Strictly Politics: Reckless move sees backlash.

Yesterday, Mark Reckless was a Conservative MP for the constituency of Rochester & Strood.  Today, he’s the probable UKIP candidate for the seat, in a by-election that could be happening in November.

Just like his name, his move to join UKIP and resign as a Conservative MP, was Reckless.  There’s no guarantee that he will get re-elected.  In fact, based upon what happened earlier today in Rochester, Mark Reckless, might have committed a reckless move of political suicide, by joining UKIP.

Channel 4 News political correspondent Michael Crick, has written about what was supposed to be the former MP’s triumphant return to Rochester with Nigel Farage, and the fact that it turned into a roasting for Reckless, at the hands of a local Conservative constituency organisation that had revenge and vengeance on their minds.

Most of what Reckless heard were Conservative activists who were unsurprisingly disgusted at what he’d done, and gave him a piece of their minds, and there were a lot of those.  Mark Reckless, could well have defected himself out of a job, that he could have held onto for about 8 or 9 more months.

Michael also raises a good point about Labour here.  Should they run a campaign here or let Tories and UKIP fight it out between themselves?  To me, the answer is obvious.  Yes, they should run a campaign in Rochester & Strood and run it hard.  After all, until 2010, it had been a Labour seat.  Reckless may well pull a group of voters to UKIP with him, and hopefully, it will split the right wing vote enough for Labour, or some other party if Labour don’t feel up to it, to go in and potentially win the vote. The Green Party would be a good party to get behind right now, if they decide to submit a candidate.

There have been comparisons made with the final days of John Major’s government in the mid 1990s.  In some ways, this is worse, as the Referendum Party was at the time, an untried, untested movement in electoral terms.  UKIP are tried and tested, and have won some seats, mainly at the council level, but also in the European Parliament.  Some people are expecting UKIP to win at least a seat at the UK General Election next year.  I expect that UKIP won’t win a seat, but their very presence will probably mean the Conservatives will lose seats, mostly to Labour.

Overall, this weekend may have proved that political defections are fraught with danger and if you make a Reckless move, you may just end up paying the penalty.  You have to wonder who was the more reckless, Mark Reckless or Nigel Farage?

Far Right UK Parties - Worth worrying about?

I was busy minding my own business reading round the various internet sites, and I happened to be reading Daily Kos, when I came across this diary about Far Right extremist politics in this country.  Now I have discovered that this diary is an American's viewpoint on our Far Right politics, and it makes some sense, and is mostly pretty accurate, but for the authoratative viewpoint on UK Far Right politics, you have to ask someone who actually lives in the UK and writes about the political scene, amongst other things, and round here, well, that would be me.

It was a fascinating piece of writing, but the one thing that shines out from it to my eyes, is the fact that because the Republican Party in the US has veered to the extreme right in more recent years, there's always a lot more fear about right-wing extremism in the US than there is in the UK.  In some ways, it reminds me of the fear over Commmunism that we saw in the US back in the 1950s, with the McCarthy witchhunts.  The EDL, BNP and the National Front along with UKIP are the current incarnations of far-right wing politics in this country, a history that pre-dates the Second World War.

In fact, we go all the way back to 1902, and to an organisation called the British Brothers League.  The league was formed as a response to waves of immigration from Eastern Europe which had been going on since 1880.  It's weird, a lot of the debate on immigration now is over immigration from, once again, Eastern Europe.  History does have a way of repeating itself.

Initially, the League was only interested in keeping "Destitute Foreigners" out of England.  Later on, that slowly changed to the more familair refrains of anti-semitism.  Although the league claimed to have 45,000 members, no membership fees were ever taken.  It was mainly a London based organisation, and although it disbanded in 1923, it left a legacy of far-right support that would be used by Oswald Mosley later on.

The next organisation to come out of the woodwork, was an organisation known as The Britons.  Formed in 1919, by now we have the classic anti-semitic, anti-immigrant extreme right wing organisation.  The organisation published extremist propoganda under the label of The Judaic Publishing Company, and later The Britons Publishing Society.  The organisation was dormant during World War 2, though it continued to exist until the late 1940s.

1923 may have seen the disbanding of the British Brothers League, but another organisation was ready to take it's place.  This one was known as British Fascisti, later on The British Fascists.  Despite their name, their inital motivation was more fear of left wing politics, than actual fascism.  There is historical evidence to back this.  Back in 1922, the Conservative Party had won an election under Andrew Bonar Law, who was already an ill man at this time, having previously stood down as Conservative Party leader the previous year, despite the fact that David Lloyd George, a National Liberal, had been the Prime Minister until the 1922 election.

