UK local elections, May 2012

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

And in case, people are wondering about Cardiff, here is the result in 2008 (with the change on 2004)
Conservatives 70,238 votes (28% +7%) winning 17 seats (+5 seats)
Labour 68,024 votes (27% -3%) winning 13 seats (-14 seats)
Liberal Democrats 66,940 votes (26% -7%) winning 35 seats (+2 seats)
Plaid Cymru 32,120 votes (13% +3%) winning 7 seats (+4 seats)
Independents 11,685 votes (5% +3%) winning 3 seats (+3 seats)
Others 5,215 votes (2% -1%) winning 0 seats (unchanged)
Conservative lead of 2,214 (1%) on a swing of 5% from Lab to Con
No Overall Control, Liberal Democrats short by 3

Bizarre numbers. Their fall in May will be steep there, in terms of seats, with majorities like what they must have in Cardiff wards...

The weird thing is that there are a quite a lot of safe Lib Dem seats in Cardiff (at least in the 2004/2008 context).  If the Lib Dems were to lose every seat they held with a majority of less than 10% in 2008 they would still be left with 20 seats (a loss of 15).  (Incidentally, one of the councillors who would lose out in that scenario is a very good friend of mine.)

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

http://www.gwydir.demon.co.uk/uklocalgov/elec2012.htm

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

Just to let everyone know that my book and spreadsheet of the 2008 UK local election results are now finished.

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

Map of Welsh 2008 local election results:

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

Major corruption scandal has just blown up in Bury. One of the councillors arrested led the council until last May's elections.

Bribes, I note. Old school.

Bury people don't do nonsense.

The two Tory councillors arrested represented the two safest Tory wards in the borough: Church ward (basically western Bury along Bolton Road and Ainsworth Road, quite middle-class although there are some dodgier bits) and North Manor ward (a collection of villages between Bury and Ramsbottom that don't really have any connections to each other: Greenmount on the western side of the valley, Walmersley on the eastern side of the valley and Summerseat in the bottom of the valley - basically this ward only exists to keep Walmersley out of neighbouring Moorside ward and stop Moorside voting Tory).

Given that the Conservatives have several seats to defend this year which Labour won easily last year, plus some other difficult defences, they're not exactly making it easy for themselves.

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

Not having anything better to do I have put all the Scottish candidate lists together into one document.

Download here (PDF, 2.60 MB)

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

One fewer candidate for the Scottish locals: Aberdeen council have found out that Helena Torry, who had been nominated for Hazelhead/Ashley/Queens Cross ward, is actually a mannequin.

http://www.eveningexpress.co.uk/Article.aspx/2708037
http://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/CouncilNews/ci_cns/pr_notice_poll_020412.asp

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

Back from work and voting.  My long week in work is over, now time to relax.

Again, the polling station was pretty dead (only one other voter while I was there), and this is one of Bolton's biggest polling districts.

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

Linacre ward is in Bootle, so the smiley ain't necessary.

Sunderland has finished counting.  Well done to them.

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

Huge Labour gains in Bury.  Labour gained all three Lib Dem seats in Prestwich and seven seats from the Conservatives in the rest of the borough.  The Tories won only Pilkington Park in Whitefield, Church in Bury and North Manor; they lost Tottington.  New council is Lab 36 (+10) C 13 (-7) LD 2 (-3).

Bolton had the same results as last year.  New council is Lab 41 (+6) C 14 (-4) LD 3 (-2).

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

Whenever the Times were doing articles with councils to watch, they included Eastleigh with the comment "UKIP candidates in Chris Huhne's constituency".  Pointless.

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

Reports on Twitter that the Lib Dems have held Llandaff ward (Cardiff) with increased majorities.  As one of the Lib Dem councillors for Llandaff is a good friend of mine from the quiz circuit, I am very happy

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

Another Lib Dem shutout in Rochdale.

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

I have gone through all the English council webpages so you don't have to and printed all the English 2012 results off into one file.  Here it is:
https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/teale-elections/england12.psom.pdf.
This is 32.7MB so I would recommend downloading it first rather than trying to open it directly in your web browser.  Good luck trying to find anything.