Recently in General Elections Category

Before the election, as part of the campaign against the Digital Economy Bill (now unfortunately passed into law), I used a tool to contact the various candidates who were standing in my constituency. This was at the end of April.

I've now had one response, from David Ward, who was the Liberal Democrat candidate and was elected as my MP. It essentially re-iterates the LibDem's view that the act should not have been passed during the 'wash-up' and that they "remain to be convinced about the necessity for technical measures".

No other candidates responded, and the previous MP Terry Rooney (Labour) did not respond to my earlier message either.

On the subject of the Digital Economy Act, the Open Rights Group have a petition for repealing it - it's attracted a lot of signatures already.

Normally, 36 hours after a general election, we'd know who our new Prime Minister was and he would be in the process of selecting people for his/her cabinet. This has not been a normal election.

Technically, our previous Prime Minister is still in charge, since nobody has an overall majority. But it's probably going to be some time before anyone comes forward to form a government.

Rather than worrying about it, I'm off to go shopping in Leeds and chill out.

Well most of the results of yesterday's election are in, and it is officially a 'hung' parliament - no party has more than 50% of the seats. Here's my take:

The Bad

• The LibDems didn't make the breakthrough that we expected. They did poll a respectable 23% of all votes cast, but due to our archaic voting system this has only translated to 51 seats so far. Labour have 29% and that gave them 247 seats - almost 5 times more despite only getting an additional 6%.
• Dr Evan Harris, the LibDem science spokesperson, lost his seat in Oxford, to a religious science sceptic.
• The Conservatives took several seats in West Yorkshire, including Keighley and Calder Valley, and held Shipley which they narrowly won last time.

The Good

• The Conservatives haven't got the majority that they wanted, and it's possible that a coalition of other parties could form an alternative majority or near-majority government against them.
• The Liberal Democrats won in my constituency, Bradford East, which used to be a Labour seat. Admittedly the win was by less than 400 votes but a win is a win.
• The British National Party have once again failed to win any seats, and in most constituencies came no higher than third place. Nick Griffin, their leader standing in Barking, actually polled less votes than in 2005.
• The Green Party will have their first MP in Brighton.
• Jacqui Smith, whose husband claimed two porn films on her parliamentary expenses, and Shahid Malik, who was also embroiled in the expenses scandal, both lost their seats; however, they unfortunately lost them to the Conservatives.

Although most of the results are now in, this isn't the end. We can expect days, or perhaps weeks of uncertainty until a government is formed. I'm hoping that a Labour/Liberal Democrat coalition is possible but there's potentially many different things that could happen during May. Let's hope that whatever happens will be in the best interests of the country and its people.

Today is election day in the UK. If you are registered to vote, and haven't already done so by post, please go out and vote. You have until 10pm today, and if you've lost your polling card, don't worry, you'll still be able to vote. You can also still vote in person if you have a postal vote that you haven't yet used.

I've already said who I've voted for (which I did in person early this morning). I'm not asking you to vote in a particular way, just to vote. This is the closest general election for 18 years, and the first time in many years that there has been a genuine three-way split between the main parties nationwide, so your vote counts more than it ever has done.

In related news, Gordon Brown visited the university where I work yesterday, and did a speech and a walkaround. The back of my head is therefore on page 5 of Metro this morning. Unfortunately I didn't manage to shake his hand.

[An earlier version of this entry said I didn't manage to 'change' his hand. Obviously the theme of 'change' has entered my subconsciousness]

This is a scanned copy of a leaflet from the British National Party - the BNP - that I received through my letterbox earlier this week. Disregarding the poor design and use of stock photography (are BNP sympathisers too ugly to print?), it's ironic that it has a picture of their leader Nick Griffin juxtaposed with Sir Winston Churchill, our prime minister during the Second World War.

In other words, it shows the person who lead our nation during a war against fascists, alongside someone who basically is a fascist.

This isn't the first time that the BNP has tried to steal the bandwagon of things that are seen as quintessentially British - the party is being threatened legal action by Unilever over its use of Marmite in an online election broadcast.

