Election 2010

Flashmob for fair votes 5pm outside Lib Dem talks, 21 Palmer Street, SW1H 0AD. http://twitter.com/takeback2010

New figures from the Electoral Reform Society examine exactly how well each party would have done under two systems of PR: Alternative Vote (AV) and Single Transferable Vote (STV). While they show that under AV the Lib Dems would only increase their seats to 79, the most interesting think for me is that the Conservatives still poll the most seats but insufficient for a majority in all examples. A Lib/Lab coalition under AV would have a 60 seat majority, with a Lib/Con group a majority of 98....

Brent Central is close. Just 1,345 votes separated Labour and the Lib Dems, around 3% or about 1.5 voters in every 50. Would Brent Central Lib Dem voters punish Sarah Teather for a Lib/Con pact? In a briefing paper published today by the Fabian society, Brent Central is listed as a constituency likely to swing back to Labour at a second general election in 2010. “As this table shows, there are 15 Lib Dem seats that would fall to Labour if just one-in-five of their voters switched to Labour....

Here is my video taken at the TakeBackParliament protest on Saturday. Dressed in purple and holding signs such as “fair votes now” and “votes not moats” around a thousand campaigners gathered in order to “Take back Parliament” for the voters. We’ll be doing it all again tonight, so I hear…..

The voters of Brent have returned Lib Dem Sarah Teather with a majority of 1,345, a swing of 11% from Labour, and Labour’s Barry Gardiner with a majority of 8,028, loosing 2.5% of the vote to the Conservatives (+2.2%) and other parties. I was at the count on Thursday night tally marking for the Lib Dems and in-between boxes of ballot papers talking with candidates and journalists about the political economy of Brent as a borough....