Council elections - help! - Page 6 - Anything Goes - Other topics not covered elsewhere - Tartan Army Message Board Jump to content

Council elections - help!


Recommended Posts

31 minutes ago, exile said:

The media have selective blind spots on that front, that's for sure.  But in the end, what matters more is those votes translating into Yes votes when the time comes.

 

That makes sense. But still, things could change if the Greens get a sense of 'we can win anywhere'; they must be increasingly tempted to go for more constituencies in future.

They’re not stupid, they know that FPTP isn’t any use to them and their voters know who to vote,

if you look at Glasgow Kelvin in Holyrood, Patrick Harvie got 4000 and 6000+ in 2016 and 2021.  In the equivalent WM constituency, the Green candidate got less than 2000 in 2019. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 148
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

1 hour ago, aaid said:

They’re not stupid, they know that FPTP isn’t any use to them and their voters know who to vote,

if you look at Glasgow Kelvin in Holyrood, Patrick Harvie got 4000 and 6000+ in 2016 and 2021.  In the equivalent WM constituency, the Green candidate got less than 2000 in 2019. 

I see what you mean but the fact that Greens field any candidates in GE shows that they don't see FPTP as dead rubber, and that they do have ambitions to grow their vote where they can - what political party wouldn't? - even just to test the water in selected places, where they might only get 2000 in 2019 but what about next time? I would be surprised if the Greens harboured no ambitions to increase their GE candidates, and proportion of pro indy votes, and would be surprised if the SNP were not keeping an eye on containing Greens' expansion. Anyway that's my view, I think it is in principle one to watch in future, even if a minor issue for now.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, TDYER63 said:

Your grandchildren must be getting big now Lairdy, you will be kept busy chasing after them.
I heard it was National babysitting day yesterday. Was on my way to doggy sit my daughters dog ( no doubt there is a ‘day ‘ for that too🙄) and it was on the radio. Folk had to text in stories of babysitting that went wrong. Someone said they were babysitting young kids and thought they were playing quietly in their rooms till they went to check them to find  the kids had actually dragged a paddling pool out the hall cupboard into their room and been filling it up with water they had sneaked in using a wee cup from the bathroom, then jumping into it from the top bunk 😂

Things are ok with me. No grand children yet. I need to prove I am responsible enough with a dog before my daughters will unleash a baby on me. Think it may have taken a bit of a set back when my daughter caught me sharing my fish supper with the dog last night. 

Good to hear from you again 👍

 

Cheers, glad your doing ok. Don't get me started on the babysitting. 🤐

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, exile said:

I see what you mean but the fact that Greens field any candidates in GE shows that they don't see FPTP as dead rubber, and that they do have ambitions to grow their vote where they can - what political party wouldn't? - even just to test the water in selected places, where they might only get 2000 in 2019 but what about next time? I would be surprised if the Greens harboured no ambitions to increase their GE candidates, and proportion of pro indy votes, and would be surprised if the SNP were not keeping an eye on containing Greens' expansion. Anyway that's my view, I think it is in principle one to watch in future, even if a minor issue for now.

Any party is perfectly entitled to stand in any election or to not stand if it suits them.  Things can change in the future but until now, they have shown that they understand which side their bread is buttered on.   In the Holyrood elections there is a symbiotic relationship between the Greens and the SNP.  Some Green voters will vote SNP in the FPTP ballot and some SNP voters will vote Green on the list.  That's worked well for both parties in the two post-Indy ref elections, I don't see why either side would do something that would put that at risk.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Lamia said:

I know it wasn't Council elections in NI but is there a TV ban on interviewing Sinn Fein? 🤨

I watched a fair bit of the BBC NI coverage on Friday and Saturday and they were more than well represented.  I suspect the lack of Sinn Fein presence on BBC Network is probably more to do with them than the broadcasters, I suspect they view them as just another foreign network.  

What cracks me up about Irish politicians is that when they do a piece to camera - and this seems to be all parties and across the island - the person being interviewed turns up with their mates behind them who are all doing their best to make sure their faces are on TV.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 minutes ago, aaid said:

I watched a fair bit of the BBC NI coverage on Friday and Saturday and they were more than well represented.  I suspect the lack of Sinn Fein presence on BBC Network is probably more to do with them than the broadcasters, I suspect they view them as just another foreign network.  

What cracks me up about Irish politicians is that when they do a piece to camera - and this seems to be all parties and across the island - the person being interviewed turns up with their mates behind them who are all doing their best to make sure their faces are on TV.

