|
Post by Devil Wincarnate on Feb 14, 2014 13:25:20 GMT
I'm talking about the way most people see and experience things in the North, Stuart. I'm not sure where you are based, but that's what I have picked up I've never known such a sense of division within the country and I think this may be reflected at the next election. Mike- Not sure if you actually know Wythenshawe, but there was also no sense of the boom there even at its height. It is an utter case apart, the ultimate example of failed paternalistic thinking. Thousands of people uprooted from their homes, dumped in the middle of nowhere with no close-by jobs and no decent transport, and then expected to be grateful. The place has seen nothing of the recovery because it was never allowed (by successive governments and councils) to have a decent position to start from, let alone recover from.
|
|
Tony Otim
Green
Suffering from Brexistential Despair
Posts: 11,294
|
Post by Tony Otim on Feb 14, 2014 13:42:15 GMT
It seems likely that at least half, maybe more, of her vote came from Northenden ward itself - which means that it was at Rotherham/S Shields levels in the rest of the seat. I disagree with the posters playing down this outcome for the LibDems - IMO it is a pretty devastating result, one of their very worst since the GE. According to a startling stat tweeted by Mike Smithson, it is the lowest % of their total vote retained at a Westminster byelection in living memory What should frighten the LibDems is that the LibDem share of the vote in Wythenshawe at the 2010 GE was almost exactly the same as their national share of the vote, at around 22%.This is now eight deposits that they have lost in by-elections during this Parliament..... You're not seriously suggesting that the result indicates that the LDs will drop below 5% nationally are you? What it shows is that in seats like this, Northern met seats, where the LDs aren't really in contention they are going to crash very badly indeed. This is not news to anyone and says very little about their chances in most of the seats they actually hold.
|
|
|
Post by carlton43 on Feb 14, 2014 13:45:46 GMT
I am somewhat concerned at the failure of Returning Officers to grant recounts when requested. Surely by so doing they make themselves vulnerable to a challenge in the courts and to public criticism from the offended party after the declaration for failing to conduct the count in a fair and proper way. I would not have thought that many Returning Officers would want such publicity. I am not, a recount should only be ordered in the case of a close result for the winner and certainly not to save a parties deposit which might be embarrassing for them. Are we saying we should hold up the result so the LD's can see if they scramble the 20 or so votes they needed to save £500 and a public embarrassment ? In a word, a resounding and forthright....YES!!!
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 14, 2014 13:46:42 GMT
In those constituencies where byelections have been held since 2010, principle party vote changes are:
Conservative down 105,498 or 63.4% Labour down 87,101 or 31.5% LibDem down 90,374 or 66.0%
UKIP up 29,718 or, and I know statisticians won't like this, 187.6% Greens up 399, or 9%
BNP down 16,110 or 66.2%
Respect, btw, are up 19,491 votes almost entirely due to George Galloway, an improvement on 2010 by some 1,285%, if such things have been calculated properly.
|
|
|
Post by carlton43 on Feb 14, 2014 13:49:58 GMT
I have had cause to review my initial reaction to this result and am pleased to withdraw what I said about the Labour victory. This was a well run campaign with a sound candidate but resulting in rather a disappointing turnout. Even so the Labour vote was not that much reduced which accounts for the gratifying percentage increase of share of poll to reward the efforts made. Well done Labour.
|
|
Tony Otim
Green
Suffering from Brexistential Despair
Posts: 11,294
|
Post by Tony Otim on Feb 14, 2014 14:11:44 GMT
I am somewhat concerned at the failure of Returning Officers to grant recounts when requested. Surely by so doing they make themselves vulnerable to a challenge in the courts and to public criticism from the offended party after the declaration for failing to conduct the count in a fair and proper way. I would not have thought that many Returning Officers would want such publicity. I am not, a recount should only be ordered in the case of a close result for the winner and certainly not to save a parties deposit which might be embarrassing for them. Are we saying we should hold up the result so the LD's can see if they scramble the 20 or so votes they needed to save £500 and a public embarrassment ? So you're saying that getting the result quickly is more important than getting it right? Do you also realise that that could end up being discriminatory against smaller parties where losing a deposit could be a much bigger deal? Or is it just the LDs you want to stop appealling?
