The Euro Election, the Stapleford South East ward election and a Borough Election footnote...

I cast my postal vote today in the Euro Election. I have been in the habit of spoiling my Euro Election ballot paper because I believe the Party List system is undemocratic. Take the East Midlands. Five names per party, so if a party gets c.40% they get two MEPs and the top two names listed by the Party are elected. Voters have no say in who is elected and it is unnecessarily complicated! I would amend the system to give me five votes for named individuals instead of one vote for a Party, so I might vote 3 Labour and 2 Greens and Labour might get 30% of the votes and the Greens 20%. Labour would get at least 2 MEPs who would be the candidates who got the most votes - NOT necessarily the Party’s choices. 

The Labour Party continues to flounder when it comes to Europe despite saying quite clearly ‘Labour accepts the Referendum result’. It is split just like the Conservatives. We are either in or out. We can leave soft or we can leave hard. If we leave I’d like it to be ‘soft’, with as little disruption as possible but, like it or not, the Euro Election on the 23rd is, in effect, going to be ‘The People’s Vote’ / 2nd referendum but not a ‘Confirmatory vote’ because no one knows, as at today, what the terms of our leaving are going to be! So, if you want to leave you’ll vote Brexit or UKIP. If you want to stay**, you’ll vote Change UK, Liberal or Green and I have cast my postal vote for the latter today. Voters and the media will aggregate these votes and ignore what Conservative and Labour votes there are (though it could be argued both are in the leave camp). I suspect the two right-wing nationalist Parties will carry the day. There is still a lot of anger out there. In other words we have to hope Labour can, after weeks of negotiations with May, deliver a soft Brexit.

**Outside England there will be other remain parties to vote for and if Scotland votes decisively different to England then independence will be back on the agenda big time (I would be an independence voter if I was in Scotland).

I want to stay in the EU but in the absence of a majority of votes for the three pro-EU political parties  on 23rd May then the arguments for another EU vote of any kind will be dead. This is a mess of Parliament’s making and the confrontational politics of first past the post (FTP)... 

...and please please don’t pretend we have a coalition government now. What we have is a mess and far too many MPs who are craven.

I have no idea of what is going to happen in the delayed Stapleford South East Ward Borough Election on 13th June, but in 2015 all the Parties were close.* Anna Soubry claims it is between the Conservatives and Liberals. The national scene is so unpredictable that any last minute event could tip the result regardless of how much effort local councillors and activists put in. One thing is certain. The Conservatives have to be defeated make life easier for Labour and the Liberals to run Broxtowe Borough Council.

*Highest votes for each Party in 2015:

836 – Conservatives
781 – Labour
672 – Liberal

Given the Liberals performance in the nearby wards of  Beeston North and Bramcote in the Borough Elections on 2nd May just gone they must fancy their chances. 

The voters in Stapleford South East ward are going to be get the attention of national politicos and the media for sure, and with the closing date for nominations being this coming Thursday 16th May, what other political parties and groups will be putting up candidates? We will know soon enough.

It may be that a outsider will take it. I doubt if Broxtowe has had a ward election like this one in its history.

Finally, the few who visit my blog will know that I believe with increasing numbers of houses being occupied by students comes declining electoral rolls. I call it 'Lentonisation' because this was certainly the case in neighbouring Lenton, where the number of city councillors representing the are has fallen from 4 to 3 in the latest ward boundary review, and I have made the same prediction for Beeston. I was fully expecting to see a decline in registered voters and as the table below shows it hasn't happened — yet.

I stand by my prediction. It took Lenton a good 25 years to change out of all recognition population-wise as more and more owner-occupier families sold to private landlords and house prices escalated beyond the reach of families and other would be Lenton residents.

For now the Beeston ward totals show that only in Rylands have voter numbers decreased, then by only 26 votes. 

The Local Government Boundary Commission for England at the time of their Broxtowe ward boundary review in 2013 estimated the number of voters by ward and I have included their estimates in the final column (in italics). Both Central and North ward are well over the LGBCE estimate and I suspect this is student related. New housing developments add to the totals but these have yet to materialise on a large scale. There is Broadgate and the old fire/bus station site in the pipeline.

I hope I am around in 2023 to see what has happened by then.

Broxtowe Borough Council elections. 1973–2019 What do they tell us?

