Taking Out The Trash

Euro elections in Wiltshire

update: For the number crunchers among you, The Guardian has more than enough spread sheet info on the Green's performance across Europe and, as ever, The Daily (Maybe) has a 'considered analysis'.

And then to cap a crap night of Euro results, Ricky Knight failed to get a seat in the South West. The vote breakdown was:

Conservative  468,742
UKIP   341,845
Liberal Democrat  255,253
GREEN   144,179
Labour  118,716
BNP 60,889
Pensioners 37,785
English Democrat 25,313
Christians 21,329
Mebyon Kernow 14,922
Socialist Labour 10,033
Misc 39,702 (6 other groups mostly around 7,000)

1st seat Conservative with 468,742
2nd seat UKIP with 341,845
3rd seat LD with 255,253
4th seat Conservative with 234,371
5th seat UKIP with 170,923
6th seat Conservative with 156,248

Greens 12,070 votes short of a seat

I got a note from the Greens this morning telling me: " Spread across 49 parliamentary constituencies that is 247 votes short per constituency. Each constituency is about 60,000 electors, typically divided into 20 wards of about 3,000 for local elections. So in your ward we needed an extra 12 votes and probably 1,800 people in your ward didn't bother to vote."

Thanks. As someone who has spent the last six weeks tramping the streets leafleting with not an awful lot of back-up (although Ricky did come over for the Box Revels and it was great to see him), this information is as welcome as bucket of cold sick.

Is there a plus? Of course. The Green vote went from 2% to 9% in the SW. I also think that where turnout was higher than average, as in SW, the BNP did less well. Certainly they performed poorly in local elections here. Now, will the BNP sit with the Conservative MEPs in the new far right voting bloc?

Report on the SW vote in The Times.

Fear and loathing in Wiltshire

I'm writing this as European results start to come but it's the first chance I've had to pull together a few thoughts on the local election results in Wiltshire.
The Conservatives are the winners with 62 of the 98 seats on the new unitary council, followed by the Lib Dems with 24, seven independents, three Devizes Guardians, and Labour with two (both from the Salisbury area where their best polling was).
The big question for me afterwards is: why are the Lib Dems so difficult to like?
In my ward of Box and Colerne there was only 40 votes between the Tory winner and the second placed Lib Dems with each gaining 33% of the vote while my Green vote was third at 16.5% with 317 votes. The Lib Dems previous representative was very poor and their chosen candidate, a very personable woman, was only found at the last minute and was inexperienced and ill-prepared. I have a very good CV of local activism on the parish council and other organisations.
But apparently that was enough for the Lib Dems who asked me first to stand for them and then to stand aside saying I would only win 4% of the vote and let the Tories in. It didn't matter about the quality of my candidacy or that of the Lib Dem person. The fact that I'm not a Lib Dem supporter didn't and said it would be a fraud on myself and the voters to wear their rosette seemed only to confuse them.
Winning was all
And from then on it was the usual local election playbook from the Lib Dems; lots of negative campaigning, misleading and outright wrong leaflets. Which was fine because I found my vote getting more solid the more negative they got and the more I stayed positive.
The culmination was getting to the count to be immediately buttonholed by some bloke in a suit who sneered that he hoped I was pleased having handed the seat to the Tories. No idea who he was so I asked him. He just repeated the statement and which point I let rip calling him an arrogant fucker who expected people to vote for a poodle just because it wore a yellow rosette.
The man then introduced hmiself as Gavin Grant, chair of the Lib Dems in North Wiltshire. I guess my spirited retort didn't look so good as there were just two of us Greens among a sea of Lib Dems and I was ripping him a new one. He moved me over to one side; we continued our 'discussion' and then we parted.
And that capped the nasty taste left in my mouth by dealing with the Lib Dems in this election. The BNP were more pleasant to me.
It seems only the Lib Dems and Tories are allowed to play and anybody else having the temerity to stand just spoils it. But I think it's not enough to be anti-Tory. I'm concerned about bus service, and shops and social housing and pot holes in my ward - I need someone who can deal with my parochial concerns. It's not enough to simply not wear a blue rosette. The Lib Dems seemed motivated only by getting the Tories out. I've set out some broader detail below on the election results in Wiltshire but my impression is that the Lib Dems are an Astroturf outfit locally. Fake green and fake grassroots.
Anyway: here's some info Mr Grant; the PR guru from this lovely outfit with an impeccable liberal CV, which doesn't include the fact that he's a prick. I like the line in this piece from the New Statesman that for Nick Clegg advisors like Grant "winning votes is a marketing exercise". The good news it that dealing with this lot made a very persuasive case for me to stand in the general election.

Overview
The Conservative vote came out in force. Lib Dems fared poorly losing out on several occasions where the Conservative vote stayed solid but rivals split the vote (as in my ward). In one they lost by eight votes where the Greens polled 150+, in another a former mayor standing as an independent polled 353 while the Lib Dems were 150 behind the Tory winner. However they did win in Calne Central where it was tied and decided pulling a ballot papaer out of the ballot box. Interestingly in that ward it was a straight two-way fight.
The BNP had a poor showing overall. Their one person with an elected post (a Corsham town councillor) came last.
The Labour Party appears confined to a few areas and often polled around 60-90 votes in other wards.
The Greens only fielded eight candidates and had some good returns (14-17%) and some average ones (4%).

Elsewhere, The Daily (Maybe) has a good round up of Green performances in local council election.

The morning after the night before

Lots of people stopping me in the street wanting to know the result and offering their best wishes. I plan to write a longer post later today on why being anti-Tory was't enough in this election, the dilemma of splitting the vote, how to go on from here, and why I called this fella an "arrogant fucker" at the count.

