Interesting electoral facts

[finsobruce]

Mar 2, 2023 16:52:01 GMT @johnyorks said:

Mar 2, 2023 15:12:34 GMT Wisconsin said:

Malcolm X is definitely Plaid.

He was big into Islamism wasn’t he… Maybe Respect? He and George Galloway might’ve got on.

He joined the Nation of Islam group but later left them and converted to Shia Islam. His murder has always been ascribed to the Nation as they had made death threats against him. 

I'm not sure he would have had much time for Galloway tbh. He wasn't terribly keen on self important white men telling him what to think.

[minionofmidas]

Anyways his name was Malcolm, so of course he'd wear plaid.

[clyde1998]

Parties who have been required to file audited accounts with the Electoral Commissions (had either revenue or expenditure greater than £250k in a given year):

Registered name/Year

02

03

04

05

06

07

08

09

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

Alba Party

X

British National Party

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Conservative and Unionist Party

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Co-operative Party

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Green Party

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Jury Team

X

Labour Party

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Liberal Democrats

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

London Real Party

X

Plaid Cymru

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Reform UK

X

X

X

Scottish Green Party

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Scottish National Party (SNP)

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Scottish Socialist Party

X

X

X

X

The For Britain Movement

X

The Independent Group for Change

X

The New Party

X

X

The People's Alliance

X

The Reclaim Party

X

The Respect Party

X

The Socialist Party of Great Britain

X

X

X

UK Independence Party (UKIP)

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Women's Equality Party

X

X

X

X

X

X

Total for year

8

11

11

12

10

9

9

10

9

9

9

10

10

10

12

10

11

12

11

14

[greatkingrat]

The SPGB's income last year was 506k of which 500k came from one legacy.

[johnloony]

Apr 8, 2023 15:42:38 GMT clyde1998 said:

Parties who have been required to file audited accounts with the Electoral Commissions (had either revenue or expenditure greater than £250k in a given year):

Registered name/Year

02

03

04

05

06

07

08

09

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

Alba Party

X

British National Party

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Conservative and Unionist Party

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Co-operative Party

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Green Party

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Jury Team

X

Labour Party

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Liberal Democrats

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

London Real Party

X

Plaid Cymru

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Reform UK

X

X

X

Scottish Green Party

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Scottish National Party (SNP)

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Scottish Socialist Party

X

X

X

X

The For Britain Movement

X

The Independent Group for Change

X

The New Party

X

X

The People's Alliance

X

The Reclaim Party

X

The Respect Party

X

The Socialist Party of Great Britain

X

X

X

UK Independence Party (UKIP)

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Women's Equality Party

X

X

X

X

X

X

Total for year

8

11

11

12

10

9

9

10

9

9

9

10

10

10

12

10

11

12

11

14

I’m very surprised that the SPGB has ever been rich enough to qualify for that requirement. Maybe they have had a single rich eccentric donor.

P.S. i tried to edit out all the non-SPGB lines in the table, but i got confuzzled by the tr td stuff

[clyde1998]

Apr 8, 2023 16:31:18 GMT johnloony said:

Apr 8, 2023 15:42:38 GMT clyde1998 said:

Parties who have been required to file audited accounts with the Electoral Commissions (had either revenue or expenditure greater than £250k in a given year):

Registered name/Year	02	03	04	05	06	07	08	09	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	The Socialist Party of Great Britain												X			X					X

I’m very surprised that the SPGB has ever had enough money to qualify for that requirement. Maybe they have a single eccentric donor.

I was caught out by that too. Each time it was down to revenues exceeding £250k:

2013 - £341k

2016 - £394k

2021 - £552k

In 2016 and 2021, it appears they received a large donation from the estate of a deceased former member (2013 doesn't specify the reason for the large donation figure). In 2016, they received £63,609 in cash donations via an estate, with an additional £300k based on the value of a freehold properties donated to them by that estate. In 2021, they recieved £505,798 from the estate of a deceased former member.

On no occassion have they spent more than £200k and only on three other ocassions have they had revenues of over £100k (£210k in 2012 being the next highest). More typical years appear to be in 2017, where they had around £57k in donations, and 2018 where they received just under £14k. Both are much more in line with what I would expect for a party of its size.

