2022 UK Local Elections

[AlterEgo]

Just noticed one odd result: In Tower Hamlets, the local party Aspire has taken control from Labour. Aspire is the hew party of Lutfur Rahman, the former mayor who was found guilty of electoral fraud and banned from standing for 5 years. This is his first election after the ban expired. That seems a somewhat worrying result to me.

Tower Hamlets being Tower Hamlets again.

 

[brad465]

There must have been something in Lutfur Rahman that the residents who voted for him liked that they saw as above his fraudulent activity, that even under a FPTP voting system and a party banner I'd never heard of until now, he and fellow councillors could still get elected. This is a small example of how tribal politics has become, that no matter what criminal activity/foul play someone has got involved in before, if said individual/group is able to speak to voters in a convincing way that other potentially more sensible politicians cannot, they'll get elected. There are several examples of this tribalism in society that have emerged in the last decade on the left, right and centre of politics, and not just in the UK either.

 

[Mojo]

Many voters simply felt that council services had become so utterly hopeless (in spite of huge tax raises) that they crossed political lines to get Labour out.

There was also a multi million pound fraud case involving Harrow councillors too.

A big part of the Conservative campaign was about how neighbouring Hillingdon, which is Conservative-run, has lower council tax and far better public services; weekly collection of rubbish, food waste and recycling, no charge for food waste bags, weekly garden waste collection provided for no charge, on-street residents’ parking permits free for the first car, halfhour free parking in many local centres for residents, reduced car parking charges elsewhere for residents, biggest number of green flag parks, no closures of libraries (and indeed, more have been opened as they form a local customer contact point for the council rather than everyone having to go to one office for the whole borough).

 

[daodao]

There must have been something in Lutfur Rahman that the residents who voted for him liked that they saw as above his fraudulent activity, that even under a FPTP voting system and a party banner I'd never heard of until now, he and fellow councillors could still get elected. This is a small example of how tribal politics has become, that no matter what criminal activity/foul play someone has got involved in before, if said individual/group is able to speak to voters in a convincing way that other potentially more sensible politicians cannot, they'll get elected. There are several examples of this tribalism in society that have emerged in the last decade on the left, right and centre of politics, and not just in the UK either.

There is a political price to pay by Labour following the leadership change in appearing unsympathetic to Muslim concerns.

The final result in Croydon was also bad for Labour, so even in London, where on Friday morning they received applause for iconic successes, their net gain in councils is zero. Their gains in Barnet/Wandsworth/Westminster are offset by losses in Croydon/Harrow/Tower Hamlets. Overall in England, Labour have made a net gain of a paltry 22 seats. It is only in Wales that Labour have been the main beneficiary of any anti-Tory voting.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 9 May 2022 ==

The big story from this election, which most people seem to be ignoring, is the rise in votes for the cross community Alliance Party.

The Alliance Party wants to focus on the things that matter to the people of Northern Ireland, and to stop bickering about the constitutional status of Northern Ireland within the UK.

Many people, especially the younger generation who have grown up since the implementation of the Good Friday agreement, are rejecting the politics of sectarianism and division, and this trend is likely to continue in the future.

This could have just as significant an impact on the future of Northern Ireland as the rise of Sinn Fein.

The rise in the Alliance party from 8 to 17 seats is undoubtedly significant, primarily at the expense of the Greens and the SDLP, and is out of proportion to their first preference vote share (13.5%). I suspect much of their "support" comes from "castle catholics" in the east of the Six Counties who like the benefits of the free NHS etc, and are not "transfer friendly" to Sinn Fein in the later voting rounds. Sinn Fein held their ground, and have benefited from the splintering of the Unionist vote. The TUV party won 7.6% of the first preference vote, a gain of 5.1%, primarily at the expense of the DUP, but only 1 seat. Incidentally, People Before Profit (which retained 1 seat) is part of the Nationalist block, but anti-EU.

However, the overall result (whatever the explanation) is a moral boost to future Irish re-unification.

 

[Snow1964]

Meanwhile, it's official that Sinn Fein are now the largest party in the NI assembly. For all this focus on the Red Wall, Blue Wall, London, etc., I think in years to come we will look back at this moment as being when the end of the Union began, which, barring another world war, will be the biggest thing to happen in our lifetimes.