South West media awards

Well done to Hugh Dixon over at the Bath Chronicle for winning columnist of the year at the South West media awards. Exeter Express and Echo taking most of the gongs - not much for the print media in Bristol, Bath or Wiltshier. Boo.

Election day running post

I'll update this post as information comes in today.

BBC Q&A on elections.

23.40pm: And after all the sound and fury, you retire to the pub with the opposition for a pint and some reflection. Then you come home and find another minister has resigned. Strange days. Turnout looks like around 45%-50% which is pretty good and will, according to convention, benefit the major parties. Maybe. I think I picked up a lot of first time voters and nenver-voted-before voters. 680 people voted in Colerne with about another 200 casting postal ballots out of 1,900 electorate. Counting starts tomorrow around 1pm.

7.37pm: Turnout has seemed reasonable but that might be because the campaign here has been quite active. Only passing signs of BNP and Labour, nothing from Ukip and the BNP say that this is not a target ward. The Lib Dems delivered a letter appealin directly to Green voters to vote Lib Dem. However it seems to have backfired as many people are angry at being pushed into voting one way.

4.24pm: Very useful canvass outside Box prmiary school and then targeting every household with a Lib Dem leaflet in the window. After that a trek through some of the scattered hamlets. A lot of miles for a few votes but thought a visit on election day might have a higher impact. It's all about convincing yourself that at this stage you can have much of an impact on the result. Turnout steady-  not great but not poor.

1.56pm: About 10% of the Colerne electorate has voted by now (not uncluding postal votees). Lib Dems making desperate attempts to swing Green voters on the doorstep with falacious arguments so am planning to counter that (after a cup of tea). Apparently Lib Dems in Salisbury have been ordered to remove acar blaring out party political messages which is right outside one of the polling stations.

11.16am: Been acting as a teller since 7.30am but stepped out to do some work. 130 people have voted in Colerne (out of 1,900 electorate). Whether that is good, bad or indifferent is hard to know but it seems quiet to me. Nicest person was the man who stopped on his way out to say how glad he was the Greens were standing and wished me the best of luck. The BNP agent came by saying he was there to check the seals on the ballot boxes. "We're really worried about voter fraud, especially in the North West," he said. Getting the excuses ready early?
I hear from the council that there have been 55,000 requests for postal votes in the county including (possibly) around 1,000 for Box & Colerne. Turnout could be higher than expected.

Pressing the flesh

A photographer from Getty came over to take pictures of me out canvassing (well, not really me in particular; just someone standing for the Green Party).
So of course you must have classic 'kissing the baby' shot.
 Then you need something a little different. I was actually shouting through the letterbox of the pub to open up because I was gasping.
And then the bit that made me laugh was coming across not one but two Lib Dem people.
It was good to see they had managed to find the village 24 hours before the ballot and so I congratulated them on putting out leaflets nicking my policies and claiming credit for things they have never done and hoped they didn't mind finishing third. That handshake was one of those where you just don't want to be the first to let go. My face isn't agony; that's manic laughter that this madness will soon all be over.

All pictures copyright Getty. Thanks to Matt Cardy for the copies.

Tuesday is new media day

Been having fun today exploring the Help Me Investigate site (plenty of explanation on it here and also here) and also set up a Twitter account having stumbled across Paul Bradshaw's piece How Journalists Can Master Twitter only a year after it was first published. Tomorrow I'm looking at some innovation from William Caxton.
Of course what I should have been concentrating on today was marking, marking, marking and leafleting, leafleting, leafleting. It's going to be a long evening.
Meanwhile Computer Weekly has published my in-depth backgrounder on the Ian Kerr blacklisting case complete with photos - so it's not all been playtime all day.

Music to leaflet by

A lovely warm evening, a stack of leaflets to deliver and these are the 20 song that went on the iPod. Got any better suggestions for music to push paper through letterboxes by? (Little treat from the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy at the end).

Alone Again Or by Love

Science Fiction Double Feature by Richard O’Brien

Valse de Balfa by The Balfa Brothers

Brand New Day by Van Morrison

Hey Ya by OutKast

Californication by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers

Music and Politics by The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy

Blue Moon by The Marcels

Suite Judy Blue Eyes by Crosy, Stills and Nash

Free Man in Paris by Joni Mitchell

Caravan by The Inspiral Carpets

My My, Hey Hey by Neil Young

I’m Partial To Your Abracadabra by Ian Dury

Street Spirit (Fade Out) by Radiohead

The Man With The Child In His Eyes by Kate Bush

Nantucket Sleighride by Mountain

Inner City Blues by Marvin Gaye

America by Simon and Garfunkle

Senor Blues by Horace Silver

Happy Hour by The Housemartins

C4 funded new investigative journalism outlet

This via Press Gazette: Channel 4 announces funding for Help Me Investigate - a collaborative effort aimed at sharing skills and expertise to pursue stories.

Paul Bradshaw, creator of the site and online journalism lecturer at Birmingham City University, said he sees Help Me Investigate as a toolkit for people.

He said: "People can contribute their expertise to answer specific questions, and journalists with no resources could use the site to call on the community for help."

Lot more detail posted by Paul Bradshaw here.

The PG article also says:

The site will launch this month in test mode, inviting users to ask questions about local issues such as hospital parking charges, the expenses of local councillors and how much councils spend on PR.

Good luck to it;we can only do with more such initiatives at the moment. Though that list of stories to be investigated doesn't seem particular original or indeed under-researched.

Here's one: Man with stable job and bright future dies in Bath police cell and six months on we still don't know why. I've no idea what happened but I would like to know how come our present system can't provide a reasonable answer in a reasonable time for the sake of the family and the police.