Yorks & Humber 49.36
wonder what the turnouts would have been if more members had received their ballot papers on time/ at all?
Mine arrived yesterday (10th)
Closing date, 7th altered to 9th
Care to comment Jonathan?
Re 18, the answer is yes! (And I’m so glad you added ‘metaphorical’!)
Belonging to one of the regions which got below 50%, no one from our local party reported issues of missing ballot papers. So I doubt it would have made much of a difference her in the East Mids.
@ 23
Quite the opposite here. As far as I can trace, nobody in our constituency had the opportunity to vote.
Not good!
Turnout was up across England compared with the last Euro selections (which were also all-member postal ballots).
Full comparative turnout figures:
Eastern 42.72% (Last time 44.3)
East Midlands 49.09 (47.2)
London 50.92 (48.6)
North East 63.87 (66.6)
North West 57.85 (58.6)
South East 45.42 (48.2)
South West 50.31 (43.9)
West Midlands 62.42 (56.2)
Yorks & Humber 49.36 (46.2)
As to crewegwyn, the non delivery of ballot papers could not possibly have affected position 1 or 2. It could have affected position 3, and this is one of the issues we will have to consider when the recount has taken place. We will decide what, if any, further action to take in the light of the result of the recount. A further announcement will be made as soon as possible.
Is there a full break down of results anywhere?
Jonathan – I am growing more concerned about the number of reports of ballot papers not received. At least two bloggers (Nich Starling (Eastern) and “Bob” at cowleystreet (SW)) report they didn’t get ballot papers. That suggests the possibility of quite a high level of non or late delivery.
I was led to believe from postings on here that this was largely a localised issue centred around Liverpool.
What are your estimates of the level of non-delivered ballot papers, the reasons why and what steps are being taken to prevent a repeat? As the leadership election will coincide (in part) with the Christmas post this could be a significant issue.
I have responded to those two blog comments, both of whom assert not only that they did not receive their ballot papers but they were unaware the selection was going on.
The strongest evidence we have that there were no serious difficulties with the mailing of the ballot papers is the turnout which was slightly higher than last time. The email which went to all members reminding them of the close of poll did not lead to a flood of replies complaining that members had not received their ballot papers. Following that email we had requests for and issued 143 duplicate ballot papers (of which 55 were in the North West and 26 in London). Many of the complaints which came in throughout the campaign about members not receiving ballot papers turned out on investigation to be from members who are not eligible to vote under the 12 months rule which requires 12 months continuous membership and a renewal, ie is not satisfied if someone lapses and then rejoins.
16 – Come on – behave yourself!
As one of the 49% of London members that kinda sorta forgot[1], it’s fairly hard to believe that online members (at least in London) weren’t aware of the selection—I certainly got emails from most of the candidates.
Good to see turnout up though, and a good strong showing for Jonathan Fryer and Dinti, although I’d rather J at the top, here’s hoping we can campaign hard enough to get all three elected this time, as they’ve all impressed me in various ways. Perhaps a good opportunity to run some campaigning in non-target areas to mobilise potential voters in wards and constituencies we can’t win to guage the weather a bit better?
Hoping we can improve the way we select and reselect in future, but although I’ve a few issues with some sitting MEPs[2], are we really surprised the incumbents topped the ballots? How often do we deselect sitting MPs? I’d hope it shows a vote of support for the hard work existing representatives have done—if they’re crap, the membership needs to have such things highlighted a little better, but at the same time doing so can hurt us electorall due to the stupid list system.
Can we be having STV soon PLZKTHX?
[1] I had intended to drop my ballot in to Cowley St by hand, but forgot when I was in Westminster last Weds.
[2] A certain lady who shares my surname 🙁
The result from North West Region which was delayed because of a recount, has now also been published:
1 Chris Davies
2 Sajjad Karim
3 Helen Foster-Grime
4 Sue McGuire
5 Qassim Afzal
6 Neil Corlett
7 Mark Clayton
8 Stephen Cooke
Jonathan Davies
Senior Returning Officer