 

I wasn't just talking about the BBC. I was actually thinking about politics programmes and news in general when there are not elections on. We get very little on NI and it is dominated by the DUP

Edited by Lamia
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, Lamia said:

I wasn't just talking about the BBC. I was actually thinking about politics programmes and news in general when there are not elections on. Ww get very little on NI and it is dominated by the DUP

Anyway, how do you know what’s on TV when you don’t have a license and claim not to watch it?

UK political correspondents are pretty lazy as a rule and won’t look past Westminster and will interview people there and for NI, that’s pretty much just the DUP as SF don’t take their seats.  There’s a couple of SDLP MPs now so that gives an option.   On some of the coverage over then weekend one of them - Claire Hanna - was on the panel and one of the other guests criticised her for being in WM and not Stormont.  That wasn’t saying she shouldn’t be in WM at all but more that she would do more good in Stormont.  She made the point that until they were elected, there was no moderate NI voice there, ie, WM, but that rolls on to the lobby media as well.  Interestingly double jobbing isn’t allowed in Stormont, so Jeffrey Donaldson has a big decision to make,

If you want to get a better understanding BBCNI actually has some very decent politics programs, better than BBC Scotland IMHO, but then you need to have a TV license to watch them 😉

Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 minutes ago, aaid said:

Anyway, how do you know what’s on TV when you don’t have a license and claim not to watch it?

 

Because I stupidly got one for the Euros!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, aaid said:

Anyway, how do you know what’s on TV when you don’t have a license and claim not to watch it?

UK political correspondents are pretty lazy as a rule and won’t look past Westminster and will interview people there and for NI, that’s pretty much just the DUP as SF don’t take their seats.  There’s a couple of SDLP MPs now so that gives an option.   On some of the coverage over then weekend one of them - Claire Hanna - was on the panel and one of the other guests criticised her for being in WM and not Stormont.  That wasn’t saying she shouldn’t be in WM at all but more that she would do more good in Stormont.  She made the point that until they were elected, there was no moderate NI voice there, ie, WM, but that rolls on to the lobby media as well.  Interestingly double jobbing isn’t allowed in Stormont, so Jeffrey Donaldson has a big decision to make,

If you want to get a better understanding BBCNI actually has some very decent politics programs, better than BBC Scotland IMHO, but then you need to have a TV license to watch them 😉

On this side of the pond, licence is the noun, license is the verb. Stop getting words wrong. It diminishes your analysis. 😀

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, duncan II said:

On this side of the pond, licence is the noun, license is the verb. Stop getting words wrong. It diminishes your analysis. 😀

Predictive text. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 minutes ago, hampden_loon2878 said:

@aaid  when a byelection is called in for a councillor, how does the system work with transferable votes? Is it just those running in the by election or does they take in votes from the original vote?

It’s a new election held under STV for that one seat.  These can be a little bit farcical as they tend to go either one of two wards.

If one party - say the SNP - is strong enough to get quota either on first preferences or early transfers, then they will win the seat, if the councillor who is being replaced was say Labour then that would be presented as an SNP gain from Labour, which technically it is but in reality nothing has changed.

The other one is where you can end up getting the candidate that nobody wants rather than the one which is most popular - although more unpopular than popular if you get my drift.

By elections are one of the weaknesses of STV as its really designed for multi-seat wards.

Interestingly, in NI in the Assembly, they don’t have by-elections at all, the party just nominates a new MLA as a replacement.  In fact parties can actually replace MLAs pretty much at will.  I’m not generally sure that’s a good idea either.

You’ll see this happen in the next few days with Jeffrey Donaldson, the DUP leader.

Stormont doesn’t allow double jobbing, so an MLA cannot also be an MP.  Donaldson is an MP.  While they have up to 6 months to form the executive and get the assembly up and running, newly elected MLAs have to register by Friday.

It doesn’t look like the executive will be anywhere close to being in place by then and the speculation is that Donaldson will not take up his seat and will stay at Westminster.

If he resigned that would obviously cause a WM by-election and in that constituency there was a real surge for Alliance, so under FPTP there’d be a good chance that the Alliance would win. That is obviously the real reason why Douglas Ross won’t resign his seat at WM and Holyrood allows him to sit in both parliaments. 

What will happen in NI, is that the DUP will nominate a placeholder for Donaldson until when/if the assembly is reconvened and then bring Donaldson back in - whichever way your politics sit, pretty much sticks. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, aaid said:

It’s a new election held under STV for that one seat.  These can be a little bit farcical as they tend to go either one of two wards.