The end of the Union is unlikely to happen whilst current Queen still reigns. We even have a Minister of the Union, it is one of the Official titles of Boris Johnson, so he has to oppose breaking it up.

 

[Blindtraveler]

Ok so now it's Monday let the horse trading about who will run different administrations up and down the country begin. I predict a minority administration of labour in Glasgow, whilst the SNP are the largest party they do not hold a majority and Labour only trail then buy one seat. Coalitions by labour with the SNP have been completely ruled out or that was the news at the end of last week's. I would guess that the SNP will try and run Edinburgh single handed or perhaps form an alliance with the next largest party in the city after labour.




Having a time to digest everything, I would agree with other posters above that labour's performance pretty much everywhere except Wales has been woeful. And and as somebody who is very much a floating voter I can understand why. They have very little to appeal to me and their continued race and colour issues at some levels trouble me. Quite apart from anything else I'd also can't stand their leader

 

[Typhoon]

The end of the Union is unlikely to happen whilst current Queen still reigns. We even have a Minister of the Union, it is one of the Official titles of Boris Johnson, so he has to oppose breaking it up.

He will oppose the breaking up of the Union, whether it is what he believes or not, because it is likely to get many wavering voters who supported him in 2019 back on side. Bring up a few IRA splinter groups, get sections of the press to resurrect photos of various bombings and the job is done. Sinn Fein need to tread very carefully, at least they've started on the right track, the DUP just look like they are sulking.

 

[Wynd]

He will oppose the breaking up of the Union, whether it is what he believes or not, because it is likely to get many wavering voters who supported him in 2019 back on side. Bring up a few IRA splinter groups, get sections of the press to resurrect photos of various bombings and the job is done. Sinn Fein need to tread very carefully, at least they've started on the right track, the DUP just look like they are sulking.

Arguments that demonstrate why the Union is fatally wounded better than any Nationalist ever could. Job Done indeed.

Whilst SF/SNP wins cannot mean majority support for their core policies of ceasing Dependence on Whitehall/Westminster, they are proxies for these policies.

It is not unfair to say that we are now seeing a wholesale reversal of unionism throughout Scotland, Wales and NI where support for self-determination appears in the ascendancy. This is the SNP's 11th victory in 15 years.

As for the vacuous arguments "they didn't get 50% etc etc" these only serve to highlight the distorted viewpoint given the Tory's are in power on some 37%. Worse still, Scotland & NI run PR systems where its nearly mathematically impossible to get such a result.

That SF have won in a Unionist enclave where such a result was engineered to be difficult, is, groundbreaking. Listening to MLMcD and Miclelle O'Neil, a border poll is 5-10 years, but is contingent upon Stormont functioning.

What is particularly interesting is that such a poll is already agreed within the Good Friday/Belfast agreement.

Its going to be tough to argue that NI have a poll on their attitudes to the Union, and Scotland does not. That would be an inherently unsymmetrical argument.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

The final result in Croydon was also bad for Labour, so even in London, where on Friday morning they received applause for iconic successes, their net gain in councils is zero. Their gains in Barnet/Wandsworth/Westminster are offset by losses in Croydon/Harrow/Tower Hamlets. Overall in England, Labour have made a net gain of a paltry 22 seats. It is only in Wales that Labour have been the main beneficiary of any anti-Tory voting.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 9 May 2022 ==

Indeed and whilst the Tories haven't fared so well they have nothing to fear unless the Libs and Labour are prepared to form an alliance or we move to PR in next two years. The latter won't happen and i doubt the former will either as party leaders are just too big headed in this country. I wish they would form an Alliance, or at least share out seats, but Davey thinks he's on a roll now and will get more seats at next general election and labour have got their heads buried deep in the sand as usual so between they are letting down 65% of the population who don't want the Tories.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

..... labour have got their heads buried deep in the sand as usual so between they are letting down 65% of the population who don't want the Tories.

An interesting point made above. This inspires me to use the same logic to ask the following two questions:-

What percentage point of the population don't want Labour?

What percentage point of the population don't want Liberal Democrats?