Click on table to enlarge. 

Labour has only only won outright control of Broxtowe Borough Council twice (in 1995 and 1999). The Conservatives have won outright control 7 times and there have been 3 elections where no party has won outright control.

The Liberals did not have any councillors prior to 1987 but if their aim was to achieve a balance of power rather than outright control then they have been more successful than Labour.

The 1983 elections were muddied by the presence of SDP candidates who split the left vote to the advantage of the conservatives (their most councillors ever — 38).

The 2019 election on 2 May may see the intervention of candidates standing as 'Independents' supporting Anna Soubry and the breakaway 'Tiggies' (The Independent Group) and it would be foolhardy to try and predict the outcome of such a intervention.

Logic says Anna Soubry needs to create a grassroots organisation across the constituency if she wants to hold onto her seat for more than one general election. When better to road test it than in May’s borough elections.

We can all play around with statistics, but something special will have to happen in the next six weeks for Labour to take control of Broxtowe Borough Council. Perhaps, just perhaps, Anna Soubry fielding candidates might just split the Conservative vote enough for Labour to win — but this is assuming no Labour voters are tempted to vote Tiggy if they get the opportunity.

In the meantime all Labour can do is to motivate its supporters to vote whilst not making a lot of noise in the process. Ideally, Labour wants Conservative and Liberal supporters to fall asleep on 1st May and not wake up until 3rd May!

Will the non-voters come top again. I will tell you next week if I can get some answers

This image has appeared all over the media and it is the favourite image so far in our house of the election campaign to date (I wish I could find the name of the photographer/camera-person responsible, so that I can add it). Says it all really about the most important general election since 1945. My only excuse I have for blogging about the elections is that I have been writing about the Broxtowe Borough Council Elections.

I gave up on Newsnight a couple of hours ago and won't watch any more TV until Friday morning. Tomorrow (election day) will find Susan and me taking numbers all day for the Labour Party at a polling station near our house, from 7am until a least 9.30pm, if not 10pm. We spent the 2010 general election out The Lenton Centre polling station, from 7am–10pm in the company of Matthew Butcher, the Green Party candidate, who had few helpers (the student vote never materialised and he came bottom, behind the BNP, a result he did not deserve as he was, after Lilian Greenwood, the best candidate by a mile). Just before we left Lenton last November I did some final posts to my old Parkview blog, including a pinboard of favourite photographs and 'No.1' is of Matthew.

Right now I have a bee in my bonnet about the way Broxtowe Borough Council chooses to publish ward election results. Let me explain:

Below is a webpage from the Broxtowe Borough Council website showing the way they presented the local election results in 2011 and for the subsequent by-elections.

As is so often the case with information it is what it doesn't tell you which is important — it doesn't tell you the number of ballot papers issued, even though it is this number they use to calculated the '% Turnout', which they have rounded to a whole percent.

Without the number of ballot papers issued you do not know for sure how many  of the 4,379 electorate in Beeston North ward in 2011 did not vote, yet if you have any concern or belief in democracy, this is probably the most important figure.

Why? Because we should all be very concerned about why individuals choose not to vote. It is easy enough to find out who they are if you are a political party. After the election you simply ask for a copy of the 'marked' registers. The trouble is that this 'intelligence' is more likely to be used by political parties to see if those who promised their vote actually voted.

Beeston North (4)

Beeston North election results 2011

Electorate: 4,379 | Seats: 02 | Total Votes Cast: 4052 | % Turnout: 50%
E represents elected member

Candidate	Party	Votes Cast	Elected
Steve Carr	Liberal Democrats	1027	E
Phillip John Carter Hopkinson	Conservative	352
Andrea Jane Oates	Labour	766	E
David Thomas Patrick	Labour	701
Sylvia Anne Rule	Green	222
Chris Salter	Liberal Democrats	717
Jeremy Treece	Conservative	256

Spoilt votes: 11

I am sure 'Spoilt votes' actually means spoilt ballot papers.

I tell you this so that you might understand why I asked for this information to be included in the published declarations this coming Friday (the local ward elections will be counted on Friday). My request has been refused. To quote:

'As you will appreciate this is an extraordinary intense and busy time and producing additional information that we do not ordinarily produce is just not possible.  Our results layout on the website will be similar to previous years and we intend to publish as soon as possible after the results are announced.  We publish what is listed on the official sheet which is signed by the Deputy Returning Officer and this information is taken directly from that sheet to ensure accuracy and consistency'.

