Recently in Election 2005 Category

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.