 

[brad465]

Indeed and whilst the Tories haven't fared so well they have nothing to fear unless the Libs and Labour are prepared to form an alliance or we move to PR in next two years. The latter won't happen and i doubt the former will either as party leaders are just too big headed in this country. I wish they would form an Alliance, or at least share out seats, but Davey thinks he's on a roll now and will get more seats at next general election and labour have got their heads buried deep in the sand as usual so between they are letting down 65% of the population who don't want the Tories.

There were places in the local elections that a formal pact existed, including my own ward, as no Labour candidate was on offer. It's also been reported that Labour and the Lib Dems have agreed to a non-aggression pact for all their respective target seats at the next election, which won't involve standing down candidates, but will involve minimal campaigning where one doesn't stand a chance compared to the other. A formal pact in a General Election has its own drawbacks.

 

[nw1]

There was always a healthy support for PR (especially from the Liberals) right up until UKIP started picking up votes from about 2010 on. It did seem to mysteriously quieten down during the middle of that decade. Whatever your feelings on UKIP....it seemed absurd that they effectively came third in this election yet got only 1 MP into the commons. On the other hand of course and it's been mentioned above...you could say that Britain overall had voted for a more left wing/liberal/remain government in the 2019 election. The interesting facet would have been would voting patterns have been the same in a PR environment?

Has support for PR amongst liberals quietened down? Even with the UKIP factor I've always considered it preferable to the pseudo-democracy that is first-past-the-post.

Some, possibly including myself, might say that a Labour-Lib Dem-Tory-UKIP-nationalists coalition would be less bad than a majority Tory government. If the proportion was say 30-15-35-15-5 respectively (quite a likely scenario) then we'd have a balanced (half liberal, half centre-right or right-wing) parliament, and furthermore, anything too extreme put forward by UKIP might only have been supported by perhaps half the Tories, so would not get through.

If PR had applied in 1983, we'd have had a staggeringly different government and the excesses of Thatcherism would have never happened. The UK was not a right-wing country in 1983; we got an unrepresentative government due to first-past-the-post.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Has support for PR amongst liberals quietened down? Even with the UKIP factor I've always considered it preferable to the pseudo-democracy that is first-past-the-post.

Some, possibly including myself, might say that a Labour-Lib Dem-Tory-UKIP-nationalists coalition would be less bad than a majority Tory government. If the proportion was say 30-15-35-15-5 respectively (quite a likely scenario) then we'd have a balanced (half liberal, half centre-right or right-wing) parliament, and furthermore, anything too extreme put forward by UKIP might only have been supported by perhaps half the Tories, so would not get through.

If PR had applied in 1983, we'd have had a staggeringly different government and the excesses of Thatcherism would have never happened. The UK was not a right-wing country in 1983; we got an unrepresentative government due to first-past-the-post.

Personally i felt the 2010-15 coalition gave us good politics and policies for the country. The Liberals toned down the Tories desires but then the stupid Liberal supporters went and undid it all in the 2015 election and as a result set off a whole chain reaction that has got us into the mess we are in now.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Has support for PR amongst liberals quietened down? Even with the UKIP factor I've always considered it preferable to the pseudo-democracy that is first-past-the-post.

I'm pretty sure LibDem support for PR is as strong as ever. I think they've just (correctly) figured that, no matter how desirable PR may be, it's not something that most voters care about and therefore talking it up is not a good strategy for winning elections.

If PR had applied in 1983, we'd have had a staggeringly different government and the excesses of Thatcherism would have never happened. The UK was not a right-wing country in 1983; we got an unrepresentative government due to first-past-the-post.

Don't be so sure. In 1983 it was Labour, not the Tories that was widely perceived in the centre of politics as dominated by extremists, with their proposals for Unilateral Nuclear Disarmament and withdrawal from the then Common Market. I agree with you that the 1983 election result was grossly unproportional, but I'm pretty sure that - as far as policy was concerned - the then Lib-SDP alliance would have found it much easier to work with the Tories than with Labour in the event of a proportional result and a hung Parliament.

 

[GS250]

Personally i felt the 2010-15 coalition gave us good politics and policies for the country. The Liberals toned down the Tories desires but then the stupid Liberal supporters went and undid it all in the 2015 election and as a result set off a whole chain reaction that has got us into the mess we are in now.

