Talk Elections

Regional turnout figures so far (from the BBC):
Eastern 43.1%
London 35.4% (I guessed correctly that the lack of local elections would suppress the turnout).
North East 38.7%
North West 39.7%
Scotland 50.7% (Not too surprising)
South West 44.6%
West Midlands 39.8%
Yorkshire and Humber 39.9%

Isle of Scilly
542 - NO
288 - YES

The first result

Vaguely encouraging, actually. More in line with 60-40 than with 66-34. :P

60% No in Orkney.

With 4/440 sites in, No leads 73-27.

Argyll and Bute says No. So does Vale of Clwyd!

Sunderland 73-27 no.

The target for votes in 9,873,000. NO has 145,932 so far.

Well, the polling was correct. Not much to say beyond that.

Pathetic.

Have to agree.  I know the ERS is run on a shoestring but the Yes campaign really plumbed new depths.

Depressing. It seems as all electoral reform movements through referenda in the western world falls flat on its nose. Voters are too dumb to see that FPTP is sh**t.

Sigged.

Y'all are cute with your anger. Love it when the left ding's the electorate for being too stupid.

^^

Atleast Clegg can take comfort that the 'Yes' vote is running ahead of his approval rating.

;D

So Lambeth and Kelvin vote in favor of AV.

The official results site seems to be down, at least for me.

Not that the result is really in doubt or anything.

Vote in Northern Ireland rumored to be roughly 50-50.

North East all in now. No wins 72-28.

Chris Huhne just compared the No campaign to the birthers on Sky News...

Seriously. Just sack this guy in the next reshuffle.

Perhaps they just rationally prefer FPTP over AV?

The government tensions of the past few weeks seem to be too... quiet.

I wonder what tensions will surface in Labour?

None probably, but they're definately there...

It would be interesting to see just how many 'No' voters thought that FPTP is genuinely the best possible system for the UK, compared to those who agree that it's sh**t but that AV is no improvement.  I wonder if it would even have been a majority of the overall vote.

()

"Red Ed" is more right-wing than John Major.

...

At the risk of sounding like a Conservative:

He's the walking, talking example that AV would've given us "2nd best" politicians - Who was the most popular with the public, most popular with the party, most popular in the first three rounds, until... AV gives us the miserable, little compromise Miliband.

http://keithdavies.org.uk/2011/04/ed-miliband-visits-llanelli/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-west-wales-13305227

Final numbers were 67.9% for 'No' to 32.1% for 'Yes'

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/interactive/2011/may/06/av-referendum-results-map

Pretty map app. (Note: orange = 50-60% no. Yes is a couple of urban thingies in purple. Darker green = over 70% no.)

It's a good map and all, but I think we could shade it better. Is there a blank map showing these - I assume they're municipal boundaries?

In England, yes. In Wales and Scotland they've used the devolved constituencies (which in Wales are the same as for Westminster).

It's interesting that Oxford and Cambridge both voted yes.

I guess you really do have to be a genius to understand AV.

When Oxford and Cambridge support something and the rest oppose it, such thing can't not be a good thing.

I've downloaded and saved their Excel Spreadsheet of votes, so I might do that as a future project (unless someone else wants to beat me to it - I have a couple of other projects on the go, so someone else will almost certainly be able to get it done before me).

Again, I'd have to argue - as someone who is opposed to AV - that it wasn't AV's fault that Labour had an awful selection of leaders to choose from. The only reason the David vs Ed contest was competitive was purely down to David's platform to be the continuity candidate, the staunch New Labourite, and as such was far more transfer repellent - despite being the obviously more charismatic and leader-like option - from the majority of Labour members wanting a more left-leaning direction.

