Calderdale Results
Friday, May 4th, 2012 01:09 pm![[personal profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miss_s_b
I came third. BUT I got more votes than I got last year in H&L AND more votes than last year's candidate in Brighouse got. Mat came fourth. Overall we held up fairly well; although I am sad that Olwen and Christine and Stephen didn't win their seats, Olwen in particular got a very impressive vote share, beating the sitting Tory into third place. And we held Calder ward, and Greetland and Stainland is back with us (can't really call THAT a gain)...
So, you know, it's bad, but it's not awful.
The big story, as nationally, is low turnout. Over all of Calderdale the turnout was in the thirties, and even in the hotly contested wards it didn't get above 45%. In Calderdale. We've always been particularly politically engaged around here, and my experience in the call centre phone canvassing the last few weeks has borne that out. Calderdale people are engaged; they know the names and records of the candidates in their wards, and they actually have opinions and they care. If we can't get turnout over 50% in that sort of atmosphere, there really is something utterly wrong, and it needs addressing.
So, you know, it's bad, but it's not awful.
The big story, as nationally, is low turnout. Over all of Calderdale the turnout was in the thirties, and even in the hotly contested wards it didn't get above 45%. In Calderdale. We've always been particularly politically engaged around here, and my experience in the call centre phone canvassing the last few weeks has borne that out. Calderdale people are engaged; they know the names and records of the candidates in their wards, and they actually have opinions and they care. If we can't get turnout over 50% in that sort of atmosphere, there really is something utterly wrong, and it needs addressing.
no subject
Date: Friday, May 4th, 2012 05:25 pm (UTC)As to the low turnout, I think this is partly because nobody sees any alternatives. Labour is offering a somewhat different approach, but it's still only a slight shift from the coalition's policies. There is no radically different option being offered as, for example, in France by Francois Hollande. The closest we have to this are the fringe parties like UKIP, Respect and The Greens, all of whom seem to have done fairly well.
This really is the problem of democracy at the moment. All main parties are, to a large extent, tarred by the same brush, with only a little colouring of difference to tell between them.
I don't know how to fix this, and my lack of wish to be involved with formal parties but instead to support specific single issues campaigns (No2ID, ORG, Liberty) reflects this. I have historically been a LibDem voter, but that us getting harder and harder as Clegg fails to have any visible impact on much of what the Tories are doing.
Maybe there is an opportunity to better differentiate the LibDems if Cameron accedes to the demands of back benchers to stop giving in to the LibDems (of which I see little evidence), but then he'd be faced with the immediate electoral suicide of dissolving the coalition. But the choice might be that or the electoral suicide of waiting for the next general election, shackled to the albatross of Tory right wing loons...
So - all rather depressing.
Perhaps it's time to join the Pirate Party...