Irish General Election 2016: Political uncertainty on the menu

Well, this is one of those situations where a story is going to run and run and run, and who knows what the outcome will be at the end of it. 

We still have 13 seats unfilled at this point, and no partty has got even 50 seats.  Here's the state of play.

Fine Gael - 46 - Still the largest party, but with a lot less seats this time.
Fianna Fail - 42 - Much improved performance.
Sinn Fein - 22 - Best performance ever.
Independents - 15 - The big unknown factor in this equation.
Labour - 6 - They need one more seat to hold onto their speaking privileges.
Anti-Austerity Alliance - 5 - Could be one of the keys to government for FF and FG.
Independent Alliance - 4 - Another unknown here, but definitely not to be ignored.
Social Democrats - 3 - These guys made a good start, but now they have to work as TDs
Green Party - 2 - Back in the Dail, and we'll see how that goes.

Renua Ireland was the higest profile party not to get a seat. 

The Labour Party in Ireland, could be going through their own Liberal Democrat moment.  Joan Burton could become like Nick Clegg.  They've suffered a big loss at the polls, and Joan Burton's future as leader is hanging by the proverbial thread. 

But even Fine Gael might not be in the clear yet.  Dependent on how things go in coalition negotiations, the future of Enda Kenny's leadership may also be in question.

All in all, this story still has a long way to run, and expect Dublin's ISEQ to be significantly down on Monday, as markets hate uncertainty.

Irish General Election 2016: Into Day 3

Day 1 was the day the votes were cast.  Day 2 was when the counting began.  Now we're into Day 3 of this, and we do have the first preference counts from all 40 consituencies, so now we know what the official share of the first preference vote is, and it goes like this...

Fine Gael - 25.5% - 10.6% lower than in 2011
Fianna Fail - 24.3% - 6.9% higher than in 2011
Sinn Fein - 13.8% - 3.9 higher than in 2011
Independents - 13.0% - 0.4% higher than in 2011
Labour - 6.6% - 12.8% lower than in 2011
Independent Alliance - 4.2% - New party in this election.
Anti-Austerity Alliance - 3.9% - Wasn't in this current form in 2011.
Social Democrats - 3.0% - New party in this election.
Green Party - 2.7% - 0.9% higher than in 2011
Renua Ireland - 2.2% - New party in this election.
Others - 0.7% - 2.0% lower than in 2011

So what do these figures tell us?  Well, first of all, it tells us the governing parties of Fine Gael and Labour took a spanking at these elections, both losing significant share of the first preference vote.  Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein do look to be the big winners, both making significant gains on their 2011 position.  But ultimately Fianna Fail must be disappointed.  They must have felt they had a chance to overtake Fine Gael, as the tide seemed to slowly turn against the governing parties.  But they didn't quite capitalise on it.

However it must be said, they did far better than the opinion polls suggested.  In fact, in the run up, the opinion polls were way off.

Date	Source/Link	Polling Agency	FG	Lab	FF	SF	AAA -PBP	RI	SD	GP	Others
26 February 2016	General election	N/A	25.5	6.6	24.3	13.8	3.9	2.2	3.0	2.7	17.9
26 February 2016	RTÉ[p 1]	Behaviour & Attitudes	24.8	7.1	21.1	16.0	4.7	2.4	3.7	3.6	16.6
26 February 2016	The Irish Times[p 2]	Ipsos MRBI	26.1	7.8	22.9	14.9	3.6	2.3	2.8	3.5	16.1
25 February 2016	TheJournal[p 3]	DIT	32	8	20	15	2	2	4	2	14
23 February 2016	Paddy Power[p 4][p 5]	Red C	30	7	20	15	3	2	4	3	16[nb 2]
22 February 2016	The Irish Times[p 6]	Ipsos MRBI	28	6	23	15	3	2	3	2	18[nb 3]
21 February 2016	Sunday Independent[p 7][p 8]	Millward Brown	27	6	23	19	5	2	4	2	14[nb 4]
21 February 2016	The Sunday Business Post[p 9][p 10]	Red C	30	8	18	16	3	2	4	4	15[nb 5]
21 February 2016	The Sunday Times[p 11][p 12]	Behaviour & Attitudes	30	4	22	15	5	3	3	3	15[nb 6]

This table came from Wikipedia, where I found all the polling data over the last 5 years, but I focused on the last week of the campaign.  Fine Gael's support was overestimated, quite significantly.  Sinn Fein's support was often over-estimated too.  Fianna Fail was underestimated, as were the others in this list, the Independents and the parties not listed in the polling data, including the Independent Alliance.

