A blog by Luke Akehurst about politics, elections, and the Labour Party - With subtitles for the Hard of Left. Just for the record: all the views expressed here are entirely personal and do not necessarily represent the positions of any organisations I am a member of.
Just two council by-elections last night:
posted by Luke Akehurst at 7:43 am
Labour Party activist since 1988 - firmly on the moderate wing of the party. Member of Labour’s NEC 2010-2012 and since 2020. National Secretary of Labour Students 1995-6. Parliamentary candidate for Aldershot (2001) and Castle Point (2005). Hackney Councillor (Chatham Ward) 2002-2014, Labour Group Chief Whip 2002-09, Chair of Health Scrutiny 2010-2014. Supporter of Europe, NATO/nuclear deterrence, Israel, electoral reform. Guardian reader. Dad. Oxford resident. Unite union member. Employment history as a Labour Party Organiser, Local Government Political Assistant, Director at a Public Affairs company. All views expressed in a personal capacity. The rest will become evident from reading the blog.
6 Comments:
How are they doing by-elections in Scotland 0- local councils are STV these days, are they just having a FPTP vote, or some sort of count-back?
8:07 am, February 01, 2008
I believe they treat it as STV in a single member seat - i.e. AV. In this case there was no need to look at transfers because the Labour candidate won on first preferences by taking over 50%.
8:24 am, February 01, 2008
yes, they have STV for byelections too (which practically became AV if the byelection is just for 1 vacancy)
8:32 am, February 01, 2008
Clear view how important the Europe is to the conservatives. If Cameron fails to make a decision on the referendum he may lose a lot more than 7%.
11:54 am, February 01, 2008
If anyone is interested, I looked at 1999 and 2003 results in Kilsyth
The Kilsyth multi members ward apparently is made up from old 64 65 and 66 single member wards.
Looking at 1999 and 2003 results…
Lab and SNP stood in all 3 of them. SSP stood in one (64) in 1999 and 2 (64 and 66) in 2003.
Turnout was:
1999: 61.33%
2003: 49.9%
2007: 58.73%
2008: 32.1%
The aggregated vote was:
1999: Lab 61.45% SNP 36.82% SSP 1,72%
2003: Lab 61.8% SNP 32.8% SSP 5,37%
2007 (first preferences): Lab 64.3% SNP 27.8% Con 4.9% SSP 3%
2008: Lab 63.37% SNP 30.4% Greens 2.2% Con 1.7% SSP 1.6% LD 0.58%
Labour don't seem to have suffered from a lower turnout.
11:55 am, February 01, 2008
This election was brought about by the premature death of well respected Councillor Francis Griffin. The winning Labour candidate was his 22 year old son.
These circumstances may have contributed to the Labour voting holding up.
4:50 pm, February 05, 2008
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