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: 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.

Viewpoint – from City Media Productions - 1j