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 14, 2014 14:21:45 GMT
Not heard of any smaller parties appealing and only the LD's have done in the past from memory. It shows more their state of mind that they did appeal.
|
|
|
Post by justin124 on Feb 14, 2014 14:37:44 GMT
I recall that at one by-election in recent years the BNP failed to save the deposit by about 5 votes - and were refused a recount. For all the contempt I feel for the BNP, I did have a sense of foul play there in that the Returning Officer effectively brought the counting process into disrepute by his decision. There has to be reasonable opportunity to correct human error. I was surprised the matter did not end up in the courts.Had it done so, I imagine it would have cost the authority a tidy sum!
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 14, 2014 14:46:26 GMT
Well in the case of a lost deposit can it not be agreed the result be declared and then recounted for the one appealing afterwards and only their count changed if needed ?
Should be no need to hold up the result when that is not in doubt.
|
|
Tony Otim
Green
Suffering from Brexistential Despair
Posts: 11,294
|
Post by Tony Otim on Feb 14, 2014 14:51:45 GMT
Speaking both as a democrat and a psephological geek I would prefer an accurate result to a quick one. What is this obsession with getting the result quickly?
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 14, 2014 14:56:52 GMT
I don't want to believe that Ian thinks so simplistically about these matters. If a political party is about to lose £500, then of course they're going to ask for a recount. It shouldn't be a matter of sneering partisan barbs if they feel it necessary to do so (though of course Ian is something of a master of sneering partisan barbs.)
Election results need to be accurate. If they're not accurate, we don't have much of a system of which to be proud. I would like to think that even Ian would prefer each and every vote to be accounted for, even if that holds up the result for a short while, unless he is looking at the Returning Officer rounding everything up to the nearest whole number and leaving it at that?
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 14, 2014 14:58:57 GMT
I don't want to believe that Ian thinks so simplistically about these matters. If a political party is about to lose £500, then of course they're going to ask for a recount. It shouldn't be a matter of sneering partisan barbs if they feel it necessary to do so (though of course Ian is something of a master of sneering partisan barbs.) Election results need to be accurate. If they're not accurate, we don't have much of a system of which to be proud. I would like to think that even Ian would prefer each and every vote to be accounted for, even if that holds up the result for a short while, unless he is looking at the Returning Officer rounding everything up to the nearest whole number and leaving it at that? If you want any result to be 100% accurate then you should actually implement electronic voting or otherwise we would double or triple check every count.
|
|
|
Post by justin124 on Feb 14, 2014 15:03:32 GMT
Well in the case of a lost deposit can it not be agreed the result be declared and then recounted for the one appealing afterwards and only their count changed if needed ? Should be no need to hold up the result when that is not in doubt. That is not practical. A recount is not limited to physically rechecking the vote piles assigned to the candidate who has requested it , but extends to checking the vote bundles of all the other candidates to ascertain whether a few LibDem/Green/BNP etc votes have been incorrectly assigned to them.Thus, the total votes for other parties would be likely to change too.
