12.35 Northumberland: Three Tory gains and 12 LibDem gains. Libs become largest party.
12.18 Just typed a URL into the Guardian website and got this... I should think so too.
12.13 Jonathan Isaby has a distrubing report of disenfranchisement in North London.
11.50 More good news from the West Midlands. 6 gains so far in Wolverhampton.
11.49 Ipswich borough council: Labour gain 2 seats from Conservative, one from Liberal Democrat. New council: Lab 21, Con 19, Lib Dem 8. NOC. What on earth happened to the Conservative vote there? Anyone know?
11.35 Lynne Featherstone is running a poll on the BBC election coverage. So far 67% reckon it was 'very bad'. Apart from the bit Lynne was in, natch.
11.33 Paul Bristow has news of a crushing Tory by election win in Hammersmith & Fulham.
11.32 Great night for Lorraine Fullbrook, Tory candidate in South Ribble. 5 Wards up for election - 5 Conservative Cllrs elected. In Rufford with 85% of the Vote - In Tarleton with 88% of the vote in straight fights with Labour.
11.24 Antony Little explains the Conservative progress in Norwich and predicts a big shakeup. The Greens have replaced the LibDems as Labour's main opposition.
11.18 LabourHome has its fingers firmly in its ears. La la la. Can't hear you. Move along. Nothing to see. Discussion of today is whether election leafkets are junk mail. Unbelievable!
11.17 Tony Sharp has news of the most idiotic LibDem comment of the day.
11.07 Dave Sutton, Labour leader of Reading Council, has lost his Katesgrove council seat.
11.06 EXCLUSIVE: Conservatives have now taken control of North Tyneside.
11.05 EXCLUSIVE: Tories have two of the three seats they need to tske control of North Tyneside with a recount in a third ward and others still to come. Tory vote in one ward went up from 1700 to 3800.
11.04 LibDems may well take control of Burnley.
10.36 Right, I think I had better put some clothes on, don't you? Back at 11am! Too much info? Wipe that image from your mind NOW!
10.24 I'm hearing that 3,000 postal votes have been destroyed in Tower Hamlets. Anyone know anything about this?
10.21 Love her as I do, I do wonder at the wisdom of Labour High Command sending out Hazel Blears to do the media round. Wouldn't it be better to send Jack Straw, David Miliband, Alan Johnson and John Hutton. Ah, I see the problem.
10.10 I spoke to soon. The Dour one is on TV now.
10.05 MacAvity has disappeared again. He's issued a statement, but not appeared. Plus ca change.
10.02 Geoff Hoon has form on this. He's like Hitler's spokesman immediately after Satlingrad had surrendered saying: "Disaster, what disaster". Even as we speak, The Fuehrer is planning a new offensive...
9.51 The message from Labour politicians this morning is "The Tories' policies are going to come under increased scrutiny". Harman's said it and so has the Chipmunk on 5 Live, just now. Bit of a weak line of defence. So expect PMQs to become Leader of the Opposition's Question Time in a far more overt way.
9.45 Just written a short piece for CommentIsFree on whether Gordon Brown has reached a tipping point. I will link to it when they put it up.
9.10 ConservativeHome has some evocative photos from inside CCHQ last night.
9.01 Brassneck has analysis of Gordon Brown's position HERE.
8.57 When I got home at 4.30am last night I couldn't resist reading through Guido's Live Chat. At times hilarious, at times horrifying. But a great innovation. Expect me to copy it soon!
8.47 Speaking outside his home this morning David Cameron said: "I think this is a very big moment for the Conservative Party, I don’t want any one to think we would deserve to win an election just on the back of a failing government. I want us to really prove to people that we can make the changes that they want to see in terms of schools and hospitals and crime and the other issues that really matter to all of us - and that’s what I’m going to devote myself and my party to doing over the next few months." Just the right tone.