If one party - say the SNP - is strong enough to get quota either on first preferences or early transfers, then they will win the seat, if the councillor who is being replaced was say Labour then that would be presented as an SNP gain from Labour, which technically it is but in reality nothing has changed.

The other one is where you can end up getting the candidate that nobody wants rather than the one which is most popular - although more unpopular than popular if you get my drift.

By elections are one of the weaknesses of STV as its really designed for multi-seat wards.

Interestingly, in NI in the Assembly, they don’t have by-elections at all, the party just nominates a new MLA as a replacement.  In fact parties can actually replace MLAs pretty much at will.  I’m not generally sure that’s a good idea either.

You’ll see this happen in the next few days with Jeffrey Donaldson, the DUP leader.

Stormont doesn’t allow double jobbing, so an MLA cannot also be an MP.  Donaldson is an MP.  While they have up to 6 months to form the executive and get the assembly up and running, newly elected MLAs have to register by Friday.

It doesn’t look like the executive will be anywhere close to being in place by then and the speculation is that Donaldson will not take up his seat and will stay at Westminster.

If he resigned that would obviously cause a WM by-election and in that constituency there was a real surge for Alliance, so under FPTP there’d be a good chance that the Alliance would win. That is obviously the real reason why Douglas Ross won’t resign his seat at WM and Holyrood allows him to sit in both parliaments. 

What will happen in NI, is that the DUP will nominate a placeholder for Donaldson until when/if the assembly is reconvened and then bring Donaldson back in - whichever way your politics sit, pretty much sticks. 

👍

Link to comment
Share on other sites

NI election was fairly interesting.

SF the biggest party by 3, they didn't gain any seats, their vote share went up 1%. A nationalist FM (if a government is formed) is a huge historical event in these islands. They seemed to have a pretty sound campaign, focusing on the cost of living crisis and getting Stormont and NI working for all. I believe over 50% female candidates/MLAs too.

DUP - vote share down 5% but picked up some key transfers which helped them keep losses to a minimum, I think the new Aontu party's final vote share helped them win a final seat in the Foyle region. No one to blame but themselves really, they might a rick pig's ear of it regarding Brexit in the first place and chickens coming home to them.

Alliance - 100% increase in their MLAs. The voting system does help. Once seen as a party for liberal, soft u unionists, they are a genuine cross-community party and they are gaining cross-community votes.  They are too Lib Demy for me ; but a few more votes for them in Derry and a few less for the DUP in Carrickfergus is probably a good thing for Northern Ireland in general.

UUP - was looking bleak for them, but STV again helped them. TBF, they seem to be trying to offer a pretty progressive unionist message these days. Sadly it seems unionism is going in the other direction, and any liberal unionists left are probably voting for Alliance just as much if not more than UUP.

SDLP - they won back the 2 seats lost to SF at the last Westminster election, but a pretty bad election for them. Down to single digit MLAs now losing Nicola Mallon (quite a big name in NI politics and former minster). Losing votes to SF and younger/newer votes who previously might have been SDLP 30 years ago e.g softer nationalists seem to even be going for Alliance in decent numbers.

TUV - the Nigel Farage of NI, to the right of the DUP. Hardcore unionists/anti-protocol and got a pretty impressive 7.2% of first votes. They was talk at the start of them getting 2/3 MLAs, but they obviously don't transfer too well so it never worked out. As the DUP took over from the UUP, I think eventually we'll see the TUV as the biggest unionist party in 10-15 years.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@hampden_loon2878 and others might be interested in this analysis from Glasgow on second preferences from last week.

For the SNP 40% of FPs are to the Greens and 20% to Labour - all other parties are insignificant.   That's kind of what I would expect.

For Labour their highest 2nd Pref is actually the SNP, just ahead of the Tories. but if you look at the SNP+Green vs LDem+Tory, then basically the same number of Labour voters are giving their second preferences to the Pro-Indy and Pro-Union sides.   That flies in the face of the stance the Labour leadership are taking.

Tory voters seem to be the ones who are most hardline on the constitutional question as only 7% of their preferences are going to pro-Indy parties.  In comparison, Greens, SNP and Alba give 20% to Labour.

https://twitter.com/BallotBoxScot/status/1525121255753625601?s=20&t=tCJd4yp4ifocEqyGiSrMOA

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, aaid said:

@hampden_loon2878 and others might be interested in this analysis from Glasgow on second preferences from last week.