I've uploaded the leaflet in full size to The Straight Choice, which is hosting leaflets for political parties. If you've been sent a leaflet (and I'm sure just about everyone has received at least one), scan it, or take a photo of it, and upload it to the site. Hopefully the data generated from it will prove interesting.

The events of the past couple of weeks have ensured that this election is very much a three-horse race between Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. There are of course some smaller parties who are fielding candidates in a large number of constituencies - UKIP, BNP, Green Party and various English, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish parties.

And then there's the rest. YourNextMP.com lists a huge number of parties fielding 1 or more candidates in the upcoming election (now only 9 days away). In true British tradition, some are quite frankly silly.

The venerable Official Monster Raving Loony Party has put forward 27 candidates this time around, including such characters as Eddie Vee (Yorkshire's premier Elvis impersonator, standing in York Central) and Matt 'Bananamatt' Fensome who is presumably trying to make Milton Keynes North a more interesting place (good luck with that...).

The Pirate Party UK is new this year, having taken inspiration from a Swedish party. It's actually a serious party which focusses on the issues of file sharing and illegal downloading. It's fielding 9 candidates across the country.

Citizens for Undead Rights and Equality or 'CURE' has 4 candidates who are campaigning for more rights for zombies. Best of a Bad Bunch's mission is 'injecting some decency into politics', and in Dartford you'll be able to vote for the Fancy Dress Party. Surprisingly enough, the Hugh Salmon for Battersea party has just one candidate called Hugh Salmon, who is standing in Battersea.

Others include the British Unicorn Party, New Millennium Bean Party, the Nobody Party, the No Candidate Deserves My Vote! party, the Reduce Tax On Beer party (obviously beer prices are an issue in Chelmsford) and the True English (Poetry) Party - each just has one candidate.

Finally, it may be worth mentioning Mad Cap'n Tom, standing as an independent pirate candidate in London and Westminster. He's behind the UK Talk Like A Pirate Day web site and the parody Preparing for Emergencies site. He's also previously been president of York University Student Union, during which time he had a cannon pointing at the vice chancellor's office.

Update: The BBC has published a similar article which goes into more depth.

In honour of the general election, I bring you a couple of videos. The first, courtesy of the BBC (may not work outside the UK)...

Meanwhile, David Cameron presents a new vision for Britain:

And a tribute to Nick Clegg (probably not safe for work due to swearing).

I was intending to delay this announcement until closer to the election on May 5th, but recent events have inspired me to post this entry much earlier than planned.

It probably comes as only a minor surprise that I will be voting LibDem two weeks on Thursday. Thus far I have voted LibDem in every election since I reached 18, bar the previous general election when I voted for the Green Party due to dissatisfaction with the local LibDem parliamentary candidate. This time I have no such issue, and believe more than ever that voting for the LibDems is worth it.

There are several reasons why I will vote this way:

1. Policies

The party is the one I agree with the most (or, disagree with the least). As someone who works in higher education, I get to see first-hand some of the financial hardship that students have to go through to get a degree. Years ago, university was free for UK students; now, most students will borrow an average of over £20,000 to fund their education. It's meant more students staying at home with their parents, rather than getting their first taste of independence at age 18. Further limits have meant that those with degrees already, who want to do a second degree in a new subject, have to pay eye-watering fees of at least £6,000 per year with many charging over £10,000 per year - and that just covers tuition; books, accommodation, printing, food etc. all have to be paid for as well, and you can't get a student loan to cover it. This has stopped many people with degrees in less employable subjects going back to University to be tomorrow's doctors, pharmacists, civil engineers, researchers and other professions where a relevant degree is necessary. This country needs graduates, yet only the LibDems are committed to abolishing tuition fees.