You can understand how disappointed Fine Gael feel, especially if they trusted this data to be accurate.  In some cases, the +/- 3.0% margin of error still left a gross over-estimation of support.

So, what does that mean in terms of seats?  Well seats are not filled by first preference votes alone in this election, but a number of Fianna Fail candidates did win on First preference votes alone, getting over the quota line without supplementaries.  Right now as I write this, 95 of the 158 have been filled, and the state of play is this.

Fine Gael - 28
Fianna Fail - 28
Sinn Fein - 13
Independents - 10
Labour - 4
Anti-Austerity Alliance - 4
Independent Alliance - 4
Social Democrats - 3
Green Party - 1
Renua Ireland - 0
Others - 0

Doing some quick percentage maths, that means that currently, both Fine Gael and Fianna Fail are on course to win 47 seats each.  Not even 50 seats.  I actually expect them to make the 50 seat level but just barely.  I think a few more seats could go to the minor parties, Sinn Fein and Labour, and maybe a couple more Independents, but it's difficult to know exactly how many will go to which party. 

What we do know is that it's squeaky bum time.  Every seat declaration today will be watched with great interest as both Enda Kenny and Micheal Martin will be trying to work out who they can do deals with to secure a majority, and ultimately, whether they could work out a deal with each other to keep Sinn Fein out of power.

Irish General Election 2016: On the Nightbeat.

At this point in proceedings we're still missing 2 first counts out of the 40 constituencies, but a clearer picture is starting to emerge.  As I write this, these are the numbers of TD's elected per party.

Fianna Fail - 18
Fine Gael - 12
Sinn Fein - 6
Social Democrats - 3
Independents - 3
Anti-Austerity Alliance - 2
Independent Alliance - 2
Labour - 1
Green Party - 1
Renua Ireland - 0
Others - 0

That's with 48 of the 158 seats filled in Dail Eireann.

By contrast, Dublin Central is on its 10th round of counting, in order to try to fill the remaining 2 available seats.

The strange thing is, that at the start of this election, there were a lot of concerns about the new party Renua.  How were they going to shake things up?  Turns out, they really haven't, with a mere 2.2% of first preference votes. 

The big developments came from Sinn Fein, and on a more modest scale, the Social Democrats, the Anti-Austerity Alliance, and the Independent Alliance.  All have made significant progress.  The Green Party have returned to the Dail, though whether they will pick up any more seats at this election is at this point dubious, but not impossible.

If there is to be a coalition, it's likely to be a grand coalition of at least 3 different parties and maybe more.  Both Fianna Fail and Fine Gael have said they won't work with Sinn Fein, so it will depend on just how close Fianna Fail and Fine Gael get to 80 seats, the number required for a majority, but the strongest likelihood seems to be a Fianna Fail/Fine Gael coalition, if neither party is anywhere near close enough to the 80 seat mark.

Once we know the exact shape or close enough to it, to actually have a good sense of the numbers, I'll write more about this. 

Meanwhile, one small point on this.  The polls closed at 10pm last night.  They didn't start counting, until 9am this morning.  That's 11 hours that was lost.  This whole process could be almost over by this point, if they had started counting last night straight after the polls close, as we do. Instead right now, we're heading into a late night, and the possibility of results not being known until Sunday evening.  And even then, when the markets open Monday morning in Dublin, the ISEQ will probably go downwards as there will be little idea what kind of political future will await the Irish Republic.  I do think we're in for a few days, maybe weeks of political uncertainty, at a time when Ireland's relationship with both the UK and the EU, will be under a lot of scrutiny on both sides of the Irish Sea.