Agreed. By attacking a sizeable amount of the electorate (both provincial Labour and Conservative voters) for daring to align themselves with some of UKIP's mantra, they effectively started the vitriolic style of debate that sadly still exists today. David Cameron was a guilty party in all of this with his 'closet racists' comments that didn't go down well in certain communities too.

 

[ainsworth74]

There was always a healthy support for PR (especially from the Liberals) right up until UKIP started picking up votes from about 2010 on. It did seem to mysteriously quieten down during the middle of that decade. Whatever your feelings on UKIP....it seemed absurd that they effectively came third in this election yet got only 1 MP into the commons. On the other hand of course and it's been mentioned above...you could say that Britain overall had voted for a more left wing/liberal/remain government in the 2019 election. The interesting facet would have been would voting patterns have been the same in a PR environment?

Speaking as someone who considers themselves a liberal, UKIP is the main example I give (alongside contrasting it to the SNP result in the same election) as to why FPTP is fundamentally un-democratic and we need to reform our voting system! In my view urgently. It was extraordinarily undemocratic that in 2015 UKIP won 12% of the vote and got just one seat whilst the SNP won 5% of the vote and got 56 seats. Similarly the Green who got only a few hundred thousand less votes than the SNP but only got one seat. Looking at other elections it was just as undemocratic that Labour won 355 seats in 2005 on 35% of the vote, whilst the the Tories won 365 seats on 42% of the vote in 2019.

This is not healthy for a nation that is supposed to be democratic. I don't like the idea of UKIP having a bunch of MPs in Parliament but if they have 3.8m people voting for them (like they did in 2015) then those people should have representation in Parliament.

 

[nw1]

I'm pretty sure LibDem support for PR is as strong as ever. I think they've just (correctly) figured that, no matter how desirable PR may be, it's not something that most voters care about and therefore talking it up is not a good strategy for winning elections.

That is unfortunate IMO; I would have expected more people to be unhappy about the lack of consideration of alternative points of view which majority governments (of any colour) produce. And I've expected more people to be unhappy about the Tories being in government for 71% of the time, and non-coalition Tory governments for 60% of the time since 1979 (assuming a 2024 election) when they've never got more than 45% of the vote in this time period.

I think a lot of people, including myself, consider that their voices are not listened to by majority governments (of any colour). For various reasons (austerity and then Brexit) I certainly have felt this about the government since 2010, and for balance, movements which I generally don't align with, such as the Countryside Alliance, might have justifiably felt the same from 1997-2010.

I'm really surprised more people aren't more unhappy about unrepresentative majority governments, enough for those in power to do something about it - though I will say, that as a result of the main political split in England at least, it's less in the Tories' interests to bring in some form of PR or alternative system than any of the other parties.

 

[Wynd]

Speaking as someone who considers themselves a liberal UKIP is the main example I give (alongside contrasting it to the SNP result in the same election) as to why FPTP is fundamentally un-democratic and we need to reform our voting system! In my view urgently. It was extraordinarily undemocratic that in 2015 UKIP won 12% of the vote and got just one seat whilst the SNP won 5% of the vote and got 56 seats. Similarly the Green who got only a few hundred thousand less votes than the SNP but only got one seat. Looking at other elections it was just as undemocratic that Labour won 355 seats in 2005 on 35% of the vote, whilst the the Tories won 365 seats on 42% of the vote in 2019.

This is not healthy for a nation that is supposed to be democratic. I don't like the idea of UKIP having a bunch of MPs in Parliament but if they have 3.8m people voting for them (like they did in 2015) then those people should have representation in Parliament.

UKIP may well have 3.8m folk voting for them, but that is in a country that has 65m folk. And did they even stand in every constituency?

You cant vote SNP in Croyden can you?

But, you can vote SNP in Scotland, where they captured enough votes to get elected.

Why insist that a Pro EU party is equivalent to an Anti EU party and then say, look, the UK system doesn't work, yet in the same breath wonder why the SNP even exist?!

More to the point, despite the fact UKIP got very little representation and did not form a government, their whole reason for being got enacted despite being un-elected!!

 

[AlterEgo]

He will oppose the breaking up of the Union, whether it is what he believes or not, because it is likely to get many wavering voters who supported him in 2019 back on side. Bring up a few IRA splinter groups, get sections of the press to resurrect photos of various bombings and the job is done. Sinn Fein need to tread very carefully, at least they've started on the right track, the DUP just look like they are sulking.