8.36 Listening to Eric Pickles on TODAY at the moment. One of the great lessons for the Tory Party tonight is that Eric should be used on the media a lot more. The man is - and aways has been - an absolute star.8.34 For those who missed the BBC coverage last night THIS was Emily Maitlis introducing the bloggers' panel at the start of the programme. I have asked for them to clip the third appearance where I laid into Michael Portillo - due to public demand, you understand.
8.27 This short clip from Webcameron shows David uttering the memorable words "It's on Iain Dale, is it confirmed?"
8.24 David Cameron is visiting Barry, Nuneaton and Bury this morning. Anyone know why?!
8.21 Morning campers. Three hours sleep, and I'm back, raring to go and blogging from my bed. Got that mental image in your mind? Aren't laptops a wonderful thing? Apart from when they're being nicked, that is...
63 comments:
Congratulations on your live blog during the night. It was 1st class and ahead of the pack. Well done.
Perhaps you will deal with the Portillo problem in a blog. My feeling is that the guy has deep problems having failed to be become leader and losing his seat. He is outside of the mainstream and is deeply affected by it. If he wants to get involved he should go to the Lords but he did himself much harm last night. Your views?
I will have your blog refreshing at regular intervals today.
Good morning, Iain! Thanks for the great blogging yesterday and last night.
Eric Pickles - looks like he is channelling Bernard Manning
Good morning one and all. Suppose it was A Hard Day's Night for poor old Brown?
Why do these silly Cabinet members keep saying they will be "listening"? Are they deaf?!!! I would have thought the message from the masses was coming through loud and clear.
The sun is shining and it's a wonderful day.
Thanks for your contribution last night Iain. It made the coverage so much more exciting.
Jill
Iain just wanted to say how much I enjoyed your blogging of the results last night, I'm no longer actively involved in politics but really got some of the "vibe" coming through from your posts. I'm sure the results were part of the reason for that but the immediacy of the blogging put the trad broadcasters to shame.
can anyone confirm that Bury is pronounced "Burry" by the locals and not "Berry"? Cameron should be told if he is going to repeat it all day.
Bury is indeed prnounced "Burry" and never "Berry" by the locals.
Hi
What a wonderful night, and yes you are right Eric is a star, as last week's any questions proved, he out classed Bleaars on every point!
Well done all
H
Can't agree with you about Eric Pickles I'm afraid, Iain. I was very disappointed when I heard him speak at a Spring Forum a few years back and haven't been impressed when I've heard him on the media since.
Still, don't want to spoil a great result for the Party!
l love the irony of the 1st of May, May Day, Labour Day, the day which celebrates the social and economic achievements of the Labour party. Being the Day when the people told the Labour party exactly what they thought of their social and economic achievements.
i gave up on the bbc's woeful coverage, and just ended up reading the livechat on both Guido and ConHome....
UK political blogging finally came of age last night.
Congratulations Iain on a really excellent blog last night. After coming back from our post election drink, settled down with my laptop on web and walk and switched back and forth between your blog, Guido, & Conhome whilst alternating between BBC1 and Sky. I thought your results service was usually ahead of the rest!
I don't think any of us have fully grasped the impact of all the new technology on electioneering. However in Beckenham, where we have a massive Conservative vote, we also went back to some old style razzamataz campaigning which went down very well with younger people who have never seen it before. As well as the usual manning of polling stations, telling and knocking up we had teams at every railway station from 4.30pm onwards to leaflet homegoing commuters and sent our hired battlebus decorated with Boris posters and ballons round all day to loudspeaker all the strong areas. I woke up this morning after 3 hours sleep shouting "Vote Boris and James Cleverly, throw the Livingstone and his corrupt cronies out of City Hall".
I can't believe I'm about to say this to another man - but your stamina is very impressive.
Cameron definitely and extremely clearly said "we just won BERRY" in an extremely posh voice.
Thats the way to convince us you're a man of the (northern) people Dave.
Just as well it wasnt Norwich or Leicester.
Thanks for the coverage last night/this morning, Iain.
I thought the BBC coverage was good especially David Dimbleby, an excellent anchor and really giving Lab representatives a hard time about their line to spurt. That Prof King is a national treasure, his face when listening to some of the Lab bullshit spoke volumes.