Not one Liberal Democrat MP voted in favour of the Digital Economy Act, which has now been passed into law and puts in place a number of potentially draconian new rules for dealing with illegal file sharing, and the party stated that it will repeal it if elected. As it happens, the act was passed due to support from the other two parties. It may just be one act, but for me this was a deciding issue for this election. While some high-profile Labour MPs did oppose it, such as Tom Watson, it was clear that the Labour whip was in favour of it.

The Liberal Democrats opposed the war in Iraq, which, admittedly, did free the country of the tyranny of Saddam Hussain but also lead to a war which was started without a United Nations mandate, probably illegal under UK law, has caused a significant amount of destabilisation in the country and the wider middle-east region and resulted in the deaths of a large number of our serving armed forces. The LibDems are also against the renewal of our Trident nuclear missile arsenal, which would be incredibly expensive and would come at a time when both the USA and Russia have agreed to reduce their stockpiles of nuclear weapons.

Vince Cable warned before the global economic meltdown started that the economy was in trouble and that banks were taking too much risk. While we'll never know what could have happened if the LibDems were in power at the time, I trust Cable to manage the economy better than it has been.

I also respect Dr Evan Harris, the LibDem's science spokesperson, who backs evidence-based approaches to science (i.e. what every other scientist does) rather than be guided by the media and public opinion. The recent spats between the government and its drugs advisory committee show that scientific evidence should drive policy, not political witch-hunts and media pressure.

2. People

The first leaders' debate showed that Nick Clegg can stand above his rivals and not to stoop to their levels of back-biting. It was telling that 'I agree with Nick' was used by both other candidates several times during the debate, and Clegg was a much more confident speaker. There are also some people in Labour and the Conservatives that I really don't like - Lord Mandleson, who just needs a black helmet and cape to complete the transformation into Darth Vader; and Chris Grayling, the shadow home secretary who recently said that discriminating against gay couples was fine in some circumstances. There's Philip Davies, previously MP for Shipley and seeking re-election, who won't be opposed by UKIP because he's sufficiently far-right for them - this is an MP who voted against legislation to combat climate change and gay rights. And there's the 3 Labour MPs who are claiming legal aid to defend themselves against allegations that they claimed illegitimate expenses using taxpayers' money. And my local Labour MP hasn't exactly done much to win my vote of late, having neither acknowledged nor responded to my communications regarding the Digital Economy Act. I could go on, but I trust the people in the Liberal Democrat party more than their opposition.

Oh, and they have an MP called Lembit Opik, who dated one of the Cheeky Girls. That's awesome.

3. Profile

I would bet a small amount of money that there are a number of people who would have voted for the Liberal Democrats previously had they had a realistic chance of being elected, but have instead voted tactically. After Thursday's debate, the Liberal Democrats shot up in the polls due to Clegg's admirable performance and have stayed equal or above Labour for a few days now, and so are in with a chance of winning the election (or at least putting up a very good showing). For too long, they have been seen as the 'other' party, or an 'also-ran', covered in the news and satire programmes purely for balance. Thursday's Have I Got News For You, which was broadcast at the same time as the debates, was a prime example of this. Suddenly the election has become a definite three-horse race, and I think people will be surprised at the level of support the Liberal Democrats actually have.

4. The third way

The political systems in many countries has become polarised and the United States is a good example - there's the Republicans, the Democrats, and then a handful of minor parties that very few people know or care about. In the UK we're lucky that we have 3 viable parties, giving a wider spectrum of policies and views, and this needs to be preserved.

5. Socking it to Murdoch

This is a personal thing but the power that media barons, like Rupert Murdoch, have over public opinion is sometimes quite frightening. Murdoch owns two of our largest newspapers - The Sun and The Times - and has a large stake in the Sky News TV channel (and his son is Sky's chief executive). I understand that Labour and the Conservatives have often tried hard to lobby Murdoch and his cronies to back their candidates and it seems that he's backing the Tories this time around, based on The Sun's absolutely fair and reasoned support for the party (yeah right...). If the Liberal Democrats do well, it would show Murdoch and the media elite that their powers over the electorate aren't as strong as they'd like to think (see also this comment piece).

