Local Election Results

[Writersblock2]

Sooo...how do you all feel about them? It's very much a mixed bag. Personally, I am happy to see UKIP take a nose-dive (it was inevitable), but the rest is rather "bitty." Not very happy to see Labour taking Plymouth, but then again, it's a large student population. I wonder how many voted Labour on the basis they supported the women's shortlist changes/"transwomen are women" slant.

Thoughts?

It's hard to extrapolate from LE because even with some people voting in line with GE party policies many places have local issues that are separate and inform the result.

My take away overall is that people aren't particularly happy with either Tory or Labour but don't really know what to do about it. Turnouts seem very low too in many places.

A good night for LD though considering previous elections. We need to keep working on Brian Paddick to take concerns about women's rights seriously.

Also happy to see UKIP dissolve. I don't like conservatives due to the cuts and brexit, I don't like labour because they are for the many not the few unless your female or a jew and again brexit. I think the results are kind of stale.

I'm in a Labour area, labour are back in and I doubt anyone voted for them based on self id. Most I suspect haven't a clue about it, they vote labour because their working class and its what they've always done.

My ward voted as expected but the turnout was tiny. I think people have voter fatigue and either didn't vote or voted on local issues. Not a win for either of the big two really.

Given how weak the Conservatives are at the moment I think it reflects very badly on Labour. Having said that, I always vote much more on individuals and local issues for council elections and I suspect I am not alone.

Turn out also small here. Not a lot of campaigning happens locally and tbh there didn't seem like a huge difference between lab and con leaflets except one was red and one blue. Libdems don't even bother posting leaflets.

I don't think anyone "won" here tbh.

I would agree with a pp though that given the performance of the Tory Govt atm we should have seen imho a significant result for Labour - which clearly didn't happen.

I have voted Green, Labour and Lib Dem in the past but I deliberately won’t vote labour now because of their stance on self-ID. However, I can’t imagine there’ll be that many who would have voted for them because of it. Nationally, I’m not happy for any of them so when it comes to local elections, I’ll vote on local issues.

Just looking through mine - turnout between 30 and 40% in most wards. One where WEP had more results than the margin of victory between Labour and Lib Dems - but since all three parties were in favour of self-ID that didn't play a role. The local news site isn't recording spoilt ballots. (I have seen them recorded in the past, for the police commissioner elections for instance, but can't remember if this site normally does).

I voted labour and labour won here but that was expected.

It doesnt seem like there is any insight to be gotten from this election. The turn out was very small and there were only a couple of big gains on either side... just not much change really. Overall Labour do seem to have won more seats than the torys but it doesnt seem that they did as well as expected.... Its certainly no win for the Torys though as ive seen reported in some paper... from the looks of it it just seems like the torys did not loose as much as they thought they would...

Given how awful this government is and the fiasco that is their complete lack of coherent plan for Brexit I thought Labour did very poorly. It should have been easy to make gains but they have upset too many people

I keep hearing that a new centrist party is being made? I bloody hope so!

Just the number of seats won isn’t that relevant as it is only selected areas. It is change that may show something and it pretty much didn’t.

I keep hearing that a new centrist party is being made? I bloody hope so!

It will probably be exactly the same farce we had with the SDP in the early 80's, which promised much, but ultimately made little difference.

I tried to explain to the LibDem campaigner that I was concerned about some of the implications of the genderID bill, and specifically some of the anti-woman stuff on an official LibDem twitter feed. His response.

1. One of their candidates was transgender.
2. What was twitter.
3. He was married to a woman.

I was not reassured.

It seems to be basically the status quo but with the UKIP vote divvied out and primarily benefiting the Lib Dems?

Disappointing for Labour. I'm currently sitting through the nth BBC News discussion wondering whether the anti-semitism row was a significant vote loser for them (I agree it may well have been).

But not one word - even a ten second comment - wondering whether or not they are losing ground with women - even though there are multiple social media campaigns about it, hundreds of women resigned in the Times, and some women members are taking legal action against them.

Women? Invisible.

We’re really in ‘Politics, the wilderness years’ aren’t we?
Brexit hash, the economy, Windrush, NHS failings, Universal Credit etc etc and yet Labour still can’t capitalise. On the other hand, Self ID, AWS farce, Antisemitism, Sajid Jarvid racism etc etc and yet Conservatives didn’t really gain much. Lib Dems did better than recent years but after their decimation overseen by the Clegg bot, that’s not really saying anything. The demise of UKIP only to be expected, they’ve outlived their ‘usefulness’. Who to vote for?? We didn’t have local elections here, which is probably for the best because I’d have been stumped.
One thing raised a smile though, the other thread about the ‘Owen and Eddie’ show, everywhere that Little OJ and Running man turned up, Labour lost. They cancelled their trip to Plymouth and.......labour won!

I noticed that Lang we don't even enter their head as just over half of the electorate.

After 8 years in opposition, amid cuts, austerity & Brexit, this was an appalling night for Labour

www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2018/05/04/local-election-deadlock-in-a-divided-country

This is a very good overview of the broader political implications behind the results. Chaminda usually gets this stuff spot on.

Labour lost to NOC here. Lots of local issues so who knows what is at play.
One labour councillor held their seat by a single vote so there are instances where spoiling ballot will make difference and ballot papers scrutinised. I think they had 2 or 3 recounts so plenty of time to spot any penis drawings.

blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/05/the-tories-should-learn-from-wandsworth-not-celebrate-it/

James Kirkup talks about Mumsnetters.

Given how weak the Conservatives are at the moment I think it reflects very badly on Labour.

Absolutely - disastrous for Labour overall, whatever spin they choose to put on it.

I voted Labour for the first time ever, despite not being able to get on board with many policies. I'm in a Labour stronghold, overwhelming win despite approx 35% turnout. I know the candidates personally and have seen first hand what they do for the area so that was my primary reason for voting the way I did

James Kirkup talks about Mumsnetters:

And meanwhile in cyberspace, some of my local friends fighting the online war for free speech in the Mumsnet trenches (Wandsworth is well-stocked with Mumsnet feminists) say they can never vote for Labour while its leadership appears to side with transgender activists accusing women of hate crimes for pointing out the biological differences between men and women. (Owen Jones, a trans-rights advocate who is, shall we say, not greatly loved by “gender critical” feminists, might reflect on how his noisy visits to places like Wandsworth helped swing some Mumsnet votes away from Labour. One otherwise mild-mannered neighbour of mine swore a colourful vow not to cast her usual vote for Labour here when she learned “OJ” had been visiting.)

I thought Caitlyn Jenner had been elected PM - oh am I in the wrong thread