Irish General Election 2016: Saturday Evening Roundup

Okay, as I write this, this is the state of the parties right now.

Fine Gael: 3
Labour : 0
Fianna Fail: 12
Sinn Fein: 2
Social Democrats: 3
Independent Alliance: 2
Independents: 1

Turnout for this election was a paltry 65%, which to my view is pathetic.  7 out of every 20 people in Ireland didn't even do their duty by voting in this election.

We've had 28 first ballot counts in out of the 40 constituencies, but only Laois constituency has completed counting and elected all their required representatives, in their case, 3.

Sean Fleming - Fianna Fail
Brian Stanley - Sinn Fein
Charlie Flanagan - Fine Gael

The share of the first preference vote for the various parties at this time looks like this:

Fine Gael: 26.1%
Fianna Fail: 25.1%
Sinn Fein: 12.6%
Independents: 10.7%
Labour: 6.9%
Anti-Austerity Alliance: 4.5%
Independent Alliance: 4.4%
Social Democrats: 3.9%
Green Party: 2.9%
Renua Ireland: 2.1%
Others: 0.8%

We've still got a long way to go before we get even a clear indication of what is happening here, but so far, it looks like Fine Gael may have held a little more ground than we initially though, but Fianna Fail is definitely gaining ground.

At this point, the former Taniaste Joan Burton of Labour, stands a fair chance of holding her seat, she is currently third after the 3rd count, with only one seat out of the four currently filled.  It depends on how the supplementary votes for the winning candidate will be dividied up in the next count.

Another update later.

Irish General Election: Saturday Afternoon Roundup

Well, we've only had one seat filled, which has gone to Fine Gael's Sean Barrett.  But all indications from the tallies that we've been getting via twitter and live blogs, seem to suggest that there are some significant changes on the way in Irish Politics.

Most of the first counts are expected between about  4pm and 7pm, with either eliminated candidates, or those who pass the 'quota', that is to say the minimum number of votes required to win a seat in the constituency, which is different depending on constituency size and turnout, their 'supplementary votes', votes of the other preferences below first preference, will then be counted to help determine who else is elected from that constituency. 

It is a complex and slightly esoteric system of electing a parliament, but it's that kind of quirkiness that gives it its appeal, in my eyes.  The Single Transferable Vote system allows for a less predictable election result, especially in situations like this where you have multiple parties, and multiple candidates sometimes from the same party, battling over a limited number of seats.

The Single Transferable Vote would be quite workable here in the UK too, as it could be made to work in single seat constituencies.  The quota just becomes a straight 50% +1 vote of the total number of votes cast, and candidates would be eliminated from the bottom upwards, until we got a candidate over that threshold.

So, the declarations will shortly actually begin, and we'll get official word on who has actually been elected.  More on this later.

Irish General Election 2016: The Exit Poll.

Well, it's not long now until the counting actually begins in the election.  Counts begin at 9am, but at 7am, on a special Saturday edition of Morning Ireland on RTE Radio 1 and RTE News Now, RTE released the result of their exit poll.

A small reminder that these are first preference votes that are asked about, as the system of voting is Single Transferable Vote, which ranks candidates by preference.

Fine Gael, who were the largest party in 2011 with 36.1, have lost almost a third of their previous vote, to now be at 24.8%.  This still makes them the largest party, but with a much reduced vote.  Second place goes to Fianna Fail, which has increased their vote from 17.4% in 2011, to 21.1% in this exit poll. 

Sinn Fein have made a huge gain in this election, from 9.9% in 2011, to 16% in this exit poll. 

Independents make up the 4th largest group this time around with 11%.  Labour, who were coalition partners in 2011 with a huge 19.4% of the vote, have dropped down to 5th place this time with just 7.1% in this exit poll.