The Wikipedia map is pretty darn good: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/52/United_Kingdom_AV_referendum_area_results.svg

It seems like the reform was too much too fast. Even with the argument that Clegg's support sank the campaign, the AV system seemed to be too complicated for the average British voter to get in favor of. FPPT has its defaults, been many voters saw the status quo as the best choice. Also the No campaign was effective in its message of an AV system leading to more Coalitions, more Nick Cleggs in government, and a rise in the far right whether it be the BNP or the tamer UKIP. Proponents of electoral reform probably should have pushed for a MMP system first and seen how that went. In fact that system seems to work perfectly fine in Scotland and Ireland, and is less unstable than a purely proportional system.

The Labor Party platform is pretty much to the right of Major nowadays thanks to that piece of sh*t Tony Blair.

MMP/PR is far more favorable to centrist/far-right parties than AV is.

How is MMP better for centrist parties. If the LibDems poll 20% of the vote under PR, they ought to get A fifth of the seats. If the numbers fall right they can hope for more under AV.

Not really. A centrist party that is also the largest party though... The Chrétien Liberals would have enjoyed even larger majorities under AV.

AV ensures larger majorities, centrist parties or not. Majorites aren't exactly bad, but large ones lead to complacency. MMP (or AV+) atleast mean that the result is fairly proportional, small parties don't get shut out and majorities can be acheived if the leading party is popular enough (SNP, for example), which i'd, personally, be okay with. It also means that everyone still has their local MP, which is fairly important in terms of illusionment and disillusionment.

Closed list is brilliant, it's one person, one vote, but the party leadership is too dominant in selection and we'd be governed by 650 faceless MPs and constant coalition isn't always the best idea.

STV is fine, but isn't always the most proportional it can be (see Fianna Fail's 20 seats on 17.4%. 17.4% should've gotten them about 30.)

Excellent! Very good! Exactly what I was hoping for!

AV doesn't favor larger or smaller majorities. AV doesn't make representation more or less proportional. In terms of global results, the only thing it does is avoiding the effect of vote split. Let's say that if party A polls 40%, and parties B and C, which are nearly identical and allied, poll 25% each, party A won't win in a landslide and parties B and C would likely have a majority together.

The honourable member for Shipley tells it like it is:
()

No concessions like, not pushing through government the NHS reforms as they currently are?

I'm not fan of Clegg, but I'm sorry to say that that last post demonstrates that you're really starting to lose focus on who your real opponents are (e.g. the Conservatives).

(Fortunately that's not irreversible :))

I agree - and it's true of many Labourites - I've certainly seen a few commentators arguing in the Mirror that concessions shouldn't be given. Whether it's just an urge to split the coalition ASAP or something more depressing that I've come to expect: many of Labour's staunch supporters being actually fairly reactionary/Conservative these days.

Now we are talking about "concessions"...

The reason why Clegg will be remembered as an utter failure and a joke is precisely because he acted as if he had to pray Cameron for concessions. That's not how people in his situation should have acted. In 2010, Clegg was the kingmaker : he had the power, and the duty to tell Cameron "I want this, this, this and this. Either you accept or you go f- yourself". He didn't have the balls to do, and instead he got a miserable little stupid concession, which he eventually ended up losing too because his acceptance of every Tory policy made him unpopular.

You make the mistake of assuming that he ever stood for anything.

It's not only about convictions or wanting to change things. The way he acted totally destroyed his political carreer, making him a total joke.

And his party...

If Cameron was called "Mr. Ten Percent" in 2009 (http://www.labour.org.uk/david_cameron_mr_10_per_cent), then this marriage of political convenience must mean that Clegg is Mrs. Ten Percent in 2011. (http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/3557)

10% approval ratings ? Yeah, makes sense. ;D

10% voting intention, but it's just as bad :P

Meh. He was the leader of the permanent centrist out-of-government eternal random protest party. And now he has a ministerial car. From his point of view...

...of course he's wrecking his party in much of the country. I note with interest that some of those places in the Pennines that stuck with the Liberals through their darkest years (most of the time) abandoned them last week; a massive leaking of votes Labourwards losing them wards to both Labour and the Tories.

The LibDems - More interested in cabinet seats over concessions.

Tory minority would've been so much better for the Liberals... (and the country, for that matter, because it wouldn't be able to be so extreme).