6. Real change

The Conservative campaign has all been about change, but personally I don't think they have changed a huge amount since they were ousted in 1997. I also hold things like Section 28, the disastrous privatisation of the railways and subsequent Hatfield rail crash and lack of public service investment against them from their previous time in power. While I do concede that Britain has been better off under Labour (minimum wage, human rights act, economic growth, equal opportunities), there's so much more that could be done and I don't think Labour are capable of doing it. The Liberal Democrats have not been in power at a national level before, so they're the only major party that, in my mind, can bring real change.

May 6th is 16 days away and a lot could change, but unless something horrific and unexpected happens, I'll be voting for the Liberal Democrats. And I hope many of you will join me.

My fellow Brits - if you wish to vote in the forthcoming general election, today is the last day that you can register. Join the other 250,000 people who have registered over the past few days and the millions who are already registered to have your say in how the country will be run.

Full details are available from About My Vote from The Electoral Commission.

And so it has begun. What follows will be 30 days of campaigning, arguing, finger-pointing and sound-biting by various politicians all after one thing - your vote.

I'm mostly decided about who to vote for, but will be keeping my cards hidden just for now (but you may well be able to guess). However, I'm not completely decided, and may end up voting for a different party in the end - this is, after all, what happened to me last time there was a general election.

If you live in the UK, and are eligible to vote but haven't yet registered, then you really should register to vote. You have up to 14 days from today to register.

Having been quite vocal about my views on the BNP over the past few weeks, it's probably about time that I analysed their results.

First of all, the good news (from my perspective): they failed to win any seats, including key ones like Keighley where Nick Griffin, their leader, was standing - there, he came fourth behind the three main parties. He did, however, get 9.2% of the vote, which means he retains his deposit and means that over 4000 people felt him fit to represent them. While that still means that the vast majority of the people there don't agree with him, it's still a worringly high number.

Financially this election is going to cost them as well - while their tactic of fielding a lot of candidates gained them lots of free publicity, in 84 seats they failed to get the magical 5% that gets them their deposits back, putting a £42,000 dent in their finances.

Their best result was a 16.89% poll in East London where the candidate came third ahead of the LibDems, but they also did well in Dewsbury and kept their deposits in Rotherham and Rother Valley.

There was talk that this would be the BNP's big breakthrough when they would get their first MP, but that thankfully hasn't materialised. Still, nationally nearly 200,000 people - equivalent to the population of a small city - voted for them, which is not a good sign. It puts them as the 6th most popular party nationally, behind Labour, Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, UKIP and the Greens in that order.

The BNP, however, were not expecting to win all of their seats. Their real breakthrough will be next year, when they'll be hoping that their increased profile will net them some more council seats in the local elections. It's up to people like you and me to ensure that doesn't happen.

The next chapter in the BNP saga will come in a little under 2 weeks on 19th May, when Nick Griffin and the BNP's founder John Tyndall, will appear at Leeds Magistrates' Court to hear if they will be sentenced for race hate crimes. It's quite possible that Griffin will end up in prison for his actions.

Here we go with the post mortem entries on the election. If you're ignoring my election postings then you'll only need to bury your head in the sand for a few more days.

So it looks like Tony Blair will be our prime minister for a third successive term, with Labour only needing another 60 seats or so at time of writing. Bradford West stuck with Labour with the Greens in last behind the BNP - thankfully the Labour candidate won by a reasonable majority so I won't feel bad about not voting tactically. Labour also held City of York, and Nick Griffin came fourth in Keighley which also stayed with Labour. The BNP will keep their deposits in a few seats but in a number of areas have polled quite badly, which is good :) .