This means we could be looking at a Fine Gail/Fianna Fail coalition, which would have been unthinkable in any prior government before, with Sinn Fein being the leaders of the opposition.  The equivalent in the UK, would be a Labour/Conservative coalition. 

I do think there might be some resistance to the idea of a Fine Gael/Fianna Fail coalition, the idea of old enenmies working together might be too much to bear for some, but it does mean that we are in a new era for Irish politics.

And remember this poll was for first preference votes only.  How this translates down the line into seats is anyone's guess, due to the fact that the preferences below first preference are what will ultimately decide who gets elected, and who does not.

We'll keep an eye on the counting, which is starting shortly, and will post updates here on the blog during the day, and probably tomorrow as well, as we finally work out just how the Irish public have voted to fill the 157 seats in 40 constituencies that will make up the new Dail Eireann.

UK Local Elections 2013: What actually happened.

Well, that was a very interesting election.  Let me start with the three stories that I originally posted about after 10pm last night.

Let's start with the overall result in Cornwall.

Liberal Democrats - 36
Independent - 35
Conservative - 31
Labour - 6
UK Independence Party - 6
Mebyon Kernow - 4
The Labour and Co-operative Party - 2
Unspecified - 2
Green Party - 1
Liberal Party in Cornwall - 0

Compare that result, with the result from back in 2009

Conservative - 50
Liberal Democrat - 38
Independent - 32
Mebyon Kernow - 3
Labour - 0
UK Independence Party - 0
Green Party - 0
Liberal Party - 0
British National Party - 0
English Democrats - 0
Unspecified - 0

Now the first thing  you'll notice is that the Conservatives have lost a lot of seats, 19 in all, so yeah, not a great election for them, going down from first to third.  But the Liberal Democrats shouldn't be celebrating too much either.  They might be the largest party in the council now, but they have lost 2 seats overall, so not exactly a stellar performance either.

Labour had a reasonable election gaining back 6 seats, 8 if you include their Co-operative allies.  They had been totally wiped out when the county council became a Unitary authority in 2009, but this is a good result.  Most of the seats were in the old Falmouth and Camborne constituency, although two were in Penzance, one in Mevagissey and the biggest surprise was Labour winning the Gunnislake and Calstock ward, although the candidate who won this time, was orignally an Independent in 2009.

UKIP did well as well, gaining their first seats on the unitary authority.  They won 2 wards in Camborne, they also won in Four Lanes; Lynher; Mabe, Perranarwothal & St Gluvias; and Newquay Treviglas.

Mebyon Kernow made 2 gains in Penwithick and Boscoppa, & Crowan and Wendron, but lost a ward in Camborne, bring their seat count to 4.  The Greens made a gain in St Ives as well, and two candidates who got elected did not even specify their political affiliation  Kinda strange to think two councillors got elected and nobody knows their political affiliation, so you don't know what you were voting for.

Surprisingly, Independent candidates continued to do well with 3 more Independents being elected this time compared to 2009.  And one of those candidates who got elected was surprisingly, Colin Brewer.

The man who said disabled children cost the council too much money and should be put down, got re-elected by only 4 votes in Wadebridge East.  335 votes to 331 for the second place Liberal Democrat.  Unsurprisingly, there were a lot of boos ringing out in Wadebridge at the count when that result was announced.  There was a facebook campaign running to stop him running in the election, I imagine the campaign to get him out of office again will picking up steam.

However, one man who did lose his seat today was Alec Robertson, the former council leader, before he was forced to resign.  His seat in Helston North was won by Independent Phil Martin with 590 votes, with Robertson only getting 494 votes.  Robertson was one of 19 Tories as I said earlier who lost this time around.

Nationally, the picture wasn't much better for the Tories.  They lost control of 10 councils. Two councils Labour retook control of.  Those councils were Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire.  The Liberal Democrats and UKIP gained no councils at all.  The Conservatives also lost 335 coucnil seats overall, with the Liberal Democrats, their coalition partners, also losing councillors, 124 in all.  Labour recovered most ground on the night, gaining 291 council seats, and UKIP, the major talking point in the news tonight, gained 139 seats.