Caroline Spelman was awesome against Miliband, I want her to have my babies.
It was a good night for the country well done all Con activists.
macavity has dissapeared again - on sky news and the bbc journalists are saying that he did an off-camera briefing to them.
also "sources" in downing street concede that Boris is going to win.
oh wait - macavity is now on bbc news - albeit not "live"...
seems to have been recorded earlier.
Just saw Jonah on 'bbc news'. Didn't he blab about listening and learning when he first bungled his way to power? Does this mean we are going to have to put up with such spin and lies for the next couple of weeks as part of his latest relaunch?
If/when Boris wins, surely it would be rude for Gordon not to officially be there to welcome him?
chipmunk is doing the rounds...
In the general vein of Stalingrad:
Who's going to tell Bean that the Tanks have already rumbled down the autobahn and are pushing their way towards the Fuhrer bunker?
But wait, Bean launched his V weapon - Hazel Blears!!!
The 'Tories are now going to come under increased scrutiny' was Clegg's line too.
I think it is spot on. This is an interesting time for them, people think they can win but still don't know WHAT they stand for or what their policies are. The Tories will have to start releasing some of their policies??
'Buff' Hoon clip..
Fuc*ing Priceless !!!
I wouldn't be so confident about Boris.
Ken transcends the Labour Party in London and has a huge personal vote.
The "Give Gordon a Good Kicking" factor doesn't apply in the same way.
That said, I expect Labour loses in the Assembly. And, tragically, a seat for Nazis.
A question: given the choice, would you Tories prefer a Boris win and the BNP in the Assembly, or a Ken win and the BNP stuffed out of sight?
As a Ken supporter, I'm not sure which way I'd go if the options were switched. The BNP are a cancer.
Clearly, 'Hearing-aid' Hoon has now made very clear just what NuLab mean by 'listening'.
The Hoon moment was my favourite moment of the whole election coverage.
Just saw Jonah, the bbc reporter (is he really meant to be critical?...on the beeb!?) made the comment that Brown refused to admit he would change...Gordon really likes doing his best to usher in a new Conservative government, doesn't he...
what sort of time are we actually expecting the Mayoral results? thanks
"Three hours sleep"
Respect. Sorry, I couldn't stay with you - kept falling asleep. Local elections just don't have that 'must see' excitement. Stayed around until about 1.00 then gave in. The "lovely Emily Maitlis" isn't that lovely, and she was wearing too many clothes; Dimbleby is insufferably smug; Vine is appalling; Tessa Jowell is just so boring.
Now I'm going to read through the stuff on your site to catch up.
I hope the Tories keep very quiet about their policies. Nobody's asking for them except Labour politicians who want to steal them.
This live blogging business is great. We used to get some old stuffed shirts opining stiffly in a TV studio.
Now we get Guido doing live chat with red wine and fruity comments and Iain telling us he's in bed and naked! How cool is that?
Makes the whole business much more personal and accessible. I also like the fact that having bloggers involved on TV encourages honest opinion. Iain duffing up Portillo, Littlejohn duffing up Polly - I think this now forces a more open and defensible approach to political punditry.
Well done Iain. If you tell us next you're live blogging whilst sitting on the loo I think the whole business could be deemed to have become mature.
Well done on the live blog Iain. I hope you got my text messages :) I did try and keep you up to date. The live chat-blogs are a great innovation, I hope you'll use them too in the future.
OK I was wrong I predicted a 90 seat loss seems more. My view is
Iain
1. Your close encounters with Emily M etc are totally wasted. next time they need a leading heterosexual Tory blogger with loose morals. Sadly both you and Tim only 50% qualify...
2. Villains of the moment: Jeremy Vine, Portillo, Simon Heffer. If Portillo was so uninterested in being there, I wonder whether it was because he is contracted to be at the Beeb on Thursday nights for the usual programme and was there rather against his will. As a former admirer of the man, his performance was pathetic. As for Vine and Heffer, both should be sacked from their respective organisations. As subscribers to both, I resent a penny of my cash landing up in either of their pockets based on their performances this week.