Unless my memory fails me after attending countless counts as an agent, candidate and teller, the Returning Officer has to record the number of ballot papers issued so that when they open each ballot box containing votes for a polling district, the number of ballot papers in the box has to tally with the marked register used in the polling station, so the information I have requested has to be there and should be in the public domain. Without it, how can I, as a voter and member of the public, check the veracity of an election count I am excluded from. Such is the poor state of English local democracy, you have to 'accredited' (ie. approved by the system) if you want to know what goes on. How long will it be before you have to be 'accredited' to attend a council meeting?

Right now I want to leave you with a table I have compiled based on the information which Broxtowe Borough Council says is acceptable. As you can see you can only estimate the number of ballot papers issued and the number who did not vote. By no measure of the imagination can that be 'democratic' r acceptable!

I had intended to write about what to watch out for in the ward results, especially in the wards where the Liberals are not standing. Based on the last Toton & Chilwell Meadow by-election (My second ever post last December referred to the Toton & Chilwell Meadows by-election result, which you can find on the Broxtowe Borough Council website at http://www.broxtowe.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=14189), I suspect the Liberal vote in Broxtowe is more centre-right than centre-left, which should be to the advantage of the Conservatives. Then there is the UKIP factor and, somewhere on the edge, the Greens. I want Nick Palmer to win, but I suspect that I will wake up on Friday morning to a number of surprise results.

Then there is Stapleford. The town may well decide who runs Broxtowe for the next four years, given the Stapleford Alliance is contesting Stapleford North and Stapleford South East. The ward elections are going to be a real test of their community credentials. We shall know soon enough.

WHATEVER YOU DO ON THURSDAY PLEASE VOTE.

Exploring the Broxtowe Middlelands and the Erewash

A collection of images of what I call the 'Broxtowe Middlelands', all of which have appeared in my old parkviews blog. Further on in this post is a map showing where I have walked to date.

When Susan and I moved to Beeston last November we did not arrive as strangers. Susan lodged at the Chilwell vicarage in the late-1960s during her first two years at Nottingham University and we became regular visitors from the early-1990s to shop, see friends and attend the Caritas clinic opposite the now closed Beeston police station.

Some years ago I nursed the ambition to walk the entire length of the Erewash Canal, which for much of its length hugs Broxtowe's western boundary. I finally did it in 2012 and have walked it every year since. It is my favourite canal. I also want to finish walking what remains of the old Nottingham Canal, which was abandoned between Lenton and Langley Mill in the 1950s. I only have a small section near Cossall to walk, which I intend to do in the next couple of months. I also want to walk as much of the River Erewash as I can, in wellington boots if I have to!

I admit to being someone who supports the idea of a Greater Nottingham City Council based on the city, Broxtowe and Gedling councils, Hucknall and parts of Rushcliffe. Broxtowe Borough Council does not make geographical, social, economic or political sense and dates from the early-1970s (the first elections were held in 1973 and shadowed the old councils for a year before taking over in 1974).

Broxtowe is, at best, a collection of disparate communities bound only by a shared suspicion of Nottingham City Council, despite the fact that their eastern links all go into Nottingham. Their western links take shoppers and workers into the Derbyshire towns of Derby, Ilkeston and Long Eaton. There are no transport links between the north and south ends of Broxtowe, apart from one narrow lane and there is no linking bus route — and it can be argued that, in modern times, the city used the name Broxtowe first. All this makes any claims that Broxtowe Borough Council has a heritage worthy of protection dubious.

Having said all this, I am very fond of many of Broxtowe's communities for a multitude of reasons and one part of the borough has long fascinated me. I call it the 'Broxtowe Middlelands' — a waist of green which draws it two halves together — and I have been walking it for a few years now, thanks to my beloved 35 Nottingham City Transport bus route (see my 35 history blog), which made this part of Broxtowe a great place to walk if you live on the 35 bus route. Last year I led walks in the 'Middlelands' for Bulwell TravelRight and have, over the past few years, posted a number of my walks to my Parkviews blog (which I started in 2007 to look at life in and around Lenton Recreation Ground, beside the Derby Road, in Lenton).

