Scrutable

Tories down 929, 6 councils to go. So probably won’t lose 1000, but within spitting distance.

Er.. they are down 1,050. Are you in a different time zone?

BBC and Guardian have different numbers.

My area did better than I feared. The first seat announced was a huge disappointment as a Tory had got re-elected despite a spirited campaign by the LibDems. My ward also turned Tory from Independent and I was really scared we were going to see a landslide for them. But things turned out ok.

The Tories didn't gain any seats, staying at 13. LibDems lost a couple of seats due to local issues in one town (only one of the 5 incumbents kept their seats there). Labour and the Greens were the big winners, and there's several double wards where they have both a Tory and a Labour councillor so that's going to be interesting! Hopefully we can get a coalition council back in as no-one has overall control. There's enough people from the previous coalition who've been re-elected that I'm cautiously optimistic they can maintain and build on it.

IvanV wrote: ↑

Fri May 05, 2023 9:13 am

There can be local issues. I don't know whether this applies in Dudley, but one of my co-workers lives in Lewisham, where the Labour party is still dominated by Momentum, who succeed in causing substantial local disruption with their political stunts. If it's like that in Dudley, many of the locals may feel unable to vote for Labour. And the voters who wouldn't wish to actively vote Tory either may feel that voting for a 3rd party was just a waste of time, and so fail to turn up, as indicated by this low turnout.

Additionally, in a relatively deprived area like Dudley we might be concerned over whether the Voter ID requirements had caused substantial suppression.

Nothing really, in terms of Labour fuckery here. If anything, it's the Tory candidates that have been mired in corruption, sleaze and in-fighting.

Voter suppression was an issue for sure. I knocked a load of doors yesterday and had a number of people say they couldn't vote because they didn't have photo ID - I told them about the emergency proxy option, but it seemed wasted on them TBH.

I have a Green councillor. I was worried the anti-Tory vote would split, but it seems everyone got behind the Green, in part through extensive leafleting and having a decent personality, and it was a comfortable win.

I think this is the first time, after umpty decades, that I've helped dislodge the incumbent. Everywhere else has been safe seats or marginal Tory wins.

gosling wrote: ↑

Fri May 05, 2023 8:15 pm

BBC and Guardian have different numbers.

Took me a while to figure it out - Mr Bagpuss was looking at BBC and I was looking at the Guardian and we were confused.

Guardian compares against seats just before election and, though I haven't confirmed, I suspect BBC is comparing against the last election. So you'd expect higher Tory losses on BBC as by-elections will already have soaked up some of the Tory losses for the Guardian's numbers.

Edit - have now found the bit on the BBC that confirms my suspicion.

bagpuss wrote: ↑

Fri May 05, 2023 9:13 pm

gosling wrote: ↑

Fri May 05, 2023 8:15 pm

BBC and Guardian have different numbers.

Took me a while to figure it out - Mr Bagpuss was looking at BBC and I was looking at the Guardian and we were confused.

Guardian compares against seats just before election and, though I haven't confirmed, I suspect BBC is comparing against the last election. So you'd expect higher Tory losses on BBC as by-elections will already have soaked up some of the Tory losses for the Guardian's numbers.

Edit - have now found the bit on the BBC that confirms my suspicion.

Oh right, no wonder I’m confused

bagpuss wrote: ↑

Fri May 05, 2023 9:13 pm

gosling wrote: ↑

Fri May 05, 2023 8:15 pm

BBC and Guardian have different numbers.

Took me a while to figure it out - Mr Bagpuss was looking at BBC and I was looking at the Guardian and we were confused.

Guardian compares against seats just before election and, though I haven't confirmed, I suspect BBC is comparing against the last election. So you'd expect higher Tory losses on BBC as by-elections will already have soaked up some of the Tory losses for the Guardian's numbers.

Edit - have now found the bit on the BBC that confirms my suspicion.

Thanks, I was wondering, but the total seat tallies were different, so I just thought it was a delay

jimbob wrote: ↑

Fri May 05, 2023 10:57 pm

bagpuss wrote: ↑

Fri May 05, 2023 9:13 pm

gosling wrote: ↑

Fri May 05, 2023 8:15 pm

BBC and Guardian have different numbers.

Took me a while to figure it out - Mr Bagpuss was looking at BBC and I was looking at the Guardian and we were confused.