For the SNP 40% of FPs are to the Greens and 20% to Labour - all other parties are insignificant.   That's kind of what I would expect.

For Labour their highest 2nd Pref is actually the SNP, just ahead of the Tories. but if you look at the SNP+Green vs LDem+Tory, then basically the same number of Labour voters are giving their second preferences to the Pro-Indy and Pro-Union sides.   That flies in the face of the stance the Labour leadership are taking.

Tory voters seem to be the ones who are most hardline on the constitutional question as only 7% of their preferences are going to pro-Indy parties.  In comparison, Greens, SNP and Alba give 20% to Labour.

https://twitter.com/BallotBoxScot/status/1525121255753625601?s=20&t=tCJd4yp4ifocEqyGiSrMOA

Dunno how common this was, but I only had two indy candidates, and they were both SNP.   (4 out of a poor total of 6 candidates were elected, btw.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, Grim Jim said:

Dunno how common this was, but I only had two indy candidates, and they were both SNP.   (4 out of a poor total of 6 candidates were elected, btw.)

Don’t know what your ward is but it’d be a real stretch for any party to get 3 seats in a 4 seat ward. 
 

Bizarrely it seems that the Alba candidate in Southside Central, whose transfers got a second seat for Labour last week, has joined the SNP tonight. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

25 minutes ago, Och Aye said:

Meeting announced for North Lanarkshire on Thursday. Labour jumping into bed with Tories again. 

https://www.thenational.scot/news/20133408.north-lanarkshire-council-labour-tories-do-backroom-deal-lock-snp/

I thought Anas was saying “no deals with anyone”.  Not sure how Sarwar can square this as the SNP are the largest party and if the Tories back them in what is effectively a motion of confidence, that’s hardly an “issue by issue” basis. 

They need more than the Tories to get a majority and will have to get either both independents or one and the loyalist on board as well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, aaid said:

I thought Anas was saying “no deals with anyone”.  Not sure how Sarwar can square this as the SNP are the largest party and if the Tories back them in what is effectively a motion of confidence, that’s hardly an “issue by issue” basis. 

They need more than the Tories to get a majority and will have to get either both independents or one and the loyalist on board as well.

BUP guy apparently

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 5/13/2022 at 5:16 PM, aaid said:

@hampden_loon2878 and others might be interested in this analysis from Glasgow on second preferences from last week.

For the SNP 40% of FPs are to the Greens and 20% to Labour - all other parties are insignificant.   That's kind of what I would expect.

For Labour their highest 2nd Pref is actually the SNP, just ahead of the Tories. but if you look at the SNP+Green vs LDem+Tory, then basically the same number of Labour voters are giving their second preferences to the Pro-Indy and Pro-Union sides.   That flies in the face of the stance the Labour leadership are taking.

Tory voters seem to be the ones who are most hardline on the constitutional question as only 7% of their preferences are going to pro-Indy parties.  In comparison, Greens, SNP and Alba give 20% to Labour.

https://twitter.com/BallotBoxScot/status/1525121255753625601?s=20&t=tCJd4yp4ifocEqyGiSrMOA

Labour are going to be a major threat to indy going forward, they give me a wee bit of the fear.. what’s happening with glasgow city council, are the snp going to run it as a minority? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, hampden_loon2878 said:

Labour are going to be a major threat to indy going forward, they give me a wee bit of the fear.. what’s happening with glasgow city council, are the snp going to run it as a minority? 

They are going to be no threat whatsoever if they go into coalition with the Tories . I actually feel sorry for Labour supporters who vote for them for their traditional policies and not for their anti independence stance. They are getting fooked. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, hampden_loon2878 said:

Labour are going to be a major threat to indy going forward, they give me a wee bit of the fear.. what’s happening with glasgow city council, are the snp going to run it as a minority? 

I really don’t know why you think that.  Labour to an extent have the same problem over Indy that they had over Brexit in that their party is split over the question, not down the middle but there’s a significant minority of between a quarter and a third that’s supports Indy.  They’ve also lost reams of support over the past decade because of their position as well.  

For Labour to be in a position to threaten the SNP, they need to keep those existing pro-Indy supporters and also attract back a good number of the voters they’ve lost.  They’re not going to do that by going hardline on the Union, they’re just playing for second place whatever Sarwar might claim in public.

Glasgow will either be an SNP minority as before or a formal SNP/Green coalition. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...



×
×
  • Create New...