Overall, the smaller parties made small gains.  Greens gained 5 seats overall, Residents Association gained 2 new seats, bringing their total to 12, and the Liberal Party, the remnants of the original Liberal party that didn't merge with the SDP to become the Liberal Democrats, they gained another seat too, bringing their total to 3.  However, not all the small parties gained ground.  The British National Party lost the 3 seats they held on councils.  So now, there are no BNP councillors.

In the South West, whilst Cornwall and Bristol remained in No Overall Control, the Tories did manage to hold onto Devon, Somerset and Dorset councils.  As I reported earlier, the Tories barely held onto Somerset, whilst Dorset was more comfortable.  Devon also ended up being reasonably comfortable for the Tories, winning 38 of the 62 seats available.  No other party got into double figures.  Liberal Democrats won 9 seats, Labour 7 seats, UKIP 4 seats, Independents 3 seats and Greens 1 seat.

Bristol remians in No Overall Control, but the picture was very interesting.  Out of the 23 seats contested this time, 10 changed hands, and they were all from the Liberal Democrats.  7 went to Labour, 2 to the Green Party and one to an Independent.  Bristol was one of the few areas where UKIP failed to win a seat.

UKIP though did have a good night overall.  In Lincolnshire, they won 16 seats from a total standing start.  In a few councils, UKIP are now the official opposition, mostly to the Tories, who should really be their right wing allies, but are splitting the right wing vote, in much the same way that the SDP caused a major split in the left wing vote in the 1980s after they split from Labour.

So there we have it.  Good night for Labour, better for UKIP, not so good for the Conservatives, and the Liberal Democrats could have come out worse, but they also could have faired a lot better.

UK Local Elections 2013: Overnight Developments

So far, not a lot of surprises in the local elections, or indeed, in the one By-Election that was held yesterday to replace David Milliband in South Shields.  Labour held onto the seat with a reduced majority in terms of votes. 

Labour's Emma Lewell-Buck got 12,493 votes, with UKIP's Richard Elvin coming in second with 5,988 votes. Karen Allen for the Conservatives was a distant third with 2,857 votes. Ahmed Khan, who stood as an Independent came in fourth with a respectable 1,331 votes.  Hugh Annand for the Liberal Democrats came in a very disappointing 7th with just 352 votes, coming behind the Independent Socialist Party candidate and the BNP candidate, losing their deposit.  Overall, an unsurprising result, though the Liberal Democrats coming in only 7th with less votes than an Independent, Independent Socialist and BNP, is a big surprise, I don't think I can ever recall them doing worse in any election ever.

In the Local Elections overnight, Conservatives lost control of 2 councils.  Lincolnshire had been strongly Tory with the Conservatives holding 60 out of the 77 seats in the council.  Today they are still the largest party in council, but hold on 36 seats, 3 seats short of an overall majority.  However, the council maintains a storng right wing slant, with UKIP being the second major party with 16 seats, all gains.  Labour came in third with 12 seats, an increase of 8 on last time, with 10 Independents and 3 Liberal Democrats.

The other council they lost was Gloucestershire, where they had previously 34 seats on the 53 seat council.  Now they have just 23.  Liberal Democrats came second here with 14, gaining 2 seats, in an election where they have so far mostly lost seats, Labour came third with 9 seats, with 3 Indepenents, 3 UKIP and 1 Green.  There is no obvious coalition to be made here, with Conservatives and UKIP being 1 seat short of a total majority. 

In Somerset the Conservatives just managed to hold onto control of the council by just 1 seat.  They won 28 out of the 55 seats available, with 18 Liberal Democrats, 3 Labour, 3 UKIP and 3 Independents.  There is 1 seat unfilled currently, the Coker Division, the election for that is being held on May 16th, so we will have two weeks before we know if the Conservatives can win that one and make that council just a little bit safer.