They appear to be deficit spending most years (£20-40k a year seems typical), with these huge periodic donations seemingly allowing that to happen. They do have years where their deficit is over £100k, but I'm guessing that's in big election years for them.

[michaelarden]

Apr 8, 2023 16:38:15 GMT greatkingrat said:

The SPGB's income last year was 506k of which 500k came from one legacy.

Good old socialist inherited wealth.

[greenhert]

In 1979, Bermondsey, won at the infamous 1983 by-election which still holds the record for largest parliamentary by-election swing (44.2% from Labour to Liberal), had the joint second-lowest Liberal vote in Greater London (6.8%, tied with Newham South. Only Hackney Central recorded a worse Liberal result that year with 6.6%). Furthermore in February 1974 it was only of only 4 English seats to record a lost Liberal deposit (the others being Tottenham, Liverpool Scotland Exchange and Coventry North West).

[johnloony]

Apr 12, 2023 17:34:04 GMT greenhert said:

In 1979, Bermondsey, won at the infamous 1983 by-election which still holds the record for largest parliamentary by-election swing (44.2% from Labour to Liberal), had the joint second-lowest Liberal vote in Greater London (6.8%, tied with Newham South. Only Hackney Central recorded a worse Liberal result that year with 6.6%).

No it didn’t.

Bermondsey was 2nd lowest with 6.814%
Newham South was 3rd lowest with 6.839%

(Hackney Central was 1st lowest with 6.565%)

[finsobruce]

Apr 12, 2023 16:21:15 GMT michaelarden said:

Apr 8, 2023 16:38:15 GMT greatkingrat said:

The SPGB's income last year was 506k of which 500k came from one legacy.

Good old socialist inherited wealth.

Would be interesting to know who it was. The SPGB are a quite different organisation to the trots like the SWP etc.

[David Ashforth]

Apr 12, 2023 20:27:01 GMT finsobruce said:

Apr 12, 2023 16:21:15 GMT michaelarden said:

Good old socialist inherited wealth.

Would be interesting to know who it was. The SPGB are a quite different organisation to the trots like the SWP etc.

The £500,000 was from Mr Gordon Peter Docherty.
search.electoralcommission.org.uk/English/Donations/C0550883

He bequeath an additional £400,000 to The Socialist Party of Great Britain which they received in 2022.
search.electoralcommission.org.uk/English/Donations/C0561056

[finsobruce]

Apr 13, 2023 21:30:09 GMT David Ashforth said:

Apr 12, 2023 20:27:01 GMT finsobruce said:

Would be interesting to know who it was. The SPGB are a quite different organisation to the trots like the SWP etc.

The £500,000 was from Mr Gordon Peter Docherty.
search.electoralcommission.org.uk/English/Donations/C0550883

He bequeath an additional £400,000 to The Socialist Party of Great Britain which they received in 2022.
search.electoralcommission.org.uk/English/Donations/C0561056

And here he is : socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2020/08/obituary-gordon-docherty-2020.html

would be interesting to find out more about him. I will look into the 'case of Mr Docherty's furniture'.

[Davıd Boothroyd]

Apr 13, 2023 21:34:56 GMT finsobruce said:

Apr 13, 2023 21:30:09 GMT David Ashforth said:

The £500,000 was from Mr Gordon Peter Docherty.
search.electoralcommission.org.uk/English/Donations/C0550883

He bequeath an additional £400,000 to The Socialist Party of Great Britain which they received in 2022.
search.electoralcommission.org.uk/English/Donations/C0561056

And here he is : socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2020/08/obituary-gordon-docherty-2020.html

would be interesting to find out more about him. I will look into the 'case of Mr Docherty's furniture'.

Woodward v Docherty and another was reported in The Times on 27 April 1974.

Law Report April 26 1974
Court of Appeal
Furniture element in rent: modern approach
Woodward v Docherty and Another
Before Lord justice Davies, Lord Justice Stephenson and Lord Justice Scarman
[Judgment delivered April 24]
Changing social and economic conditions should be borne in mind when considering, under the Rent Acts, payments included in rent in respect of the use of furniture by the tenant. Lord Justice Scarman so said when the Court of Appeal allowed an appeal by Mr and Mrs Gordon Docherty, tenants of a basement flat in Montague Road, Richmond, Surrey, from an order made by Judge Noakes in Wandsworth County Court last August giving the landlord, Mr Michael William Woodward, of Lion Gate Gardens, Richmond, possession of the flat let to them fully furnished at a rent of £10 a week.

