So what happens now?

Well, after the Conservatives gained just about 900 seats, 400 more than the BBC said would be a good result, Labour lost 495, whilst the Liberal Democrats lost 246 we await Tony Blair's announcement of when he will go.

We expect John Prescott to go at the same time and that will mean a deputy leadership election but it seems that it is unlikely that their will be a leadership election at the same time. Gordon seems to have made sure of that. Well, there will not be a serious one anyway. Michael Meacher and John McDonnell just do not count!

Ming Campbell seems to have scrapped through these elections without completely open revolt, but it is clear that there is some disturbance just under the surface. You don't have to look far to see it. The only question is will they kill another leader before the next general election? I do hope not, us Conservatives Like Ming, we think he can help us to win!

Well, I expect Cameron to carry on consolidating our position. Firm policies are not necessary this far out from a general election. There will not be a general election until at least 2009 because Labour simply does not have the money and Gordon Brown will not get much if any poll bounce when he becomes leader. If he gets any it will not last.

I expect Labour to start falling apart in much the same way the Conservative party did between 1992 and 1997. I expect the Liberal Democrats to stumble around trying to figure out where they ought to stand to take best advantage of the position, and to be blunt I expect them to fail.

What is clear is that now is a good time to be in the Conservative party, and I am very pleased Basil feels that too!

John Reid to stand down as Home Secretary!

John Reid has just given an interview on the BBC's Politics show and announced that not only is he not going to challenge Gordon Brown for the Labour leadership, but he is also going to stand down as Home Secretary.

Stunning news. Looks like Gordon Brown has managed to deal with all his potential rivals before a leadership bid, as I have predicted in the past.

Clearly many Labour activists are going to feel robbed of a choice. There will be trouble for Labour as disillusion sets in. After another severe kicking in the locals this will not help them keep or build their activist base.

Now all Gordon needs to do is make sure neither Meacher or McDonald stand, and then I get to take £20 off Mike Smithson!

The BBC has this.

Cameron on course for Number 10

Well that is the headline in today's Sunday Times.

Professors Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher, directors of Plymouth University’s elections centre have published their assessment of the local elections which puts the Conservatives 1% ahead of their position last year whilst Labour were static.

They predict a Conservative overall majority of 54. That cheers me up a lot! I know one seat we are bound to take, Crawley which is next door to my constituency of Mid Sussex which we only missed out on by 37 votes last time from Labour. Having now firmly taken control of the council I expect they will be building up for a clear success in the next general election.

Makes me feel good!

Winning Ashenground next time around

After having had some serious sleep overnight, after that very long count, my thoughts have now turned to winning Ashenground at the next local elections in 2011.

I am working on some local campaigns over issues that were raised on the doorstep as well.

If anyone wants to get involved, please let me know. You can email me here.

Labour keep their head whilst all about them lose their's!

The strange tale of the 2007 local elections in Mid Sussex is that both the Conservative leader, Patrick Shanahan, and the Liberal Democrat leader Graham Knight lost their seats, whilst Paddy Henry, the Labour group leader retained his but lost his group, (Richard Goddard).

We are very sorry to lose Patrick as group and council leader. He is a very good man, and a very good leader. He lost his seat because of a planning issue over 220 houses in Mackie avenue in Hassocks where the opposition seemed to blame the Conservative council for allowing it. The reality is rather different. The planning application was fought by the council as far as it could be, with the council even employing a barrister for the planning appeal.

Local planning is now far less at the discretion of local government and is now based on rules. The net result is that if people don't want a large development on their doorstep, and the council does not either, the developer can just appeal, and if the land meets the statutory criteria, they get it. That is not good for local democracy.

However we did make some fantastic gains. We gained all two seats in East Grinstead Ashplats, from the Liberal Democrats, two in Haywards Heath, Heath ward, again from the Liberal Democrats, two in Lucastes from two former Conservatives who went independent, and could have split the vote. In Burgess Hill we won one seat out of two from the Liberal Democrats (very well done Pru, and Jim for helping out!) the same in Victoria ward, (well done Mandy! Good work Julian, better luck next time).

We also gained a seat from an Independent in Hurstpierpoint and Downs. Our total gains being 9! We did however lose 4, 3 in Crawley Down and one in Hassocks.

Katy Bourne and I managed to get turnout up from 32.55% last time to 41.2% this time. Whilst Katy and I did not win this time in Ashenground, we certainly got a result in terms of getting the vote out!