• If you've not already voted, you have 5 hours to do so. I voted this morning.
• If you're a non-Brit, you may be interested that votes cast in the country are still done by using a pencil to put a cross on a piece of paper, which is then put in a box and counted by hand after the polls close. It's a bit slow but otherwise it seems to work well.
• Over lunch I was chatting with a friend who volunteers for the St John Ambulance about the election. Apparently most of the police forces in West Yorkshire have had all leave cancelled, and the SJA are on standby, in case of rioting following a BNP win in the county.
• Word is that Marsha Singh will retain Bradford West for Labour but that there has been considerable defection to other parties, as well as a lot of postal vote fraud, again :( . We should know the result at about 1:30am tomorrow morning - it's quite a big constituency so the count may take a while.
• My overall result prediction: Labour will win with the Tories in second and LibDems in third. Labour will have lost seats to the LibDems and other parties with the Tories making no real gains. George Galloway will take Bethnal Green and Bow.

There's now only 36 hours until the polls close at 10pm tomorrow. If you have a vote, please use it and use it wisely. I'll be using mine.

Which brings me onto which party to vote for. You can probably guess that I tend to sympathise with the Liberal Democrats, but, all issues considered, this year my vote will be a Green vote. I doubt they have any chance of winning this constiuency but I'd rather vote for the party whose policies I agree with the most.

So, who are you guys voting for? And will you be voting at all?

(Note: Please keep the comments civil - no personal attacks or flames)

The Conservatives have dropped a second leaflet on our doormat, this time one that has been delivered personally rather than via the post.

If you read one thing today, make sure it's The Truth about Asylum (128KB PDF file). It gives you lots of facts and figures about immigration, refugees and asylum seekers, with references to the documents from which they were taken such as Home Office figures and reports by organisations like OFSTED and ACPO. It's especially important to read if you are considering who to vote for on Thursday and consider the subject of immigration to be a factor in your decision.

The local LibDem leaflet landed on our doorstep yesterday and, seeing as I've reviewed the others already, it's only fair that I review this one too. This now means we have had publicity from 4 of the 5 parties standing in this constituency, with only the Green party yet to furnish us with campaign material. Maybe they're trying to save paper.

As yesterday was a Sunday, I'm guessing that the delivery was by hand as opposed to through the post like other leaflets have been. I later saw the LibDem candidate Mukhtar Ali out campaigning - well, sat in the back of a taxi with a megaphone on the roof - so yesterday may well have been their big campaign day in my area. I've yet to see any other candidates out in the same way so far but I may just have missed them.

With it being the last Sunday before the election, it is the last chance that the Sunday papers have of influencing our choices on Thursday. The Guardian Election Blog has an overview of the papers, but here is a summary:

Papers that support Labour

• The Observer
• Sunday Mirror
• News of the World

Papers that support the Conservatives

• The Sunday Times
• The Sunday Telegraph
• Mail on Sunday
• Sunday Express

Papers that support the Liberal Democrats

• The Independent on Sunday

I was quite surprised at the Sunday Times backing the Tories as in the past it has generally backed Labour. The Times is under the same ownership as the News of the World (they're both Rupert Murdoch publications) so the difference of opinion is interesting.

The Independent has also been a Labour backer in the past so a switch to the LibDems is similarly interesting, although they still recommend voting Labour if the only realistic choice is between them and the Conservatives. I do admire them for this though - I can't remember a time when a national newspaper came out in support of the LibDems like this.

I would like to know how the Guardian feels this week. While Guardian Media Group owns both the Guardian and the Observer, the latter is slightly more right-wing than the former, and indeed the Observer supported the Iraq war while the Guardian was against it. I have a feeling that it too will back Labour but seeing as the Indy on Sunday backs the LibDems it could mean that they do too. But we'll see.

With this year's general election result being generally a foregone conclusion (a Labour win, with the Conservatives in seconds and LibDems third), there's been more talk of a reform to the voting system.

This morning we had two copies of Haroon Rashid's Conservative leaflet, along with one from Paul Cromie, the BNP candidate. The Tory leaflets were addresses to my housemates whereas the BNP leaflet was, well, just a leaflet. I've scanned it in and included here - click here to view it full size. I would have scanned Rashid's leaflet as well but it opens out as A3 so it's a bit too big.

