Tag Archives: local elections 2012

Stephen Tall

Were you a 2012 election candidate? Then don’t forget to fill in The Election Centre’s questionnaire

By Stephen Tall | Sat 19th May 2012 - 1:55 pm

If, like me, you were one of the 12,000 people who was a candidate in 2012’s local elections you may have received a letter recently from Plymouth University’s Elections Centre, run by Professors Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher, inviting you to take part in an online questionnaire:

This year the centre has ran its seventh annual candidate survey for the Local elections. Over 12,000 candidates stood for election to local government this year and we are lucky enough to have sampled 6,450 of them (i.e. sent a letter inviting them to participate in the survey). We do this to collate information

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NewsHound

LibLink: Nick Clegg – This coalition is stable and the centre will hold

By NewsHound | Mon 7th May 2012 - 2:10 pm

In today’s Guardian, Nick Clegg declares the Coalition isn’t about to lurch to the left or the right in the wake of the governing parties’ bruising election results: “We spent two years on rescue. Now it’s time for reform.” Here are the three lessons Nick says he’s drawing from last week…

1) The coalition must work harder to show that we are governing for the whole country

Both coalition parties got thumped in Scotland, Wales and the north of England. People are afraid for their jobs and their children’s prospects. In my own patch in Sheffield, I know that memories of the

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Posted in LibLink | Also tagged | 49 Comments
Stephen Tall

Elections 2012: It’s another bruising night for the Lib Dems

By Stephen Tall | Fri 4th May 2012 - 8:00 am

Results are still coming in, but the overall picture of this year’s local elections is clear: this has been a second successive disappointing result for the Lib Dems. Here’s a topline summary:

National vote share: The projected currently projected share of the national Lib Dem vote is 16%, with Labour on 39% and the Tories on 31%. This is the same share of the vote for the party as in 2011. So while the anger on the doorstep against the party may have lessened compared to 12 months ago, we’ve fallen a long way short of translating that into enthusiasm to vote Lib Dem. If last year’s elections were a anti-Lib Dem protest, this year’s are an anti-Coalition protest. Though I guess that’s a little fairer — both governing parties sharing the blame for voter discontent — it’s still no help to the party, even if we are now all in it together.

Number of councillors: The party’s total number of councillors across the UK will dip below 3,000 after these elections (as I write Lib Dem losses stand at 125 on the night) — that’s half Labour’s total number of councillors, and a third of the Tories’. For a community politics-based party which prides itself on its record of action in local government, this hollowing-out of our activist base is worrying.

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Mary Reid

The local elections results open thread

By Mary Reid | Thu 3rd May 2012 - 10:05 pm

The polls have closed, so where are we?

England

Elections have been held for 128 councils. In most cases one third of the seats were being contested. Altogether 6706 seats were up for election, of which 1170 were held by Liberal Democrats.

Ten English cities have been holding referendums on whether to have a directly elected mayor. They are Birmingham, Bradford, Bristol, Coventry, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham, Sheffield and Wakefield.

Doncaster was voting on whether to abolish its directly elected mayor.

Three cities – London, Salford and Liverpool – have been electing a mayor.

  • London: 7 candidates, with Brian Paddick waving the Lib Dem flag.
  • Salford: 10 candidates, including

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Posted in Local government, London, Scotland and Wales | Also tagged , , and | 35 Comments
NewsHound

LibLink: Stephen Tall – The Coalition’s mid-term blues: a problem shared (is still a problem)

By NewsHound | Wed 2nd May 2012 - 6:45 pm

Over at the Politics.co.uk website, LibDemVoice Co-Editor Stephen Tall looks at the party’s prospects in Thursday’s elections. Here’s an excerpt:

With the Lib Dems’ national poll ratings flat-lining at around 10-12%, the party faces the uncomfortable prospect of a classic pincer-movement: losing to Labour our hard-won gains in the urban north, and losing to the Tories the no-less-hard-won gains in the suburban south. How the party fares against Labour in Sheffield, Manchester and Cambridge – where there are sitting Lib Dem MPs, including Nick Clegg – and against the Tories in Eastleigh, Three Rivers and Cheltenham will be a crucial test

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Caron Lindsay

Willie Rennie launches Scottish Liberal Democrats’ local election campaign

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 18th April 2012 - 11:56 am
Willie Rennie being interviewed by the press at campaign launch in Inverness. Credit: Karen Fraser

Every Council seat in Scotland is up for grabs on May 3rd and Scottish Liberal Democrat Leader Willie Rennie was in Inverness on Monday to launch the party’s Local Elections campaign. He outlined four main priorities that the party’s councillors would be fighting on over the next five years. These are:

  • Creating jobs and boosting the economy
  • Early

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