Almost nobody in Great Britain votes for the Tories because of their stance on Northern Ireland.

 

[MikeWM]

That is unfortunate IMO; I would have expected more people to be unhappy about the lack of consideration of alternative points of view which majority governments (of any colour) produce. And I've expected more people to be unhappy about the Tories being in government for 71% of the time, and non-coalition Tory governments for 60% of the time since 1979 (assuming a 2024 election) when they've never got more than 45% of the vote in this time period.

I think a lot of people, including myself, consider that their voices are not listened to by majority governments (of any colour). For various reasons (austerity and then Brexit) I certainly have felt this about the government since 2010, and for balance, movements which I generally don't align with, such as the Countryside Alliance, might have justifiably felt the same from 1997-2010.

I'm really surprised more people aren't more unhappy about unrepresentative majority governments, enough for those in power to do something about it - though I will say, that as a result of the main political split in England at least, it's less in the Tories' interests to bring in some form of PR or alternative system than any of the other parties.

The reason for this is fairly obvious - the only occasion someone has the opportunity to change the system, is when they've come to power via the current system. That's a pretty big block on effective change. (The same problem can be seen in the balance of power between the Executive and Legislature in Parliament over the past 40-50 years, which has been consistently one-way to increasing the power of the Executive and reducing the effectiveness of the legislature. While in opposition people complain about this, but once in power they want to be able to do what they want, so they conveniently forget the complaints they were previously making).

Remember that Labour's rather large majority in the 2005 general election was with just 35.2% of the popular vote. They've benefitted from the system too, so they have little desire to change it.

(To contrast, the current government got 43.6% but only won 10 more seats than Labour did in 2005. And Labour under Corbyn, despite all the claims about how terrible his leadership was, got 40.0% in 2017. Blair got a 166-seat majority in 2001 with just 0.7% more than that).

 

[nw1]

Personally i felt the 2010-15 coalition gave us good politics and policies for the country. The Liberals toned down the Tories desires but then the stupid Liberal supporters went and undid it all in the 2015 election and as a result set off a whole chain reaction that has got us into the mess we are in now.

I'm not sure it was the Lib Dems' actions at the election which led to the 2015 result, but rather, their actions while in government. People didn't like such things as austerity and tuition fee rises, and turned against the Lib Dems. This meant the anti-Tory vote in the South West got split between Lib Dem and Labour, with the Tories winning vast numbers of seats in the South West by default as a result. This, IMO, was the main reason Cameron got a majority. I remain convinced it was the South West which won it for Cameron, while all the pundits were rabbiting on about the irrelevant SNP-Labour battle in Scotland somehow being more important in causing the Cameron majority.

I think if the Lib Dems had been more forceful in the Cameron government and had not agreed to such things as tuition fee rises, things could have been a lot better - and we'd have had a second coalition in 2015, no simplistic referendum on EU membership which passed on a wafer-thin majority, and a much more stable political period leading up to 2020. But Cameron also could have avoided the Brexit chaos: if he hadn't put the referendum in his manifesto, or designed a less-simple-minded referendum (clear majority needed to pass, e.g. 60%) I suspect he would still have been PM until at least 2020 - and now we'd still be in the EU and have either another Cameronite or Labour in power, either of which would be significantly more palatable than Johnson. Essentially it would still be "normal service for modern times", instead of winding the clock back 50 years.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Labour regained Kirklees after years of NOC last Thursday.

Whether this will make the council more effective remains to be seen, but it could well get in the way of Huddersfield Town FC being able to carry out much-needed repairs to the football ground which is co-owned by HTFC; Huddersfield Sporting Pride (a holding company linked to the owner of Huddersfield Giants RLFC); and Kirklees Stadium Development Limited (which is owned by the Council).

From a distance the stadium still looks modern, even futuristic... but on the inside it is starting to look every bit as close to 30 as it is. A fair bit of work was done in 2017 after HTFC got into the EPL, but there's still much to be done.

Ideally if the football club has a successful play-off campaign, they'll make an offer to buy the stadium outright, as currently any work needing doing seems to turn into a Mexican standoff between the three owning groups. However I doubt a Labour-controlled administration would agree to a sale even if the Giants could be persuaded.