My blisters have blisters, I am personally shattered, as no doubt are all our members who have worked very very hard indeed.

Mid Sussex count continues

You won't believe this but after 13 and a half hours the count is
still going. The last area to declare will be Burgess Hill Franklands
ward for the town. It will decide whether we have control of the town
council, or are the largest party.

We have also got 30 of 54 on the district!

Late breaking news, Franlands just declared two to us and one to them,
leaving us the largest group, a first for a long time!

--
Kind regards

Benedict White

Ashenground result

Bates, Richard LD 941
Bourne, Katy Conservative 597
Hall, Brian LD 923
White, Benedict Conservative 536

LD hold, with turnout up.

Hard fought battle that one!

--
Kind regards

Benedict White

Mid Sussex Conservatives gain decisive majority

I can announce that the Conservatives have regained control of the council.

Although we have had some painfull losses we have also taken more
seats from the Liberal Democrats.

--
Kind regards

Benedict White

mid sussex so far

it is hard to blog from the count. no results so far.

it looks like seats may change hands both ways.

Ashenground turnout up to 39 % which is good. I have not won it, but
it is closer than last time.

--
Kind regards

Benedict White

The Ashenground Story

First of all, this is my first, and indeed Katy Bourne's first campaign. We have not done this before.

We were virgins together! (Don't tell her husband!).

For one reason or another I took the view that I would rather fight a fight than be given a safe seat, only to mess it up, and it was not hard to find a fight.

Ashenground is old ground to me because I know so many people who live in it, and when it came up, I grabbed it, so did Katy.

We have in a month and a half leafleted the ward 5 times, canvased it once, taken on board what people have said and have done what we could. (Including dealing with planning woes, and some anti social behavior, whilst also looking at pot holes)

The result has been that the Liberal Democrats have been hit hard in their safest seat in Haywards Heath and have had to respond. In fact as far as I can tell they have pulled out all the stops.

It has been a hard fight. Katy and I have pulled out all the stops, but we are limited in numbers. We have made the Liberal Democrats fight their corner, but ultimatum speaking it will be all down to who has got their vote out, and the postal votes which are such a shambles I don't know which way it is going to go.

I do know that we pushed them hard and made them work for their vote. I also know that it is no longer a safe seat for the Liberal Democrats, and what is more, I will make sure that it is a safe Conservative seat next time, even if it is not this time.

Mid Sussex ward by ward after poll predictions

As far as I can tell, we will make about 7 gains.

We will gain Heath ward in Haywards Heath, (2 member ward).

We will gain Victoria ward in Burgess Hill, (2 member ward) unseating the Liberal Democrat leader.

We are moderately confident of regaining Lucastes, though postal votes and a three way LD Independent Conservative split makes that difficult to fully call.

We expect to take at least one seat in Herontye ward in East Grinstead.

We also are moderately confident of taking one seat in Leylands ward in Burgess Hill.

Speculation on the other hand is another thing. In East Grinstead we expect we may get another seat, and we will certainly have pushed the Liberal Democrats hard.

Oh, and there is an Independent in Hustpeirpoint who used to be a Conservative, and we expect that seat back.

A very early start!

Wow,that was an early start, and people think it starts at 7 when the polls open!

Looks like it is going to be an interesting day in Mid Sussex, though we won't get to know the result until tomorrow.

Hopefully I will be able to update you from my mobile later.

Ward by Ward Predictions for Mid Sussex!

I will be making ward by ward predictions for Mid Sussex, or rather saying what the gains and losses will be, after the close of polls tomorrow, and before the count on Friday.

I also expect to be publishing the actual results on Friday as they are announced in the hall.

Mid Sussex District Council predictions

As the final day of campaigning draws to a close, and election day beckons, I thought I would make some predictions about how it will go.

Currently there are 25 Conservative councilors out of 54, with 24 Liberal Democrats, 2 Labour and 3 independent.

We expect to make 7 gains, leaving us with 32 out of 54 councilors, with an outside possibility of another 3.

It does not look like it is going to be a good day for the Liberal Democrats in Mid Sussex.

Postal Vote fraud rife!

Interestingly enough figures have shown that postal votes are up in many areas, in some cases by as much as 500% (though I can't remember where).

This is obviously presenting a challenge for the counting staff as there are a lot more to verify this time around.