Dorset however remained true blue as the Conservatives only lost 1 seat there, still easily maintaining control with 27 out of the 45 available seats.  The remaining seats, 12 have gone to the Liberal Democrats, 5 have gone to Labour, and 1 UKIP.

Today, we will see the remaining councils declare their results, one already has, where they only elected a third of the council, that is Bristol. which remains under No Overall Control, as there have been some unusual gains across the political spectrum, Greens have gained 2 seats in Ashley and Bishopston, Conservatives have gained seats, Labour have gained seats, in fact, out of the 12 seats so far declared in Bristol, only 4 have been held onto by the party that held the seat before.  Also going to follow Cornwall and Devon county council results, but already UKIP are showing they have done far better this year, than they have previously done before.

UK Local Elections 2013: What I'm looking at.

Okay, so it's after 10pm, and I can now talk about the local elections.  In Cornwall, where I'm based, we have three particular stories that are going to be commanding my attention.  Two are about individual councillors, and the third is the council as a whole.

The first story is Alec Robertson.  He was the leader of Cornwall Council until last year when he was forced to resign by some of those within the Conservative/Independent administration running Cornwall Council over privatising some council services.  In 2009, Alec Robertson won his ward of Helston North by 244 votes.  Will he win again, or will UKIP having a candidate there, by the name of Leonie Gough, reduce his vote to the point where either the Independent candidate Phil Martin or the Liberal Democrat candidate Mollie Scrase can pull out the victory.  Or indeed will UKIP pull out a victory?

The second story is Colin Brewer.  He was an independent councillor until the end of February 2013, when he resigned over a comment that he made at an information event at County Hall in 2011, that disbaled children cost the council too much money and should be put down.  But by April, he had submitted papers to be a candidate once again for the ward of Wadebridge East.  But this time, he has a much tougher task ahead of him.  In 2009, Colin Brewer won his ward by 145 votes, but he was only up against a Conservative and another Independent.  This time, he's up against another Independent, Conservative, UKIP, Labour and Liberal Democrat candidates.  I think it's safe to say that he has a much tougher task ahead of him this time.

Now, onto the Council itself.  123 councillors being elected in 122 wards, and last time in 2009, the Conservatives were the largest overall party with 50 seats, the Liberal Democrats had 38 seats, Independents had 32 seats, and the remaining 3 seats went to Mebyon Kernow.  Labour, UKIP and the Greens were all seatless in Cornwall.  But remember, that was in 2009, when Gordon Brown was Prime Minister and Labour was the party in power.  Nowadays, David Cameron is Prime Minister, and there is a coalition of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats in power.

Now Cornwall has traditionally been a 3 way political battle, between Independents, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats.  But nationally, the Con/Dem coalition, as it is known in some circles, has not been very popular.  With austerity biting harder than expected and for longer, neither party is expected to do well.  But there is an added wrinkle here.  The council has been run by Conservatives and Independents, some of whom are not expected to do well either.

This means that we could see more minor parties making headway in Cornwall.  Labour have traditionally not been strong in Cornwall, although Candy Atherton did have some limited success as a Labour MP in Falmouth and Camborne.  And if we are to see any surge in Labour vote, it is most likely in the areas around Falmouth and Camborne.  Mebyon Kernow is the only one of the minor parties to have seats currently, and they would be expecting to do better than in 2009, but whether they do or not is something we will see over the coming hours.

UKIP have been making slow headway nationally, and they are expecting to get at least one councillor elected at the expense of the Conservatives.  The Greens do have candidates standing in some wards, but little is expected.  Also standing in some wards are The Liberal Party in Cornwall and the Labour and Co-Operative Party,  as well as the obligatory plethora of independents, with some wards having as many as 4 independent candidates on the ballot.

Outside of Cornwall, it's mostly England that is electing councillors today, though the Isle of Anglesey in Wales is also holding an election.  Full county council elections are happening in 27 counties, but most are counting tomorrow.  The notable exceptions are Somerset, Dorset and Hampshire, who start counting tonight.  Labour and UKIP will be expecting to make gains in this election, with Conservatives and Liberal Democrats losing ground.  Whether we will see other parties like the Greens, BNP and the English Democrats making any headway as well as a result, is up in the air.  7 unitary authorities are also holding elections, Cornwall is one of those.  Only Bristol though is not electing a full council, they elect a third of the council this year.