 

[Lucan]

Speaking as someone who considers themselves a liberal UKIP is the main example I give (alongside contrasting it to the SNP result in the same election) as to why FPTP is fundamentally un-democratic and we need to reform our voting system! In my view urgently. It was extraordinarily undemocratic that in 2015 UKIP won 12% of the vote and got just one seat whilst the SNP won 5% of the vote and got 56 seats.

Should there have been a comma between "liberal" and "UKIP"? Maybe not, I consider myself a socialist UKIP and don't see the anomaly. I am never going to agree, or disagree, with everything any one party thinks.

In general, I notice that people support democracy until it gives a result they don't like; for example after Labour's landslide defeat last time, Diane Abbot, incredibly, argued that Corbyn should be made PM anyway. People were not that unhappy to be on the losing side when both sides were almost indistinguishable at cetain times in the past, but as others have said, politics has become more polarised. Democracy works best when there are only shades of opinion on the same spectrum; it does not work so well in communities with radically different cultures and religions because many are bound to feel seriously under-represented. There is the analogy of two foxes and a goose voting for what to have for dinner.

UKIP may well have 3.8m folk voting for them, but that is in a country that has 65m folk. And did they even stand in every constituency?

So in proportion there should be about 38 UKIP MPs then? There would have been more than that if many people had not thought UKIP would be a wasted vote, and voted for the non-labour candidate that was most likely to keep that ageing student rebel idiot Corbyn out.

You cant vote SNP in Croyden can you?

Croydon in South London? I doubt SNP would have got many votes there anyway. What was your point? That some parties have a localised and concentrated appeal while others like Green and UKIP have their supporters spread out, such that their votes don't have much election impact?

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Next Thursday will see a BUMPER set of polls as:

• Northern Ireland elects a 90 Member Assembly
• Scotland elects all 1,219 Councillors
• Wales elects 1,231 Councillors
• 146 Councils across England elect over 4,350 Councillors - including all from the 32 Borough's of London and the 101 seats in Birmingham
• 7 Mayor's, including for the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority and 6 local authorities - including the first-ever poll in Croydon.
• And 1,000 parish councils across the UK will be electing about 10,000 Councillors.

With Partygate, Ukraine, COVID, and Cost of Living all wrapping into one and the kind of seats up for grabs knowing how mixed the results were when these seats were last fought in 2018, it will be fascinating to see what the voters say and how many of them turn out on May 5th.

Were you happy with the eventual outcome that so occurred?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 9 May 2022 ==

Labour regained Kirklees after years of NOC last Thursday.

Whether this will make the council more effective remains to be seen, but it could well get in the way of Huddersfield Town FC being able to carry out much-needed repairs to the football ground which is co-owned by HTFC; Huddersfield Sporting Pride (a holding company linked to the owner of Huddersfield Giants RLFC); and Kirklees Stadium Development Limited (which is owned by the Council).

From a distance the stadium still looks modern, even futuristic... but on the inside it is starting to look every bit as close to 30 as it is. A fair bit of work was done in 2017 after HTFC got into the EPL, but there's still much to be done.

Ideally if the football club has a successful play-off campaign, they'll make an offer to buy the stadium outright, as currently any work needing doing seems to turn into a Mexican standoff between the three owning groups. However I doubt a Labour-controlled administration would agree to a sale even if the Giants could be persuaded.

Is this the stadium that was once known as the Galpharm Stadium? If so, why was that name removed?

 

[yorksrob]

Why insist that a Pro EU party is equivalent to an Anti EU party and then say, look, the UK system doesn't work, yet in the same breath wonder why the SNP even exist?!

The point being made was that one party has considerably more representation per voter than the other on account of its voters being more geographically concentrated. This would be a fundamental flaw in FPTP whatever the parties concerned.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Were you happy with the eventual outcome that so occurred?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 9 May 2022 ==


Is this the stadium that was once known as the Galpharm Stadium? If so, why was that name removed?

Yes. The official (sponsor free) name of the stadium is Kirklees Stadium and always has been. There have been three sales of the naming rights since it was built. First was Alfred McAlpine who were the main contractors for the build. Next were Galpharm, a pharmaceutical company founded by former club chairman Graham Leslie. The third and current sponsors are John Smiths bitter, hence the nickname "C**p Beer Stadium".