3. I agree with those who say the Mayoralty is not a done deal, not because I don't think Boris has performed well in the campaign, but because the Labour areas were turning out as strongly as ours.
4. Win or lose - where are all those jeremiahs who said that Boris would implode, gaffe etc during the campaign. Is anyone now saying that Victoria, Warwick or Andrew would have given Ken the run for his money that Boris has?
Adam Boulton and Sky were far superior to the BBC.
Rumour is the Westminster Branch of Carphone Warehouse has had to send round a box of new mobile phones to Downing Street.
3,000 postal votes burned in Tower Hamlets. Probably the tip of the iceberg. Expect to hear a lot more stuff like this. Labour will do anything to keep control of London.
Given that the results represent such a "bad news day" for Labour where is GB - missing again. Off on holiday?
Harriet(what £350k)Harman on Today gave the usual blather "must focus" "must listen" - so what have they been doing for the last 10 years or so. Labour have run out of ideas and trust.
Hi Iain
Well done. I packed in at 2 AM when the Manchester and Salford results were all in. Then again I had been tramping the streets on the knocker most of the day too.
The thing about Eric Pickles ... is that he is Cameron's John Prescott. Mostly more coherent in freeform interview of speech - mores the pity really - but this is the Prescott of the Tories.
Best w
Chris P
This wasn't just a vote against Labour. It was a vote against Billy Bragg, Will Self, David Aaronovich, Yasmin Alibi Brown, Polly Toynbee, Damien Hurst, Tracey Emin, Zoe Williams, Wotisname Richards, Ken's luvvies and everyone else who had the temerity to assume that voters would take a blind bit of notice in what they thought about anything.
Pickles - couldn't agree with you more Ian. This man is brilliant - he is the architect of the Lib Lib Lovebomb, and is defititely what we need- an authentic northern no nonsense politician. I heard him on Any Questions last Friday, where he wiped the floor with HAzel Blears. PICKLES FOR CHAIRMAN!!!!!!!
Barry, Bury, Boris!
anon 10:20
your knowledge of WW2 history is appalling - you must have been educated under NuLab
I'm a councillor in Croydon and we were seeing fantastic turnout in my marginal ward and we were looking at 60-70% turnout of our pledges. I know from friends in Wandsworth that we were getting into the low 70s. We put in a super human effort and I think it might just have paid off.
Iain,
You had a VERY busy day yesterday. Did you actually get to vote? Just wondering.
Patrick, I always have a postal vote.
I gave up viewing at about 12:15 last night as the predictions were not coming across good for the tories and the pundits were pretty down beat both on the BBC and Sky.
Just before I hit the sack I had a glance at your blog and you were painting a completely different picture.
What was going on?
Iain, do you have any information on the specifics of the Vale of Glamorgan result? BBC haven't updated their stats, and I wondered if you knew what the gains had been...
LabourHome is trying, bless it - http://www.labourhome.org/story/2008/5/2/5202/29311
Blogging came into its own last night. Well done Iain, and everyone.
Re pronunciation. Of course he said 'Berry' you pillock. It would have been patronising in the extreme if he'd started talking in the local dialect everywhere he went. I don't think he's going to start calling Sunderland "Sundland" like the locals. And he won't be saying "Lanson" like the Cornish but Launceston like everyone else. And if he goes to Heathrow he won't call it 'Eafrow'. Geddit?
Reading Labourhome really is like reading Pravda! If you didn't read any other blog you'd never know that anything bad had ever happened to the Labour cause. Maybe they should re-name the site www.comical-ail.org?