We'll start with Cromie's effort. It's double-sided glossy A4 folded three ways, with an uncomplicate design using Impact, Arial and Times New Roman as fonts, and two black and white photos. On the inside is this quote:

Paul Cromie is the only white candidate standing in Bradford West. If all the white people in this constituency vote BNP, then they are guaranteed to elect a white Member of Parliament.

Evidently Cromie is appealling to the white voters and not those of ethnic minorities. So much for the "we're-not-racist-just-anti-immigration" line. Elsewhere, he uses "common sense" as one word, refers to "old folks homes", and mentions his zero-tolerance policy on drugs. Funny then that a former BNP candidate for Cleckheaton and a friend of David Exley who is standing as an MP in Dewsbury was found with over £100,000 of drugs in his garage. There's also no mention of what he wants to do about education.

Haroon Rashid's leaflet is interesting because his surname does not appear anywhere on it - he's just 'Haroon'. He also claims to be the only 'local born candidate' standing when in fact Cromie is also from Bradford. He manages three colour photographs of himself, though two of them are quite poor quality. The back of the leaflet doubles up as a poster that you can put in your window if you're that way inclined.

He seems to concentrate on caring for the elderley (older people tend to vote Tory), education and local regeneration, but nothing about health or crime. He does at least mention how the Tories want to abolish top-up fees, though.

Not much going on here in Bradford West so I'm going to turn my attention to my home constituency of City of York. The constituency has amassed 8 candidates, unfortunately not including Eddie Vee, the Yorkshire Elvis who was representing the Official Monster Raving Loony Party. He has seemingly disappeared off the ballot at the last minute.

The three main parties are fielding candidates, along with UKIP, the Green Party and two independent candidates. And then there is the 'Dungeons Death and Taxes Party'.

I don't know much about it but it appears to be linked to The Dungeons, a chain of horror museums in York, London, Edinburgh and Hamburg. Quite what their policies are I have no idea but it'll be interesting hearing the result be read out.

It's not the most bizarre party though - The Electoral Commission web site has some even stranger ones. Take for example:

• Adam Lyal's Witchery Tour Party
• Anti Party
• The Blair Must Go Party
• Chaos Party
• Church of the Militant Elvis Party
• Fancy Dress Party
• The Grumpy Old Men Political Party
• The Idle Toad
• MP3 Party
• No Candidate Deserves My Vote (I'm guessing this is some kind of apathy party)
• The No Party (I wonder if they're guilty of negative campaigning)
• Personality AND Rational Thinking? Yes! Party
• Protest Vote Party
• The Rock'n'Roll Loony Party (A breakaway from the Official Monster Raving Loony Party, perhaps?)
• Single Issues Party (at least they're being honest)
• Short Fat Solicitor Party
• Xtraordinary People Party

There are many others, often related to local issues.

My housemate had this sent to him this morning - a campaign flyer for the local Labour candidate (and formerly incumbent MP) Marsha Singh. Here it is full size. My other housemate also received a copy at his parents' address, but I didn't.

Unlike some candidates, Marsha's photo only appears twice on the flyer - the record is 27 - but he does squeeze a photo of Tony Blair grinning amongst a load of primary school pupils who may or may not be in Bradford. There's not a whole lot of Bradford-specific stuff on there and the focus seems to be on education, benefits, economic stability and health. There are also a couple of digs at the Conservative party and their "years of Tory neglect".

He's also listed his 5 key pledges, 4 of which are aimed at families. Great, should you be a family household. Not so great if you're renting a house with two other students, are unmarried and have no children.

In fact, strangely enough, despite the university being wholly inside the constituency, there's no mention of student issues at all. But then he did vote in favour of top-up fees.

He also pledges to make "your community safer" but doesn't really say how - there's no mention of greater policing or CCTV or anything.

The BNP have launched their manifesto - you can download it is a PDF from that page. It's quite amusing, but in a rather sinister, scary way - especially with regards to university education:

We reject the idea that the left is entitled to institutionalised control of higher education and through this means impose its ideas on the rest of the nation. We will require ideological balance on university faculties.