Labour, a relatively new political force at the time, having been formed in 1900, were now starting to have an electoral impact.  They'd won 142 seats in that election, up from the meagre 57 seats they'd won in the 1918 election.  Labour, under Ramsay MacDpnald, had become the official opposition for the first time in their history, overtaking The Liberal Party under Herbert Henry Asquith, a different Liberal party to the National Liberal Party, who had splintered from The Liberal Party, who had been in coalition with the Conservatives. Some on the right wing say the growth of Labour as a threat, hence why British Fascisti was created. 

Strangely enough as well, The British Fascisti were heavily influenced by the Boy Scout movement, as many of the initial members of the British Fascisti had been Boy Scouts in their childhood, and wanted to "...uphold the same lofty ideas of brotherhood, service and duty...".  It seems an unlikely mixture for creating what would be a breeding ground for one of the most famous fascists outside of Oswald Mosley.  The man who later became Lord Haw Haw, William Joyce, was a member of the British Fascisti, after having been attacked, he claimed, by a Jewish communist whilst stewarding a Conservative Party meeting in 1924.  He would later leave The British Fascists to join Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists in 1932.

The British Fascists were declared bankrupt in 1934.  By this time, The BUF had established itself and was the major force of fascism in the UK.  However, on the political scale, they were miniscule compared to the mainstream parties of the time, Conservatives, Labour, Liberals and National Liberals.  Even amongst the extreme right, the BUF might have been the most well known, but there were other organisations espousing various ideas of fascism, and fighting between rival groups, was not uncommon.  The Imperial Fascist League, which had formed in 1929, had a rivalry with the BUF.  Although the British Fascists, the BUF and the IFL had discussed mergers, they could never agree to work together, and merge their limited memberships.

Ultimately, this early history of Fascism in the UK is as instructive as it is interesting.  There is an almost tribal mentality to these organisations.  Some people did move between organisations but generally, most stayed loyal, almost to a fault, with the organisation they joined.  The same is also true today.  The BNP, the EDL and the National Front may be the extreme right parties and organisations that most are familiar with, but there are and have been a number of minor far right parties and organisations, including The British Freedom Party, Britain First, The British Democratic Party, British People's Party, The Christian Council of Britain, England First Party, the White Nationalist Party, the Nationalist Alliance, and many other organisations, some of which have been and are organisations that splintered off from the BNP.

Whilst the BNP and the National Front have been the most successful in terms of electoral success, both are so far behind the mainstream parties, that their successes are rather limited really, in the grand scheme of things.  So, is there anything to worry about in regards to the EDL, the BNP and the National Front?  It's very unlikely that there is anything to worry about.  Most of these organisations do not garner much in the way of support outside of their base, and they are so far away from where the majority of the British public politically reside, the political centre, where ultimately elections are won, that the likelyhood of any group getting the necessary votes to get more than token representation in anything beyond local council level, is so small as to render it almost impossible. 

This is down to the way our electoral system works.  First Past The Post is a simple, most votes wins system.  One person, one vote, just a single cross on a piece of paper, and the candidate that gets the most votes wins.  No requirement to get more than 50% of the votes cast in a single constituency, and no complex ranking of candidates by order of preference.  Smaller parties like UKIP, The Greens, even the Liberal Democrats at one stage, complained that the system kept smaller parties out.  And whilst the system does keep some minor parties out, the flipside of that, is that it also tends to keep the BNP and National Front out as well, because to win in any constituency, you need a large concentration of support for your party within that constituency.  One of the reasons the Greens rarely win seats, is because their support is thinly spread across the country, where as pockets of BNP support have sprung up in certain areas, and that's why the BNP has won some council seats in the past, although in the last local elections in May, the BNP lost all the seats they were defending.

And Fox News lending support to the EDL isn't as big a deal in this country as it might seem.  Fox News reaches over 3 million people each week in the USA, around about 1% of the population overall, and is the most watched cable news channel in the US.  Fox News Channel is also shown in the UK.  However, they reach no more than 200,000 people each week in the UK, far less than 1% of the 60 million people that live in the UK.  In terms of people watching news channels in the UK, BBC News leads the way with over 9 million watching each week, Sky News comes next with over 5 million watching each week, and editorially, although owned by the same company that owns Fox News, Sky News is far less right wing that Fox News, mainly due to neutrality regulations that are in place for all broadasters broadcasting from the UK.  Outside of the two main news channels in the UK, Fox News is watched by less people than watch Al Jazeera, or Russia Today, or even EuroNews.  Fox News active support of the EDL is actually causing viewers of Fox News in the UK to change channels.

There is one other reason why it is unlikely that we will see Fascism rise up, and it comes from history and the UK's response to the force that wasthe countries known as "The Communist States".

Communism really first came to prominience in the 19th century with the publication of The Communist Manifesto in 1848, a document written by Karl Marx and Frederich Engels.  Their "communism" was a form of socialism that sought to end capitalism, and the systems that they believed were exploting workers.  It was this basic idea that brought down the Czars in Russia in 1917, and formed the basis for the Communist state that was The Soviet Union until the 1990s.