You can't help but feel a bit sorry for David Sutton at Reading (re your 11.07 post). Like May Day in Red Square, his bio has already been airbrushed from the council's website and his mug, desk photos and potted cactus, together with his souvenir pencil sharpener from the LGIU, have already been cleared from the Leader's Office and left in a box behind the porter's counter. Metaphorically. I'm sure he'll be heartened by the Fist's apology to the latest 200 to join the welfare lines. His official biog used to be:
"Councillor David Sutton has been a councillor since 1988 and Leader of Reading Borough Council since 1995. Before becoming Leader, he served as Vice-Chair of the Planning Committee, Chair of the Waterways Sub-Committee, and Lead Councillor for Arts and Leisure.
He is closely associated with many of the "big projects" which have transformed Reading since the 1990s, with the openings of the new Museum of Reading, the refurbished Town Hall, the Madejski Stadium, the Oracle Centre, the new Berkshire Record Office, and (most recently) the new Reading sewage works being particular highlights.
He is now one of the longest-serving council leaders in the south of England, and serves as Chair of the Berkshire Leaders Group, and Vice-Chair of both the Association of Councils in the Thames Valley Region and the Local Government Information Unit. He has chaired the Council’s Personnel Committee, and has been closely involved in the Reading Declaration Against Racism. Anti-racism and international solidarity have always been key features of his politics, and he was a leading member of the Anti-Apartheid movement for almost thirty years.
His personal interests include travel, walking coastal paths and sport."
Has anyone else noticed the discrepancies between the figures on the Beeb & Sky ? Although they are both showing almost identical numbers for Councils, the numbers on Sky for councillors are far higher - they're showing Labour as already having lost over 230 seats, but the BBC is saying -170.
Ipswich: funny old place, local uproar to do with Chief Executive's pay packet I understand
Labourhome: they only sing when they're winning?
Iain
Very well done, thanks for your extremely hard work. It's made the whole process much more immediate and interesting.
jeremy vine is doing his egregious mr bean schtick again! I cant stand it - its the fourth time I have caught it on the beeb. Now on the daily politics. What idiot at the BBC thinks this is either informative or funny?
Aaaarghhhh!
Iain,
I'm going to Spain now. Thank you for your indispensable coverage last night and this morning - a real antidote to the inane coverage of the BBC.
I am looking forwards to hearing about the Boris Victory over a pint or two of Rioja.
What a great day to be a Conservative.
DT
Wolverhampton falls to NOC - 8 tory gains. Lib Dems and Tories look set to go into a deal to power share.
What was John Denham chatting about last night? Blaming lib dems for a Conservative victory in Southampton. What a croc.
Also, good work on the blogging last night; although as a viewer I was not impressed that the BBC kept plugging Maitliss' blog as if it were the definitive political answer to the elections.
Everyone knows that news anchors get brainy-yet-ugly flunkies to do all the heavy duty news research and writing for them.
I'm just waiting to see what happens tonight in London. C'mon Boris!
Ed Balls on Jeremy Vine...talking absolute DRIVEL. Has learnt nothing. Protesting that Labour has got it right...
Desperate Dan
Well thank you. As I am visiting Leicester tomorrow I shall be careful to avoid patronising the locals by calling it "Lester".
Even Norfolk Blogger has gone quiet. He must be very sad for his Labour party friends.
PS he is Liberal not Labour
Alix Mortimer made a slightly snide comment about Iain protecting her honour. But in any case I don‘t think she‘s safe with him around at all. Check out his blog.
During the night he:
08:34 ‘laid into Michael Portillo‘
00:41 was in a tantric position with Emily Maitlis, later bragging that she ‘did brilliantly‘
01.04 had ‘Just been having a threeway’ *
10.36 commented ‘Right, I think I had better put some clothes on’
He combined all this with an all-night frenzy of political activity. Iain Dale is clearly possessed with unnatural levels of stamina and in his company nothing with a pulse is safe. Ms Mortimer would be at less threat from Nick '<30' Clegg.
*This included Polly Toynbee, aaargh!! I bet most men would rather do Eric Pickles.
"3,000 postal votes burned in Tower Hamlets."
The brothers following Comrade Bob's lead in Zim?
Desperate Dan said...
"Adam Boulton and Sky were far superior to the BBC."
No change there then.
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