Mr S. J. Sedley for the land. lord: Mr Austin Allison for the tenants.

LORD JUSTICE SCARMAN said that the landlord asserted that the letting was furnished. The tenant said that the landlord had failed to prove that the flat was "bona fide let at a rent which included payments in respect of . . . the use of furniture". The judge found that the landlord had proved such a tenancy: the tenant challenged that finding.

Unless the landlord could sbow that the flat was bona fide let at a rent which included payments in respect of the use of the furniture, it was a protected tenancy and the tenants could not be evicted.

Section 2(3) of the Rent Act, 1968, provided that "a dwelling house shall not be taken to be bona fide let at a rent 'which includes payments in respect of . . . the use of furniture unless the amount of rent which is fairly attributable to . . . use of furniture, having regard to the value of . .. the use to the tenant, forms a substantial part of the whole rent".

The subsection put on a landlord the burden of proving a case involving a number of stages. (1) The rent must include payments in respect of the use of the furniture. (2) The amount of rent fairly attributable to the use of the furniture must form a substantial part of the whole rent. (3) In determining the amount of rent fairly attributable to that use, regard must be had to the use to the tenant. Those stages were no mere sequence in any arithmetical process; each called for the exercise of judgment.

Did the rent include payment for the use of furniture? The answer depended on the Particular circumstances of the letting. How much of the rent was fairly attributable to use of the furniture ? What was fair and what was the value of the use of the furniture to the tenant? were questions to which arithmetic could give no conclusive answer. What was a substantial part of the whole rent? There arithmetic could help a lot; but even so it was not capable of answering the question...what was substantial? In applying subsection (3) arithmetic was a handy tool, a useful check, but not the determining factor.

Mr Sedley contended otherwise. He had submitted that the judge was Primarily required to do his sums, and could use "the broad approach of judgment" only as a check. His Lordship thought that it was the other way round, and that had been settled law since Palser v Grinling ((1948] AC 291). Lord Simon said at p 315 that the governing consideration was the word "fairly" and the questions were to be answered by commonsense considerations rather than by any formula. And at p 317 he said of the phrase "substantial portion" ("substantial part" in the 1968 Act) that it was not the same as "not unsubstantial". One primary meaning of the word was equivalent to considerable, solid or big, and applying the word in that sense, it must be left to the discretion of the judge of fact to decide as best he could according to the circumstances in each case, the onus being on the landlord.

Commonsense considerations re. quired the court to exercise its knowledge of the world. Today there was a shortage of dwelling houses. A landlord who could, on the expiry of a contractual tenancy, evict his tenant, had an asset incomparably more valuable than had the landlord who could not. A man withl a wife and family who was seeking a home would,accept furniture he did not really want in order to obtain accommodation he desperately needed, even though by so doing he lost security of tenure. Further izn 1973 and 1974, unlike the immiediate Post-war years of Palser v Grinling, furniture of a sort, capable of furnishing flats and rooms, was available at junk shops and other emporia at no very great price, as shown by the evidence of the valuer in the present case. In applying subsection (3) county court Judges must bear in mind those considerations which could and would change with socal and economic changes.

The furniture had been in the flat since 1960, when some was new and some second-hand. Mr Docherty's tenancy was created by a written agreement of June 24, 1972, by which time the furniture had been in use for 12 years. His term was for six months, which was renewed for a further period expiring on May 31, 1973. Thus the value of the use of the furniture to him and the amount of rent fairly attributable to its use to him had to be assessed as at June 24, 1972. The rent was £10 a week payable monthly in advance. The landlord was under no obligation to repair renew or replace the furniture. The tenant agreed to replace breakages and make good any damage.

The flat was let fully furnished and the judge found that it contained almost everything which Mr and Mrs Docherty would require. The tenant called a second-hand furniture dealer, who said that the furniture could be acquired for about £50. The judge allowed the landlord to be recalled to say that the furniture was worth £300 to £400, but he found as a fact that its value in June, 1972, was E100.