Below the map are links to the Parkview posts about some of the walks I have done in the Broxtowe Middlelands. There will be more posts as I embark on more walks over the coming months. For now, I hope you enjoy some of the Parkview posts.

NOTE: For information and web-links about bus routes and timetables in the Broxtowe Middlelands visit my Beeston Connections page (see also image in right-hand column).

LINKS TO WALKS, INCLUDING MAPS, POSTED TO MY PARKVIEWS BLOG
(click on the link below):

Erewash Canal: Sandiacre – Trowell

Erewash Canal: Sandiacre – Long Eaton

Erewash Canal: Sawley Marina – Long Eaton

Erewash Canal: Langley Mill – Cotmanhay

Bluebell Heaven: Oldmoor Wood walk with the help of a 35 bus

Bulwell TravelRight: Bilborough – Strelley walk

Bulwell TravelRight: Strelley – Wollaton Vale via Trowell and Nottingham Canal

Nottingham Canal: Wollaton Vale – Trowell

AND TO END, SOME IMAGES OF THE EREWASH CANAL AND RIVER WHICH MAKE UP BROXTOWE'S WESTERN BORDER:

My very own local election poster

For some reason Broxtowe Constituency Labour Party has not printed posters for the ward candidates. Posters for Nick Palmer assault the eye wherever you go in and around Beeston. I don't know about the rest of the constituency, but I hope his posters are everywhere.

In contrast, I have yet to see a single Labour Party window bill showing the names of the ward candidates — which has amazed me. So I went to the newly opened office on City Road to track down a poster for Beeston North ward. The person organising things in the ward is being run off her feet, so I thought I was making a simple enough request, but it seems not. I was curtly told I could have a poster for Nick Palmer or a 'vote Labour' poster and reminded this was a general election.

My response was to make the point that it was also a borough council election and that it was as important to me as the general election. Another person then said he had never seen ward posters and this was his second election as a ward candidate. I responded by saying my experience in other places was very different.

I did actually catch sight of a 'Vote Labour' poster onto which someone had typed in large print Lynda Lally and added Pat in thick black ink. I only just saw it, hidden almost from view on a pinboard. Knowing Lynda and Pat, I suspect they could well dare to be different, but it is in front windows on streets where the ward posters need to be — not half-hidden on a pinboard in a Labour Party office!

I said there and then I would go home and make my own poster for the Labour candidates in Beeston North ward and I am proud to say it is now in our front window beside a Nick Palmer poster —

Cloud reflections in the window aside, you can see my poster in Wollaton Crescent, unique to Beeston (and all of Broxtowe in the absence of some enterprising agent or candidate in another part of the borough).

What really saddens me is this downgrading of the borough elections when for the past five years it has been local Labour Party workers and councillors doing the donkey and trying as best they could to limit the damage being done to Broxtowe by the Conservative-Liberal Coalition Government.

I suspect even with a Labour led government after the general election, Broxtowe's Labour councillors will still have to fight hard. I will believe any transfer of powers back to local government when it happens. In my book local councils trump Westminster any day and the quality of our lives, both now and historically, owes far more to the work of councillors than MPs.

Perhaps the Labour Party will, belatedly, organise the printing and distribution of local ward posters. Shame on them if they do not, for it will tell me and a good many other voters where their priorities lie and it won't be in Broxtowe for all they say.

Labour's foot soldiers are far too polite. Perhaps had local parties and councillors stood up for themselves some time ago the Party would not now be run by a caucus of professional politicians who have little experience of life in the trenches. The Conservatives and Liberals are much the same, hence the widespread view among voters that the main political parties are 'all the same'. 

Of course there are a few good Labour politicians out there and it is to Nick Palmer's immense credit that many local voters believe he will be his own person and among the few Greens voters I know, there is a belief that their having a candidate has helped ensure we will be getting an MP for Broxtowe and not one who will unquestioningly do the bidding of the Labour leadership. My support is based on this belief and my link to Nick Palmer's blog carries his promise to represent Broxtowe first.

There is still time for Labour to reinstate its Broxtowe Borough Council election campaign to being of equal importance to the general election campaign. As of yet I have not seen a Labour Party manifesto for Broxtowe. If it exists, where has it been published?