There are two mayoral elections, in Doncaster and North Tyneside, and the Isles of Scilly is also electing their unitary authority.  In some council areas as well, such as Cornwall, there are parish, town and city council elections also taking place.  This means that in some areas, counting will be going on until about 10pm Friday night.

All in all, a lot of ground to be covered over the next 24 hours or so, and this will be a key electoral test, more so for Ed Milliband and Nigel Farage, than for David Cameron or Nick Clegg.  We will see what happens over the next 24 hours.

Aftermath of the UK Election Debates.

Well, the final debate has ended, and we are now in the final countdown to election day itself. I have seen all the debates, and here's my take on all 3.

The first one, shown live on ITV1, was very much a surprise. Nick Clegg came out on top rather convincingly. Cameron came in a decent second, with Gordon Brown a poor third.

The second one, shown live on Sky News was much closer, with Cameron perhaps just edging it. Gordon Brown still way back off the pace.

Tonight, it seems, there is a difference of opinion as to whose won. Channel 4 News vote said Brown won by 2%, with Clegg second and Cameron a poor third. ITV News said Cameron won by 2% with Clegg second and Brown third. YouGov said Cameron won by 9% with Clegg second and Brown third.

I say tonight, Clegg won again, but not by much. Brown was the close second, and Cameron looked like he was way off the pace, constantly fighting a rear guard action, and not doing a good job of it.

So, to my mind, we're heading for a hung parliament. But how will Brown and Cameron react to the surge in the Liberal Democrats? I forsee an unlikely, but possible Brown/Cameron coalition, to keep Clegg out of power. Wouldn't say it was likely to happen, but I think it is possible.

Viewpoint – Review of Season 1

Ian Beaumont looks back on the stories that have most influenced Viewpoint over this past season just gone. 

Viewpoint Election Special – They think it’s all over…

Despite the fact that the media have moved on to other stories, the European Elections are still not quite over.  Ian Beaumont looks at where we are, and rounds up the facts and figures from this European Election.

Viewpoint Election Special – Ireland’s Councils take shape.

As the shape of Ireland's City and County Counicl's become clearer, it looks like the councils have lost their "Green" fingers!  Ian Beaumont reviews developments.

Viewpoint Election Special – Ireland’s Local Elections

Viewpoint – from City Media Productions - 1f

Local Elections 2008: England & Wales Local Councils - Results Review

With all 159 councils having declared in the Local Council Elections, it's time to review the results and analyse them.

It's not really surprising what the headlines are. Conservatives gaining 12 councils and 256 councillors, Labour losing 9 councils and 331 councillors. The media is refering to the losses for Labour as huge. Maybe in pure terms of numbers, losing over 300 councillors sounds like a lot, but in analytical terms, it's not nearly such a massive loss.

Remember, this is not 1 election to a governing body, but 159 elections to 159 different governing bodies, in these cases, local councils. When you do the maths, you realise that one average, Labour has only lost the equivalent of just under 2.1 councillors per council. Certainly not anywhere near as impressive sounding is it?

The Conservatives are trying to claim a major success. Yet, there are enough negatves out there for me to suggest that their 'major success' is somwhat tempered. Look through all 159 results and you see some really striking ones.

In Burnley, the council had been pretty much split between LibDems and Labour with Conservatives and BNP way back. However, the gainers from Labour's misfortune this time was not the Conservatives, but the Liberal Democrats who took control of the council with 23 seats to Labour's 12. Neither the Cobservatives (6) nor the BNP (4) gained out of Labour's misfortunes. For David Cameron, the failure make any kind of move in Burnley must be seen as somewhat of a failure.

In Colchester, which had been a Conservative council, albeit only briefly for less than a year, the Conservatives lost seats and lost control of the council. The Conservatives lost 5 seats there, with Labour actually picking up 4 seats, and the LibDems the remaining seat.

