Sean Fear from PoliticalBetting.com has written the best analysis so far of the Conservatives' performance on Thursday night on ConservativeHome HERE. He destroys the Labour and LibDem spin on the results. He shows how the Party did very well in the North, apart from West Yorkshire, which he is worried about. Like most of us he is mystified as to why the Scottish Conservatives seem unable to win 25% of the vote. This is a subject I'll be returning to quite often, I suspect.
UPDATE: Sean says that with two councils still to count, there are 885 Conservatives gains.
15 comments:
This is by far and away the silliest bit of spin I have encountered so far. Apparently the Lib Dems did really rather well on Thursday – but there’s a catch. You have to destroy 21 councils.
Still trying hard to remain a Lib Dem under difficult circs.
Does anyone know what's going on at the two councils still to count?
Seems like a very long time to come up with a result in a rel low turn out election
the other two councils have buggered off home and will resume on Tuesday.
Nonetheless the Tories are +898, pending the remaining seats that have not yet been counted in those two councils.
THe councils in question are Breckland and Warwick.
Warwick had 17 Tories, 14 Labour, 9 LDs and 6 Other. With only 2 candidates elected thus far, it seems almost certain that the Tories will go over 900 gains.
As to Breckland, 26 councillors have yet to be elected. However, it was 42 Tories, 8 Labour, and 4 Other prior to the election. So there is little room for Tory gains here.
"Like most of us he is mystified as to why the Scottish Conservatives seem unable to win 25% of the vote. This is a subject I'll be returning to quite often, I suspect."
Sometimes a tidal wave hits the political landscape and its momentum swamps everything else away. Which party in Scotland over the last 8 years built the base that allowed it to be the natural home of all the voters who wanted to give labour a good kicking?
Well it was not us!
There was an excellent article in one of the broadsheets this week which did what you and so many others continue to fail to do. It actually looked at the biggest problem which faced the party North of the border in the last 10 years. It recognised that the sheer level of NEGLECT by previous leaders was the biggest cause of our failure to improve our performances, it also recognised that David Cameron finally wanted to address this problem.
Annabel Goldie and David Cameron between them seem determined to work together and rebuild the party up here, all we need now is the armchair critics to give a balanced overview of the present situation, taking into account the previous neglect and the sheer scale of the job in hand.
We ran a great and very positive campaign without resorting to the petty scaremongering tactics used by Labour or the Libdems. I knew which way the tide was turning with regard the SNP, but equally this was by far the best and most confident performance from a leadership team which wants to turn it around.
Rallings and Thrasher have done their analysis - this from the times:
Even Labour’s claim to have made progress since last year was misleading. An analysis of the results by professors Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher of Plymouth University gives Labour a 26% share of the vote, unchanged from last year, while the Tories were up from 39% to 40%.
I don't claim to know anything about Scottish politics and the way the Conservative Party is run up there, but I wonder how many Tories voted SNP as a quicker way of kicking Labour in to touch?
Don't forget South Gloucestershire, 68 of 70 seats declared, Frampton Cotterell ward with 2 seats delayed until 24th Mat because of the sudden death of a candidate. Results so far:
Conservatives 34 (+12), Labour 9 (-7), LibDem 25 (-4), UKIP lost their single seat.
2 to go for overall majority! watch this space...
Judith,
I think you've got a point there.
It's a similar story in Liverpool, Manchester and Newcastle, where conservative voters "tactically vote" for the Libdems, rather than let Labour win seats.
Anyone who has ever lived in any of those cities will remember the loony left days of Derek Hatton and the "Peoples Republic of South Yorkshire" as brought to you by David Blunkett.
Anon 9.09am: Good point re-Conservatives voting for the LibDems to keep NuLab out: This tactic has been applied by many in Liverpool. Many of my fellow "posters" on Ian`s Blog site may recall that, I, amongst many others, have been working tirelessly within the party, to create a Conservative awareness in Liverpool,during the recent local elections. Although we didn`t win seats this time, we are confident that, by the overall percentage of votes collected, there will be a big turn around in 2008.
It`s a well known fact that people need time to adapt to change so to all you cynics, (anonymongs,nulab astro turfers etc),Look out we are on our way back! Remember that "Rome wasn`t built in a day".
P.S. To my dear friend Jonathan Hemlock: I realise that there are far too many manys in my previous posting, should you be in pedantic mode! Oops!
There is another reason, rarely mentioned, for the decline to almost total irrelevance of the Tory Party in Scotland over the last half century:
Ulster, and in particular religion, or rather it's decreasing importance to most Scottish people.
Most Ulster Unionsts are of Scottish desent and (traditionally) Presbyterian. Most Irish Republicans are Catholics.
The traditonal Scottish arrangement was that the Conservative and UNIONIST Party--and Glasgow Rangers--was the home for the Presbyterian, Unionist, majority of Scots, even in such apparenty unlikely places as Glasgow. (Believe it or not, the majority of Glasgow's MPs used to be Tory.)
Meanwhile the Catholic support gathered around Labour--and Glasgow Celtic--but there were more Protestants than Catholics, so as recently as the 1956 GE, an absolute majority of Scots were Tory MPs.
With the modern demise of religion in most people's lives, the large number of working class Protestants who had voted Unionist have now found themselves more at home voting Labour.
Meanwhile the SNP has come along and filled the gap left by a retreating Scottish Tory Party in providing a viable alternative to Labour--and the Scottish Tory Party has been reduced to the status of an also-ran.
I believe this is the most important single fact about the situation in Scotland. There are others, but this is the (mostly unmentioned)elephant in the room.
I don't know what the answer is, except that I am certain there is no quick fix. It will take decades to climb back up into relevance north of the border--if ever.
[2br02b]
Judith, your are right about many Conservative voters "lending" their support to the SNP. They finally got a chance to really give Labour a good drubbing at the polls and no one was going to persuade them otherwise.
True Blue:
I think it was you who nailed me over a grammatical error that I made last week, so I've learned my lesson!
Keep up the good work in the 'pool.
Anon 12:39
The Ulster Unionist Party once took the Tory whip at Westminster.
The NI Conservatives today are a fringe party with little hope of success.
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