MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
We will be in touch
Just looking at the results and thinking, i know there should be some kind of local government and you need some way of appointing it.
But, people vote in accordance with national views, i don't know many people who know anything about the local political scene. This happens everytime, the ruling party always seems to do badly in local elections. That clearly suggests the electorate are unable to differentiate between local and national, so you have to wonder why bother.
the ruling party always seems to do badly in local elections. That clearly suggests the electorate are unable to differentiate between local and national
Wouldn't that suggest the exact opposite of your conclusion? If people can't differentiate between local and national then the ruling party nationally should do the same locally.
should of been clearer, i mean the ruling party nationally and not the ruling party locally.
There always seems to be a "protest vote" the national government gets hit at a local level when things go badly.
So much of what i see is about national politics, but when you are meant to be dealing with local elections...
Last 2 rounds of general and local elections have had me vote differently between coucil and MP.
Plymouth city coucil (often labour except for last time) overlaps south west devon (massively safe conservative seat) parliamentary constituency a bit, so many non-conservatives felt compelled to vote tactically for lib dem in our constituency, but vote labour with their hearts so-to-speak for the council ones. I wonder if this is the case elsewhere. And I wonder if it would be under AV. 😕
In general terms it drives how and what your local government do and the decisions that they make. Council officers work to the direction of locally elected members to deliver local and national policy, but many of the decisions made on locally derived policies such as planning can have a big impact on communities and therefore local issues become more of a political debate with elections. And it is often these local issues about closing the market, building a power station, a new bypass, local swimming pool or school closures etc that can be as much of a factor as the general dissatisfaction with David Clegg and Nick Cameron's respective ruling parties.
And it is one of the few ways you can show your dissatisfaction!
I tried to find out who was standing for what in my local election. All the candidates relied purely on the national image of their parties.
No one bothered to tell local people what they would do differently at local level.
So yeah, pretty pointless really. However, the local population are pretty stupid so probably happy to vote either red, blue or tellow regardless of who actually does what.
What is the point of Local elections
Not much in my neck of the woods, I had the choice between two Torys and UKIP! I doubt any vaguely left leaning party would stand a chance around here though, it's a given that the Tory's will always get in here. But then that's democarcy, it's what the majority seem to want...
Actually the Tory vote isn't doing much worse than it did at the last general election (which they failed to win). It's the LibDems who are getting hammered, which when you consider how untrustworthy the LibDems have revealed themselves to be, makes a lot of sense - why trust them to run your local council? Besides, I'm sure the hammering the LibDems are now getting will be replicated at the next general election.
Pointless - Im really sick to death of it. Waste of time and effort - I want them to spend time and energy running the local area, not on politics and spin and slagging off each other.
We really need a new way of doing things.
What was the turnout ?
I want them to spend time and energy running the local area
So who's running your local area then ?
I question whether some of the candidates understand the difference judging by some of the statements made on the leaflets we got through our door.
It was interesting this morning listening to Haig comparing his results when he was Tory leader to Millibands today as Labour leader. Seemed to overlook the fact that he was at an all time low when his "improved",as opposed to now where they seem to have suceeded in maintaining a minority. Hey ho
Definately a bloody nose for limp Clegg. Speaking as someone who would dearly love to see our politics given a radical shakeup its heartbreaking to see the best opportunity for that in decades being frittered away by lacklustre Liberals.