Election Night (1st May 2008)

BBC announces that the result in Exeter is "No Change". No detailed results yet. The Liberal Party has (until tonight) had 4 local councillors in Exeter, making it (until last month) the second biggest group of Liberal councillors in the country. (After the 7 in Wyre Forest, and ahead of groups of 3 on several councils.)

We're on the main scoreboard now at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/bsp/hi/elections/local_council/08/html/region_99999.stm According to that, we've lost one councillor and have had six elected so far. Can that be right? So far the only detailed result I can see which is relevaant is that for Wyre Forest, where two Liberal have been elected and we're one seat down.

The city council's website in Exeter has results up now. Looks like the Liberal representation is unchanged - still 4 councillors - so our sitting councillor must have been re-elected.

The Liberal City Council has the ward results up! I'm still trying to make sense of them. However, briefly, Steve Radford was re-elected with a vast majority. Sadly Cllr Ann Hines, who defected to the Liberal Party last month from the LibDems, failed to be re-elected. We also faield to break through in Clubmoor ward, though the Liberal candidate there did come a very respectable 2nd. But what is the overall state of the parties in Liverpool now?

BBC says Liverpool lost by LibDems - goes to No Overall Control ! http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/elections/local_council/08/html/by.stm State of the parties: Liberal Democrat 45 Labour 39 Liberal 3 Green 2 Others 1

I reckon that means the LibDems have done less badly than expected. They only need one more vote to control the council. They presumably will try to do a deal with the one independent if they can.

The BBC main scoreboard is now showing the Liberals down 2 with 12 councillors elected. The two losses are the one in Wyre Forest and Ann Hines in Liverpool. But who are the twelve elected? I'm baffled. Can this be a BBC mistake? I didn't think that we had that many sitting councillors standing, and if some of the wins were gains then the -2 would be + something instead. What gives? I count: Wyre Forest 2 Liverpool 1 Exeter 1 Peterborough 1

It seems that the LibDem loss of control in Liverpool only lasted about 5 mins. Just before it was due to be officially announced, the Independent Labour councillor decided to join the LibDem group, taking them back up to 46 seats, so that they officially retain control. For now. The BBC results service now has the Liberal Party on 17 seats won. This would be very nice, but doesn't seem to fit in with the detailed results Newliberal has listed in the other thread. Is it an error, or am I misreading the BBC results table?

What the BBC are doing is adding up the total number of councillors of each council whether or not they were up for election. In my opinion not the best way of doing things. Peterborough 3 Liverpool 3 Wyre Forest 6 Exeter 4 Gateshead 1 Total 17 They seem to have missed the Liberal Party councillor (not up for election) in Wolverhampton and will go up to twenty when all of Slough's results are in.

It seems that the LibDem loss of control in Liverpool only lasted about 5 mins. Just before it was due to be officially announced, the Independent Labour councillor decided to join the LibDem group, taking them back up to 46 seats, so that they officially retain control. For now. Calling it a loss of control is a bit much - it was technically a loss of the majority but the party still had 1/2 of the seats. It would still have formed a majority administration. I read about your losses earlier - hard luck. On the other hand, the cause of liberalism has marched on a short way with a number of new councillors and councils being taken by the Liberal Democrats. Overall the story has got to be Labour's collapse and the Tory advances, though.

Calling it a loss of control is a bit much - it was technically a loss of the majority but the party still had 1/2 of the seats. It would still have formed a majority administration. Actually, according the the BBC the Returning Officer officially recorded it as "No Overall Control", and that is the way the BBC website still has it shown. I read about your losses earlier - hard luck. Cheers, but really I wasn't suffering too much! All the councillors we had a month ago are back in office with respectable majorities, apart from one who didn't seek re-election. The two losses are due to his replacement failing to get elected (though he apparently did better than the Liberal candidate in that ward last year) and to a very recent defector from the LibDems not making it back in a seat where the Liberals have never been very strong anyway - and she did increase the Liberal vote fourfold. So not bad - if I am mildly disappointed it is just because we didn't gain seats elsewhere, like Liverpool Clubmoor, and because we didn't end up holding the balance of power in Liverpool, which I had rather hoped to see. Still, we'll have to see whether Strontium Dog is right in his prediction on the LDYS board that two more Liverpool LibDem councillors will resign shortly unless there is a change in the council leadership.

We will indeed have to wait for that. I cannot honestly say that I would be sorry to see a change in leadership, though my detailed knowlege of happenings in Liverpool is somewhat limited. Not having a majority (i.e. > 45 seats) makes it NOC, but it doesn't mean that an administration cannot operate in much the same way as a majority administration.

View Full Version: Election Night (1st May 2008)