Friday 16 November 2012

Emphatic Victory?

Labour this morning are crowing about two by-election victories in Labour safe seats, with Corby yet to declare. Lucy Powell who won in Manchester Central claims:
"I am absolutely thrilled. It is a really emphatic vote for Labour. That is a clear endorsement of Labour and a major rejection of the Tory-LibDem government."
In a sense she's right, it was an emphatic vote and a major rejection...of all of them. The turnout was a shockingly low 18.16 per cent and is the lowest in a parliamentary by-election since the Second World War. 'None of the above' won by a huge margin. With only 8.4% of people voting for her Lucy Powell has no mandate to govern.

Cardiff was little better which saw only 25.65 per cent of people voting.The vote for PCC's looks unlikely to be any different, with low turnouts expected. Swindon was one of the first to declare - counting overnight - and the turnout was 15.83 per cent:
TURNOUT was very low in Wiltshire’s police and crime commissioner election on Thursday - with only 15 per cent of the 500,000-strong electorate bothering to vote.

Statistics revealed at the count at the Oasis Leisure Centre this morning showed that out of an electorate of 514,854, only 81,477 or 15.83 per cent went to the polls.

In the Swindon borough, 23,669 of a possible 161,238 voters cast a ballot - a turnout of 14.68 per cent - and in the rest of Wiltshire it was 16.35 per cent or 57,808 of an electorate of 353,617.
 Interestingly one of the reasons given is:
“The other real theme I’ve heard coming through is there are quite a lot of people across the country who don’t agree with the concept of police and crime commissioners. They think rightly or wrongly that it’s the politicisation of the police so they’ve protested by not turnout out.”
Not that the lack of mandate will stop any of the main parties grandstanding on whatever results come through later. The real truth would be too much for all them - an emphatic two fingers.

Update: Just seen Richard North has made a similar point. Politics is in crisis.

5 comments:

  1. turnout in Barrow for PCC elections was just EIGHT per cent..
    turnout in Cumbria was 16.8 percent

    Rather warms the cockles of my heart to realise so many can see the naked emperor.

    ReplyDelete
  2. @Bill

    Yes indeed, I read somewhere the turnout in one place was under 3%. It's been a shambles as well, this government couldn't organises the proverbial party in a brewery

    Rumours that UKIP may beat the Tories in Corby as well...now that'll be icing on cake

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  3. according to the bbc site, then turn out - spoiled, was 15.6% in cumbria, meaning 1.2% of the electorate spoiled.

    not sure of how much Ruchard rhodes (con) Won by yet

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  4. OK, just figured out the results for the cumbria election.

    First round clear victory goes to "none of the above" in a total landslide.
    817,000 ish votes
    NOTA, scored approx 89% of the vote and is the clear winner, by a landslide.


    Richard Rhodes - 18,080 (4.52% of electorate)
    Patrick Leonard - 15.301 (3.84^ of electorate)
    Mary Robinson - 15,245 (3.82% of electorate) eliminanted in round one.
    Pru Jupe - 13, 623 (3.45%)

    So we went to round 2 of the system the country voted against, and we end up with

    Still nota at 89% of votes

    Richard Rhodes - 8.7%
    Patric Leonard - 6.9%

    so your winner with just over 4 and a half percent of all votes is richard rhodes - conservative, who ever that is

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  5. I live in Thames Valley - I deliberately spoilt my ballot paper as I believe that politicising the police is a huge - no make that monumental mistake.
    I wrote on my ballot paper that politicising the police was a mistake and voted for all the candidates.
    We have had a referendum on AV, Scottish and Welsh devolution, Police and Crime Commissioners but the one vote we want on our continued membership of the EU we can't have . No one should be surprised at voter apathy

    ReplyDelete