On a "broad approach" his Lordship found it hard to accept that the provision of £100 worth of furniture for the use of a tenant of a flat let at £10 a week enabled the landlord to establish that the amount of rent fairly attributable to its use was a substantial part of the rent. Nevertheless the judge so found. He thought that the value of £100 should be depreciated over five years, and he attached a special "value to the tenant" of £50 a year, and so reached the surprising conclusion that the use of furniture which it would have cost the tenant £100 to buy was worth £70 a year to him. He concluded that £70 represented slightly under 14 per cent of the annual rent of £520 and was a substantial part of it.

The court could not reverse that finding though it was near the borderline, nor could the court upset the judge's finding that £20 a year was a fair rate of depreciation. But the Judge fell into error when he accepted that £50 a year was fairly attributable as the furniture's special value to the tenant. His reasons were unconvincing and in one respect wrong because he thought the landlord had to pay for replacements, whereas the obligation was on the tenant. He brought into account the inconvenience to the tenant in having to buy furniture, loss of interest on the purchase price of £100 and removal expenses.

If the judge's error were disregarded, and a value of £14 a year attached to loss of interest and note were taken of the other matters, it became impossible to say that the use of the furniture to the tenant was worth £70 a year. A fair assessment of the evidence left it much nearer £40. The judge never considered whether £40, or indeed any sum less than £70, was a "substantial part" of the rent of £520. It was not; and his Lordship would reverse the decision and find that the flat was not bona fide let at a rent which included payments for the use of the furniture.

The judge attached too much importance to the fact that the flat was fully furnished. That was important, but today, there being a flourishing market for the sale of furniture suitable for furnished lettings, it was necessary to remember how easy it was to buy furniture of the sort provided. The difficulty facing people was to find a flat without the furniture.

In every case it was necessary to bear in mind that calculations of market value, depreciation, loss of interest and so forth should be made in the light of all the circumstances. He would allow the appeal.

Lord Justce Davies and Lord Justice Stephenson agreed.

Solicitors: Seifert, Sedley & Co;Dixon Ward & Co, Richmond.

[batman]

Stephen Sedley was a friend of my dad's, although they would not agree about antisemitism in the Labour Party nowadays.

[greenhert]

The upcoming Uxbridge & South Ruislip by-election's deadline for nominations falls on the 7th anniversary of the EU membership referendum and its voter registration deadline is on the USA's Independence Day.

[Pete Whitehead]

Jun 16, 2023 9:43:00 GMT greenhert said:

The upcoming Uxbridge & South Ruislip by-election's deadline for nominations falls on the 7th anniversary of the EU membership referendum and its voter registration deadline is on the USA's Independence Day.

Polling day is Colombia's Independence day

[jm]

There are currently only three councillors in the UK with the first name Keir. (Source: OpenCouncilData)

Interestingly two of them are Conservatives and one of them is an Independent. None are Labour!

Keir Chewings - Rushcliffe Independents - Rushcliffe
Keir Greenaway - Conservative - West Sussex/Arun
Keir Pedley - Conservative - Walsall

The last Labour councillor named Keir appears to be Keir Morrison (Hucknall, Ashfield DC) who did not seek re-election in 2023. He was also the Labour parliamentary candidate for Bassetlaw in 2019.

[manchesterman]

Who were "The New Party" who apparently only filed accounts in 04 & 05? Anyone know anything about them? What their politics were etc?

[johnloony]

Jun 22, 2023 11:29:27 GMT manchesterman said:

Who were "The New Party" who apparently only filed accounts in 04 & 05? Anyone know anything about them? What their politics were etc?

Formed by two outgoing (former Conservative) members of the Scottish Parliament in 2003. It was trying to be a sort-of centre-right SDP. It called itself the “New Party” and the “People’s Alliance” (I can’t even remember which name came first). For a few weeks it was being hyped up in the media as if it was going to be a big new thing, but then very quickly collapsed and faded away.

P.S. It was the PA first and then the New Party
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Party_(UK,_2003)

[manchesterman]

Sounds like a precursor of Change UK then