However the BBC brings us news that in the two wards in Birmingham where a judge said that the level of fraud would have shamed a banana republic, postal votes are sharply down, by as much as 80%.

Constitutional affairs minister Bridget Prentice has said that the postal vote system is as secure as it can be which is a bit untrue as we still do not have individual registrations. However if it was the case the statement is a clear demonstration of why postal votes on demand need to be scrapped.

They are not secret ballots, and anyone can apply for one. Whilst I am at it the electoral roll system needs some work as well. I keep coming across properties where the electoral roll shows the owner rather than the tenant, which would be OK, but the owner may well own several properties and so get several votes, whilst the tenant ends up with none. We need to make it clear that the electoral roll is for the people that live in a property not those who own it.

Lastly, the only way to get vote fraud down is to end postal votes on demand, and if the concern is that turnout will drop, then we just need to move the day of voting to either a Saturday or Sunday, or preferably both.

The BBC has this.

Blair says Brown will be PM within weeks!

Apparently whilst on the campaign trail in Scotland Tony Blair said Gordon Brown would be PM within weeks, which makes the May the 9th resignation story look like a dead certainty.

I do hope Brown gets it unopposed as then I get to win my bet with Mike Smithson!

The BBC has this.

Any way must go and deliver more leaflets.

Ten years of Tony Blair

Well, we have had ten years of Tony Blair. It started with the Bernie Ecclestone affair, where £1 million went to Labour and the policy on banning tobacco advertising in sport suddenly developed an exemption for Formula 1.

From there on in, in terms of probity things have gone seriously down hill. We have now the cash for peerages saga. Then there is Iraq, Dr David Kelly, the auctioning of signed copies of the inquest into his death (the Hutton Report) for Labour party funds.

I could go on, but it would make me feel ill.

I am looking forward to Labour getting a severe kicking on Thursday and it will be well deserved.

Could MI5 have stopped 7/7?

This seems to be the question that arises out of yesterdays conviction of 5 people for plotting to blow up several targets with ammonium nitrate based explosives.

Bizarrely the ammonium nitrate was purchased from an agricultural merchants only a few miles away from me, in an unremarkable transaction. The Merchant concerned has since received much ribbing.

Well, MI5 clearly stopped a major terrorist threat. Could they have prevented 7/7?

Two of the July 7th bombers turned up on the radar of MI5 during the surveillance operation, Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer. They did some surveillance on them, but decided that they were only involved in credit card fraud. This meant that of the 50 people who were on the edge of the investigation, 15 were followed up closely but these two ended up being in the "desirable" category.

Obviously hindsight being what it is that was an error. What concerns me though is that this information was not passed to any other agency for any sort of follow up, either before or after the main arrests.

It also concerns me that some of the victims of July 7th claim they were told that as soon as the police had identified Mohammad Sidique Khan and fed his name into their computers bells lit up, yet when this came before the intelligence committee of the House of Commons MI5 apparently said they did not know who he was or the connection until after the July the 7th bombings.

This does give rise to the serious need for a proper independent inquiry. Not because someone needs some blame pinned on them, but because we do need to learn lessons and think about follow ups.

There are other questions as well. For example why did we let the preachers of hate stay here and do what they did? Why were we not monitoring them very closely?

One last point of course is that the main reason why MI5 did not follow up every connection is lack of resource. Resource is never infinite. However after September the 11th, you would have thought that MI5's budget could and should have been massively increased.

The BBC has this.

Rail Privatisation saved lives

To those on the left it will come as a stunning claim, but it is not in fact mine, it comes from a statistical study covered on BBC Radio 4's More or less. You can listen to the program here, or look at this weeks page here.

The argument is that whilst there was a downward trend in accidents from the 1960's onwards under British Rail, from 5 a year, by 5% a year, had that trend continued to date, with the increased traffic involved there would have been many more accidents and about another 150 fatalities.

Makes you think doesn't it?

However none of that will make the relatives of those who have died on the railways feel any better.

Admiral Sir Jonathon Band admits he has shamed Navy

The Telegraph carries this article, citing a letter sent out by Admiral Sir Jonathon Band, the hopefully soon to be former First Sea Lord, admitting that the selling the sailors story fiasco may not have been the Royal Navy's finest moment, and he accepts responsibility.

Good. Now resign.

For more on the hostage crisis see here.