Coventry also went against the grain, with just 1 seat out of the 18 seats up for election changing hands, but it went from Conservative to Labour and with it, the Conservatives lost control of the council.

In St Albans, the Liberal Democrats took control of the council, despite the Conservatives having the better performance and gaining 3 seats, compared to the LibDems gaining only 1. But that 1 seat was sufficient to give the LibDems control and rather took the shine off what looked a good performance.

In Oxford, the Conservatives only had two seats on the council before the election. By the end of the night, they had none at all, wiped out. In Sheffield too, the 1 Conservative councillor there lost his seat, and the party is not represented on the council at all.

Add to this councils like Adur, Barrow in Furness, Brentwood, Burnley, Castle Point, Cheltenham, Daventry, Fareham, Kingston-upon-Hull, Manchester, Mole Valley, Rochdale, Runnymede, South Tyneside, St Helens, Stoke-On-Trent, Stroud, Swansea, Swindon, Thurrock, Wallsall, Watford, Waveney, Winchester, Woking and Worcester where the Conservatives failed to gain any seats at all, and it does somewhat take more than an edge of the Conservatives "major success".

There are also councils like Blaenau Gwent, Caerphilly, Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion, Gateshead, Gwynedd, Knowsley, Liverpool, Merthyr Tydfil, Neath Port Talbot, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Oxford and Sheffield where the Conservatives haven't even got a single seat on the council, and councils such as Bridgend, Broxbourne, Colchester, Coventry, Derby, Eastleigh, Gosport, Huntingdonshire, Ipswich, Leeds, Oxford, Purbeck, Reigate & Banstead, Sefton, Sheffield, Slough, South Lakeland, Southend-on-Sea and Stratford-On-Avon where the Conservatives suffered losses rather than gains.

Now how major does their success look? It looks rather patchy to me.

Super Thursday: Scottish Parliamentary Election Roundup.

Prior to this Election, Labour was the largest party in the Scottish Parliament with 50 seats. They were the major party in a coalition with the Liberal Democrats.

Today, the Scottish Nationalist Party is the largest party with 47 seats, compared to Labour on 46, Conservatives on 17, Liberal Democrats on 16, Green Party on 2 and 1 Independent.

In terms of the individual constituencies, Labour won the most constituencies with 37, SNP got 21, Liberal Democrats got 11 and the Conservatives got 4. It was in the regional lists vote that the SNP and Conservatives did best. The SNP won 26 of those regionally based seats, Conservatives have 13, Labour have 9, Liberal Democrats 5, Greens 2 and 1 Independent.

Turnout across Scotland was high at 51.8%, which translates to just over 2 million votes cast.

The big story of the night will unquestionably be the high number of spoilt ballots cast in this election. It was noted on the night, by myself and the BBC's Nick Robinson that this was an unusual trend, with in one constituency, spoilt ballots making up 7.2% of the votes cast.

I note that the Electoral Commission, who oversee all elections here in the UK, have said that they will begin an investigation with immediate effect. I am glad to hear that. I really don't want this to become as infamous as the "Florida Hanging Chads" incident during the 2000 US presidential election. SNP leader Alex Salmond has claimed that 100,000 votes were spoilt in this election, and we have no immediate way of verifying his figures.

However, we do know that in one constituency, Airdrie and Shotts, the winning candidates majority was less than the number of spoilt ballots. In Glasgow Shettleton, there were over 2,000 spoilt ballots. These are very unusual figures that in years of covering elections, I have never seen this level of spoilt ballots.

However, the story from here on in now will be about who will form the next Scottish government. The expectation is that it will be a combination of SNP and Lib Dems with the Green and the 1 single Independent. However, that might not be the case. The Conservatives could act as kingmakers here. Labour could still manage to become the next government,and indeed, it could be possible for Labour and SNP to team up in a kind of national unity government.

What will happen, is unclear right now, but I will be following this story with much interest over the next few weeks.