Mid Sussex massive win for Conservatives!

We have taken wards that were safe as houses for the Liberal Democrats!

In short, Conservative hold in Mid Sussex with increased majority.

More later.

Update. 19:57.

So far the Conservatives have 40 seats, Labour 1 and the Liberal Democrats 7. That looks like 14 losses for the Liberal Democrats.

Update 23:01

Final result:

Conservatives: 45 (+15)

Liberal Democrats 8 (-15)

Labour 1 (No change).

The Conservatives lead Labour in every area of England and Wales!

I just want to say that I am very pleased that the Conservative party has topped the vote in all areas of England and Wales!

Scotland is yet to come.

Fantastic result for us!

BNP wins in the North West, Nick Griffin wins

However, the other big story is that the Conservatives lead in all areas of England and Wales.

Labour in 5th in the South East!

And now Danial Hannan is making that point!

Conservatives beat Labour in Wales!

The Conservatives beat Labour in Wales and the Liberal Democrats lose their seat! Fantastic.

Wales a Liberal Democrat free zone! :)

BNP gain seat in Yorkshire and Humber from Labour

Well, that is Labour for you. What is interesting is that the Conservatives got almost 3 times the vote but only twice the seats.

Are the BNP about to gain an MEP in the Euro elections?

The BBC are reporting that the BNP may be about to gain a seat in the EURO elections as indeed is politicalbetting.

This is not great but it is democracy. That said it is what I expect at the tail end of a Labour government, along with massive public debt, and racist strikes.

On Conservative vote share

There is much cobblers being talked about the Conservative vote share in these elections.

We had, according to media expectations, to gain 220 seats. We gained 217 and 7 councils.

Now, lets make this clear. Local government is currently run mostly by Conservatives who started the night with a historically high number of councillors.

If Labour wanted to lose by a cataclysmic landslide (in terms of changes of seats not majority, as in lose 170 seats) as John Major did in 1997, then they would have had to have gained seats this time around, instead of which they have lost even more.

It was in a great night for the Conservative party, and we met the expectations placed upon us. Well done to all the hard working activists out there.

Conservatives gain Lincolnshire?

Well, so far, Lincolnshire County Council reports 13 Conservative gains with 11 Labour and one Independent and Liberal Democrat loss each.

More here.

How the voting went in Mid Sussex

Well,I don't think I could be more non committal. Our safe seats are safe. In fact the Liberal democrats did not even bother.

The situation is more complex in for Brian Hall, (Liberal Democrat) as he has had some issues over his allowances and lack of turning up for meetings. His division was very marginal, and we ought to win it and may well have done.

However we have an issue of a potentially collapsing Labour vote.

The reception on the doorstep has been mostly good and friendly. We have run across the occasional hostile voter, and under the circumstances that is what you would expect.

The underlying feeling I have though is that turnout is OK to good, but we may have a bit of churn in who is actually voting.

How will the voting go today?

Well, first of all, I will be out and about. I will be telling in my area, specifically the Dolphin leisure (now called the Olympus leisure Center) center between 2 PM and 3 PM, after which I will be "knocking up" and such other duties as required until the polls close at 10 PM.

So how will it go? Political betting covers a poll by Yougov in today's Telegraph which has headline certainty to vote figures at Conservative 26% Labour 16% Liberal Democrats 15% UKIP 18% Green 10% BNP 5%, but if you include the less certain the Conservative vote jumps to 37% and Labour to 21%.

Curious. It is all about getting out the vote.

Curiouser still is this by Iain Dale, which suggests that 15% more myspace users are going to vote today because of the expenses scandal.

I don't have myspace users down as great voters, so that is interesting, and good that they are engaging. The only question is will they break the same way as the extra figures in the Yougov poll show.

We live in interesting times. Reports of the telling experience will be posted.

How to get rid of Gordon Brown now!

if you want to get rid of Gordon Brown, you could sign the Number 10 petition, which currently has 64,901 signatures. (I wrote about it here and here)

The only other way is to vote Conservative and show that the Labour party has lost so much ground. The differential in the vote will show those in Labour that they must develop the spine to get rid of him. Voting for a minor party will only show that all main parties have been hit and so Labour are safe. Giving Labour a battering compared to the Conservatives will drive the message home.

A Party Political Broadcast by the Conservative Party

Impressive stuff. John Major won the 1992 general election by getting out and talking to real people on his soap box and arguably limited the defeat in 1997 the same way, and it appears that David Cameron will be doing the same.

As you will note from the broadcast, it is always easy to promise the impossible, like ending boom and bust, but people respond better to honesty.

Is it just me, or has the BBC been a pile of excrement?

Well is it just me?

From the ridiculous Stalin to Mr Bean stuff, the cold winter bit or the wild west show over the Liberal Democrat vote that Jeremy Vine did last night to the lack of rolling results as they came in for the London mayoral elections the BBC has been a large pile of fetid urine soaked manure of the most odious kind.

One person who texted me insisted that it was because they are all lefties. I say no, it is because they are all a complete bunch of merchant bankers. It has nothing to do with political bias, it has all to do with the sort of bankers in the news departments of the BBC.

In order to get up to date results I decamped to my local pub and watched it on Sky news. There was no sound, but then there was no Jeremy Vine making a spectacle of himself. What there was in the bottom right hand corner of the screen was up to date results which were missing from the BBC.

Liberal Democrats lose Liverpool then regain it this afternoon?

Rather amusingly Labour took enough seats of the Liberal Democrats to put Liverpool into No Overall Control. Then this afternoon they signed up an independent Labour councilor and regained control.

Bizarre but true. See the BBC here.

Local Elections: Conservatives outstanding win!

The local elections have produced an outstanding victory for the Conservatives, gaining 256 seats.

The last time these elections were held was a very low ebb for Labour. In reality it would have been possible for Labour to claw back some net gains, certainly with the Brown bounce last summer. All that is now gone and labour have had a right kicking losing 331 seats.

The BBC have calculated the national share of the vote and that puts Labour in third place on 24% of the vote with the Conservatives on 44% and the Liberal Democrats on 25%. This is the worst Labour result for 40 years.

The BBC has this.

Conservatives gain Southampton!

Fantastic.

Also Nuneaton and Bedworth!

Looks like a good night for the Conservatives.

Turnout high in Conservative areas

Various reports on blogs are indicating that turnout is high in Conservative areas and low in Labour ones. See Iain Dales blog here and politicalbetting here.

The mood for a change in London also seems strong. Boris Johnson looks like he is going to win.

Boris to win London Mayoral Election!

Well, that is my prediction. Boris Johnson MP will beat Ken Livingston in the race to be the next mayor of London.

That said the question will be by how much. According to this thread on politicalbetting.com the last YouGov poll is much tighter than before.

To be honest I don't know what the margin will be but what I do know is that there seems to be a mood for a change. Labour voters are demotivated and we have the wind in our sails.

On the wider picture I suspect we will pick up over 100 seats in the council elections which will be a real bonus because 2004 when these seats were last contested was already a very low water mark for Labour. To give you some idea of how bad that was, if these elections were held with the same positive sentiment that existed for Gordon Brown between June and September last year then Labour would have gained at least 100 seats. No one thinks they will have any net gains now.

Voter Fraud to mar London and local elections

Those of us who follow politics know about voter fraud and how easy it now is. This will no doubt be a factor in some elections on Thursday.

The Labour government brought in universal postal votes in order to rig the voting system in their favour however at the expense of introducing much fraud.

Well there is a new report out by the Joseph Rowntree foundation that backs that up. Having said that I am not sure it tells us anything we did not already know. The Times has this article here.