We will systematically de-fund nonsense disciplines and will not provide grants or loans for such studies.

Notice how 'nonsense disciplines' isn't defined.

They want to give us a free university education, but only On satisfactory completion of their period of National Service... . All 18 year olds would need to complete military training - anyone who opts out would have to do community work and lose the right to vote (!). Kinda goes against the whole democracy thing, don't you think? Especially when the manifesto itself is called "Rebuilding British Democracy"...

There is a very definite attempt by the authors to make the party appear to be merely anti-immigration (though the term 'creeping islamification' is used in a rather derogatory sense) rather than all-out fascist, since being a load of racist thugs doesn't really appeal to the public. But then you'd me more welcoming to a wolf if it has made itself look like a sheep, wouldn't you?

I have just written my first complaint to the BBC, about the transmission of the BNP's Party Political Broadcast tomorrow night. Hopefully if enough people complain to them (and indeed to other broadcasters like ITV, Channel 4 and Five) then the programme will not be shown, or at least be edited. BECTU, Unison and the NUJ, the unions which many staff at the BBC are part of, all support the campaign against the BNP through Unite.

If you are going to complain, please try to write your own message and not copy+paste a boilerplate letter - that way it is more likely that your comments will be noticed.

Tomorrow is the deadline for announcing one's candidature for the general election, so on Wednesday we will know the final list of candidates. There's been no more candidates in Bradford West (despite my hopes of a candidate from a semi-respectable right wing party to dilute the BNP vote) but City of York has had another one - Graham Cambridge. Except he'll be appearing on the ballot paper as Cambridge, Graham "King Eddie Vee - The Yorkshire Elvis" (Official Monster Raving Loony Party). He stood in 2001 and only managed a few hundred votes.

My poll card for Bradford arrived today so I do have a vote here, which I'll be using, especially as the polling station is on my way into uni. I also have a postal vote for York which I'll discard - despite having two addresses I can only vote once.

Poor Ed Matts. First he's caught doctoring a photograph of himself and Ann Widdecombe to realign it with the beliefs of his party, and now a British Olympic gold medallist pictured alongside him in a leaflet said she wasn't asked for permission for the photo to be used. She also says she's a Labour supporter.

He's up against the Labout incumbent Jim Knight who has a very slim majority of less than 1000. I imagine Knight will be laughing all the way to the ballot box over this.

Meanwhile, John O'Farrell has a wonderful piece on the other big election - the election of the new pope. I'm secretly hoping that they'll elect a mix-raced HIV-positive lesbian who has had an abortion and was abused as a child but I doubt that'll happen.

Found this via Life In A Northern Town - a quiz suggesting who to vote for based on your opinions on several key issues. Here's my results:

Who should I vote for?

Your expected outcome:Liberal Democrat


Your actual outcome:

Labour -8
Conservative -19
	Liberal Democrat 29
UK Independence Party -7
	Green 11

You should vote: Liberal Democrat

The LibDems take a strong stand against tax cuts and a strong one in favour of public services: they would make long-term residential care for the elderly free across the UK, and scrap university tuition fees. They are in favour of a ban on smoking in public places, but would relax laws on cannabis. They propose to change vehicle taxation to be based on usage rather than ownership.

Take the test at Who Should You Vote For.

Not hugely unexpected, although I didn't think I'd disagree more with the Conservatives than UKIP. I think it's pretty obvious who I'll be voting for 3 weeks tomorrow. My only criticism of this is that it didn't have Respect in there, as it would be interesting to see how my opinions line up with theirs.

Steve Bell has another very good cartoon in today's Guardian. The background is here and there's a gallery on the same theme here.

No new candidates in Bradford West today. The list will be finalised sometime next week.