|
|
|
Post by carlton43 on Feb 14, 2014 15:10:07 GMT
Well in the case of a lost deposit can it not be agreed the result be declared and then recounted for the one appealing afterwards and only their count changed if needed ? Should be no need to hold up the result when that is not in doubt. I think there you make an excellent suggestion Ian. Best of both worlds. ADDED If the recount is for decision on victory it should be thorough and total and immediate. If it is merely to decide upon the saving of one or more deposits I see no reason a) to delay the declaration, b) not to publish the full provisional figures, c) to state that revised figures will be published at 2pm the following day, d) to conduct a full recount with fewer clerks the next day with all parties represented, police presence and a Deputy Retuning Officer.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 14, 2014 15:25:07 GMT
It seems likely that at least half, maybe more, of her vote came from Northenden ward itself - which means that it was at Rotherham/S Shields levels in the rest of the seat. I disagree with the posters playing down this outcome for the LibDems - IMO it is a pretty devastating result, one of their very worst since the GE. According to a startling stat tweeted by Mike Smithson, it is the lowest % of their total vote retained at a Westminster byelection in living memory You would have thought that they would do not amazingly terribly in the Sale wards too. The non-Northenden Wynthenshawe wards must have been epically low.
|
|
The Bishop
Labour
Down With Factionalism!
Posts: 36,546
|
Post by The Bishop on Feb 14, 2014 15:35:06 GMT
In both Rotherham and S Shields there were apparently entire ballot boxes with no LibDem votes at all. Wonder if that was the case here?
|
|
|
Post by Devonian on Feb 14, 2014 15:49:23 GMT
One thing I notice that I don't think bodes well for the Conservatives. Not only have they failed to win any by elections in this Parliament (which is not entirely surprising given that Labour had previously won 13 of the 15 by election seats) but I think more significant is that they have only managed second place in 4 of the 15 by elections. I don't think that's a very promising statistic for what used to be called 'the natural party of government'.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 14, 2014 16:12:17 GMT
I don't want to believe that Ian thinks so simplistically about these matters. If a political party is about to lose £500, then of course they're going to ask for a recount. It shouldn't be a matter of sneering partisan barbs if they feel it necessary to do so (though of course Ian is something of a master of sneering partisan barbs.) Election results need to be accurate. If they're not accurate, we don't have much of a system of which to be proud. I would like to think that even Ian would prefer each and every vote to be accounted for, even if that holds up the result for a short while, unless he is looking at the Returning Officer rounding everything up to the nearest whole number and leaving it at that? If you want any result to be 100% accurate then you should actually implement electronic voting or otherwise we would double or triple check every count. Well there's no likelihood of electronic voting anytime soon, so we work within the system as it currently stands.
|
|
|
Post by Devonian on Feb 14, 2014 17:12:41 GMT
One thing I notice that I don't think bodes well for the Conservatives. Not only have they failed to win any by elections in this Parliament (which is not entirely surprising given that Labour had previously won 13 of the 15 by election seats) but I think more significant is that they have only managed second place in 4 of the 15 by elections. I don't think that's a very promising statistic for what used to be called 'the natural party of government'. I don't think the Tories will worry too much about their results in places like Wythenshawe, South Shields or Rotherham (although there is some grousing on ConHome today about the lacklustre effort they put into this by-election). They don't need to win those seats - they put nothing in, and they got nothing out. That said, there are some Tory marginals in and around Greater Manchester area, such as Bury North, and a few marginals they would need to gain for an overall majority like Bolton West. It hardly bodes well for their prospects in those constituencies. I do take that point but the trouble is there are so many of these seats that the Conservatives are never going to win. Until the 1950s the Unionist Party (as it then was) was a party that was capable of winning a majority of Scottish seats and indeed did so on a number of occasions. Now the Conservatives are nowhere near this in Scotland. I think the same long term decline the Conservatives suffered in Scotland is happening in the rest of Great Britain, its just happening much later and ore slowly. I have to wonder if the Conservatives can't win an overall majority in 2010 then I'm not convinced they ever can. Right now it seems to me that there is only one party capable of winning and overall majority and that is the Labour Party.
|
|
maxque
Non-Aligned
Posts: 8,984
|
Post by maxque on Feb 14, 2014 17:18:33 GMT
On the recount issue, I don't understand the need to certify a result on election night. It should be possible to do a quick count on election night and carefully recounting on the day after.
It would be quick AND accurate.
|
|