The next ten-year sponsorship deal will start in 2024, the start of the fourth decade of the stadium's existence.

 

[ainsworth74]

Should there have been a comma between "liberal" and "UKIP"? Maybe not, I consider myself a socialist UKIP and don't see the anomaly. I am never going to agree, or disagree, with everything any one party thinks.

There should indeed. I wouldn't vote for UKIP, didn't support their aims and indeed my views are effectively the antithesis of theirs!

 

[brad465]

These appear to be the final results:

https://twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1523641477448216576

 

[MikeWM]

So about 7000 seats contested, and Labour are +108. And note that most of those - 66 - were in Wales. They end up having a net gain of just 22 councillors in the whole of England.

Compare to 1995, ie. two years out from the next general election, where there were about 10,000 seats contested, and Labour were +1,807.

(equivalent numbers for the Tories in 2022 -487, in 1995 -2,018).

This isn't remotely a performance that's going to win Labour the next general election. Not even largest party.

 

[nw1]

So about 7000 seats contested, and Labour are +108. And note that most of those - 66 - were in Wales. They end up having a net gain of just 22 councillors in the whole of England.

Compare to 1995, ie. two years out from the next general election, where there were about 10,000 seats contested, and Labour were +1,807.

(equivalent numbers for the Tories in 2022 -487, in 1995 -2,018).

This isn't remotely a performance that's going to win Labour the next general election. Not even largest party.

I think maybe you're expecting too much. One has to remember that in the liberal mid-90s, the Tories were seen by many as dated, anachronistic and irrelevant to modern society, whereas in the conservative 2010s and 2020s, this is sadly no longer the case.

Sadly as a naive twenty-something in the mid-90s I thought the Tories would be out for a generation unless they modernised, and didn't anticipate the clock swinging back towards conservatism as it did after 2010. But in truth such a trend had been seen before. The 60s showed a similar liberal trend and then 10-15 years later, we got Thatcher, and a divided society very similar to what exists now. Strangely, economic hard times (such as those seen in 1979 and 2009) seem to encourage people to vote for right-wing parties, which is the opposite of what one might expect.

I used to wonder whether there is a 30 year cycle in politics (for example, the dominance of progressive politics in the 60s and 90s; the sharply-divided political opinion of the early 80s and early 2010s), but that would place the 2020s in the same category as the 60s and 90s. No sign of that yet. I guess Brexit and Covid upset the applecart. But at least we might get a hung parliament next time IMO, unless right-wing politics really have become much more deeply entrenched in British culture compared to the late 20th century. I hope this is not the case.

I think any gain, even a small one, for Labour looks ok to at least get them in as the largest party in a hung parliament. Remember also that many of the councils involved in these recent elections were solid Labour anyway.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 9 May 2022 ==

Should there have been a comma between "liberal" and "UKIP"? Maybe not, I consider myself a socialist UKIP and don't see the anomaly. I am never going to agree, or disagree, with everything any one party thinks.

In general, I notice that people support democracy until it gives a result they don't like; for example after Labour's landslide defeat last time, Diane Abbot, incredibly, argued that Corbyn should be made PM anyway. People were not that unhappy to be on the losing side when both sides were almost indistinguishable at cetain times in the past, but as others have said, politics has become more polarised. Democracy works best when there are only shades of opinion on the same spectrum; it does not work so well in communities with radically different cultures and religions because many are bound to feel seriously under-represented. There is the analogy of two foxes and a goose voting for what to have for dinner.

Certain forms of democracy work when there is deeply divided opinion: but not FPTP, or referenda that can pass on a wafer-thin majority, as you then just end up p*ssing off the significant numbers of people who disagree with the "winner". But I would argue that FPTP and badly-designed referenda are not true democracy anyway, as they are naive and simplistic winner-takes-all approaches. True democracy should consider all a country's residents, not just the largest minority bloc in a series of minority blocs.

Proportional representation and consensus politics still work with divided opinion. As I said above, even though I am extremely opposed to UKIP, a proportional, consensus parliament with UKIP comprising 10% of MPs, as well as a 50% socially-liberal contingent, might actually be more palatable than a Tory majority government in which opposing views have very little voice.