Guardian compares against seats just before election and, though I haven't confirmed, I suspect BBC is comparing against the last election. So you'd expect higher Tory losses on BBC as by-elections will already have soaked up some of the Tory losses for the Guardian's numbers.

Edit - have now found the bit on the BBC that confirms my suspicion.

Thanks, I was wondering, but the total seat tallies were different, so I just thought it was a delay

That's what we thought at first but later in the day the gap was just too big for the number of councils left to declare, and then we noticed they were both saying the same number of declared councils, so we twigged there must be a different baseline. I guessed what it must be and then confirmed it by scrolling to the bottom of the Guardian's page. The BBC details were harder to find.

Had a long discussion with BoustroWife about how to vote tactically and who had the best chance Labour or Lib/Dem.
Turns out there were only two choices Conservative or Labour. Easy.

John Crace

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... idle-hands

Losing 1,000 seats was looking realistic. Hopeful, even. The real damage could be even worse. And don’t forget these were the same seats being fought as in 2019 when the Tories also lost 1,000 seats. So this was a wipeout piled on a wipeout. Back in 2019, Theresa May had had to apologise to her party for the election disaster and was removed from office just months later. That same result in 2023 would have been regarded as an electoral triumph. But no one was about to start apologising for anything.

Brightonian wrote: ↑

Fri May 05, 2023 4:34 pm

Greens had been the largest party in Brighton and Hove, but it looks like they're losing to Labour. Not obvious why.

In Hanover & Elm Grove ward, which was my ward when I was living there, and had been Green for yonks, Labour have gained the three seats from the Greens.

However, in Lewes, which is right next to Brighton & Hove, the Greens have become the biggest party

The Tories had had 19 of the 41 seats on Lewes District Council, and now they have zero.

When I was driving round that part of the world on my paragliding adventures last week, I saw an abundance of “Vote Green” signs and nary one for any other party. This was out in the countryside as well, not just Lewes.

bjn wrote: ↑

Sat May 06, 2023 3:47 pm

When I was driving round that part of the world on my paragliding adventures last week, I saw an abundance of “Vote Green” signs and nary one for any other party. This was out in the countryside as well, not just Lewes.

That was the case in Tonbridge and Malling, where Dad lived

gosling wrote: ↑

Fri May 05, 2023 8:15 pm

BBC and Guardian have different numbers.

They did last time, but everyone's forgotten the 2022 elections and the explanation that was posted here for the difference in the gains/losses.

See you all next year when you're trying to figure this one out again.

Advocate of voter suppression changes his mind when he finds he suppressed the vote for his own party. Or, another way of putting it, politician who acts in his own self-interest, while pretending it's the public interest, blows his cover.

Which reminds me, what's going to happen with the ongoing gerrymandering-by-making-constituencies-similar-sizes? Do the tories still think that's fairer going to get them more seats, or will it be shelved?

The boundary changes are still going ahead. The final recommendations are being worked on now and will be sent to parliament by 1 July, according to the Boundary Commission.

Sure, but do you think they'll go through this time? The tories have already had a couple of rolls of the dice (and once there were going to be 600 MPs instead of 650 but that must not have turned out advantageous enough for them) and ignored the results, maybe they think this version doesn't suit them either and isn't worth the risk.

Btw I'd be set to get moved into a new strongly CON area, not too sure what the sensible anti-tory vote would be "there" (it's LibDem "here").

Eta some analysis here: https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/boundaries2023.html

The changes for me are really interesting. The town I just moved out of has been blue since time immemorial, but just elected two lib dems and an independent. The borough has also been conservative since it was created, and is now NOC, with many independents now in. The other big nearby town is half tory and half lab/lib/ind.

The new boundaries create a smaller constituency (there's been a shitload of local residential and commercial development, increasing the population heavily), with the two big nearby towns and us in our couple of village wards in between them (still ruthlessly tory, obviously).

Overall, the new constituency will have 12 wards, of which 5 are tory, 3 are independent, 3 are lib dem, and 1 is labour.

Back in 1997, which is the closest anyone not tory ever came to winning here, the tories won by 132 votes over the labour candidate. In 2001 it was by 776 votes. Since then, our horse-faced old Etonian MP has won at a canter every time. I wonder if the lib dems might do better