Paul Cromie has announced he is to run in Bradford West as a candidate for the far-right British National Party. He is the current chairman of Bradford BNP and according to the party's web site is "a well-respected local businessman". He stood alongside his wife Lynda in the council elections in Queensbury last year - she is standing in Bradford North, which has a reasonably strong Labour majority. (incidentally I know Ümit Yildiz who is the Respect candidate for Bradford North through Unite Against Fascism and the London anti-war protest - top bloke. Vote for him if you live there.)

Lynda Cromie was also on the receiving end of a death threat last year after they leafleted an estate in Clayton Heights with their campaign material.

While historically the BNP have not done well in this constituency, as it stands Cromie is the only white candidate standing here, which, I fear, may give him some votes that might have otherwise gone to another, less extreme party. For once, I think I'd actually be pleased to see UKIP have a candidate stand here since at least that would take votes away from them.

On the not-so-far-right scale, Haroon Rashid, the Tory candidate, has been naughty and put a campaign billboard on university land. It has since been removed.

The LibDems have launched their campaign blog KennedyCampaign.org. Currently only two entries thus far but it is running on Wordpress and has comments enabled (although they're moderated as per their comments policy). It was set up by Richard Allan, who until today was the LibDem MP for Sheffield Hallam. (Via Photomatt)

Charles Kennedy, the leader of the LibDems, is currently in hospital with his wife. No official word on thw reasons why but apparently Sarah Kennedy is "fine". She was due to give birth in a couple of weeks time.

No change here in Bradford West - still just the four candidates. The deadline for announcing one's candidature isn't until April 19th so there's still a few days left.

A very cool PHP tool that I wish I'd thought of myself: Your own Conservatives poster. Type your message, select a handwriting font and have the applet create your very own campaign poster. (found via Hanni)

(Note: As I understand, Michael Howard isn't really a vampire, despite looking like one and having some rather evil ideas about immigration)

Funnily enough, this time last year I found something similar but for the US elections.

The Nuardiag has an "alternative" campaign poster for the Conservatives. Something tells me that they won't be using it.

Over here in Bradford West, we now have four confirmed candidates for the election - the Liberal Democrats have brought forward Cllr Mukhtar Ali, currently sitting on Bradford council in Bowling and Barkerend. In terms of political experience it puts him ahead of the Conservative candidate Haroon Rashid who thus far has been a candidate in Bolton South East since 1992 but has never been elected, however Ali's past looks slightly fishy:

I think Steve Bell's cartoon of Michael Howard in today's Guardian is brilliant.

You may also have noticed that my election posts are now in a separate category called 'Election 2005'. Despite what I've previously said I probably will be posting a fair bit about the election, and so I've assigned a special category for those posts. Therefore, there is are RSS and Atom feeds for those posts.

I have also created the "apathy" feed. This is an RSS feed which carries all of the new entries on this weblog except those about the election. Therefore, if the election does not interest you, you can subscribe to that and be in blissful ignorance. The heavy lifting here is done by the ExcludeCategories plugin which does just that - let you exclude categories from templates.

The Guardian officially launched their Movable Type-powered Election 2005 Blog on Monday, which like the other Guardian blogs comes complete with permalinks, comments and RSS feeds. There are even feeds for the comments and a dandy folksonomic digest on the home page.

The Times also has an Election Log. It's powered by TypePad and so is also available here. No proper permalinks but individual articles can be accessed by using the 'Recent Entries' list on the home page, and though the RSS feed isn't advertised it's here. There's also an Atom feed, but no comments.

Evidently The Guardian seem to get blogging better than The Times do, but it's nice to have both angles. It will be interesting to see which other newspapers jump on the blogging bandwagon in the run-up to the election.

Update: The BBC have their own election weblog, using their own content management system. It does have an RSS feed along with permalinks and comments though. And while I'm talking about the election there's news that Nick Griffin, Leader of the British National Party, has been charged with 4 race hate offences. He'll be in court in Leeds tomorrow.

So, at last, Tony Blair has called a General Election, and on May 5th, the British people (or at least those eligable to vote who bother to turn up) will be able to elect a new government representitive.