Communist Parties began forming all over the world.  1920 saw the formation of the British version of the Communist Party.  The US response was best categorised by what happened in the 1950s, and the phenomenon that was McCarthyism.  Joseph McCarthy was a Wisconsin Republican Senator, who led a Senate commitee into the infiltration of American Communist Party agents into the Government.  His over-zealous interrogations of suspects, and demagogue-like attitude, led to him making wild, unsubstatiated accusations against people who were not guilty of any such misdemeanours.  Such McCarthyism is still used today by the Republican Party to call people unpatriotic, or question the morality of an opponent in a political debate.

But in Britian, instead of being scared by '...reds under the bed...', the British establishment gave it little credence or indeed thought it much of a threat, despite the fact that in 1945, 2 Communist Party candiates had been elected as MPs.  Both lost their seats in 1950, and the party began a slow, gradual decline eventually dissolving in 1991, just after the collapse of the Soviet Union.  A splinter group left the main party in 1988, and formed a new Communist Party which still exists today in the UK, however, the membership has never gotten to the 1000 mark.


So, when it comes down to the likes of the British National Party, the English Defence League and the National Front, they are small parts of a small movement, that is significantly splintered between over 15 different organisations already.  These various splinters are like individual tribes, struggling to work together for a common cause, because one tribe feels that another's slightly different viewpoint on something means they are less true to the cause or less pure. 

Two quotes for me sum up my feelings on this, and I have added particular emphasis to the parts that speak most on this subject..  First comes from the Inaugural Address of President Franklin D Roosevelt in 1933...

"...This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance..."

...and the second comes from Edward R Murrow from his See It Now programme in 1954, talking about McCarthyism...

"...We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men..."

(Cross posted on my Daily Kos diary) 

UKIP feeling the heat in Scotland

UKIP's Nigel Farage never met a controversy he didn't like.  In this case, it's being protested against in Edinburgh.  A number of protestors yesterday confronted him as he held a news conference in a pub, and he had to be locked in for his own protection. 

Now he is trying to put a brave face on it today, by saying that he'd been in worse places than that.  Yeah, right!  You felt scared for your life, so you got the police to bring a van so you could get away without facing the protestors again.  Because you knew in your heart, they had you pegged, to a T.

UKIP describe themselves as "...the UK’s third political party – and the only one now offering a radical alternative...".  Third political party?  Not true.  In terms of elected representatives, they have only 11 MEPs, 3 members of the House of Lords, 1 Assembly Member in Northern Ireland, and 201 councillors in Local Elections.  That's a lot lower than many parties, behind the SNP, Plaid Cymru, and even The Green Party. 

Yes, they may have made a major breakthrough in England, but outside of England, they have just 1 MEP, for Wales, and 1 Assembly Member in Northern Ireland, and even this was a defection.  Their only electoral success outside of England is the one MEP in Wales.  This gives the impression that they are somewhat of a band of 'little Engalders', as it were.

They're fighting hard to establish themselves as a mainstream party, even going so far as to ban former BNP Members from joining or standing as candidates, but this is mere smoke and mirrors.  The party's policies and actions in various situations have spoken far louder.

They proposed a 5 year freeze on immigration, and they wanted to initiate a drive to remove all illegal immigrants from the UK, something that in cost terms, is impractical.  They want to leave the European Union, withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights, and the European Convention on Refugees.  They want cut corporation taxes and abolish inheritence taxes and national insurance.  UKIP lost a sex-discriminitation case when Nikki Sinclaire was expelled from UKIP.  Now you might say they lost because they mounted no defence, but to be honest, they must have known what they'd done was indefensible.  This is an extremist right wing party.

And whilst Nigel Farage might find it easy to accuse Scottish Nationalism of being extremists and being "akin to fascism", but it's clear to me, that he obviously has little understanding of Scottish politics and his view of the UK is obviously a view of England primarily and not of the other nations in the Union.

However, SNP leader and Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond, got it wrong when he said the UKIP Leader had "lost the plot." as to be honest, UKIP and Nigel Farage never had the plot in the first place.  Farag'e accusations of a hate campaign as well are liudicrous.  If you think a small student demonstration constitutes a hate campaign, then you know nothing about politics.  UKIP has little credibility, and even less believeablity after this.

Nigel Farage might be trying to make UKIP seem more electable, but nobody should be fooled by extremism dressed up in a suit.  And their audience outside England, might be extremely limited indeed.

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.

Viewpoint Election Special – European Elections

The European Election results have been much slower to declare tonight than was originally planned.  Recorded after 1am in the morning, Ian Beaumont reviews developments to this point.

Viewpoint – from City Media Productions - 1j