Hugely happy that Labour has lost Dundee West, the constituency of our University, and has almost certainly lost power in Dundee City Council for the first time in my lifetime. Perhaps every time I go to Dundee now I will no longer have taxi drivers telling me of examples of Council corruption.
Most amused by the Labour Party telling us all that this loss of many hundreds of councillors, dozens of councils and the nations of Scotland and Wales is “Not as bad as expected”.
I have been carefully through those results yet to declare. The regional list system makes prediction difficult, but I have been painstakingly through those too and I am going to stick my neck out and say that it looks to me the SNP will have two more seats than Labour.
Labour has also lost control of Blackburn with Darwen, where I stood as an independent against Jack Straw at the last election. Wonderful!!
Whatever makes you think that the Conservatives /Lib Dems /SNP will be any better? People I know who have experienced a change of control of local council have been very disappointed by the lack of improvement.
Well, the last two aren't big on Trident or on launching illegal wars and killing hundreds of thousands of people. Not supporting those is quite a lot better for a start.
Sadly local councils' powers are much circumscribed in England so it is hard to make a very radical difference, but there are better and worse councils.
(I'm kinda scared about posting after my backlash last time, but oh well!)
The Council's sitting at 13 SNP (+2 seats), 10 Labour (-), 3 Tories (-2), 2 Lib Dem (-) and Mr Borthwick. This time around, if the pro-unionist parties want to keep the SNP out, then the Conservatives will have to go into a formal coalition with Labour and the Liberal Democrats (the last 4 years have been an informal coalition, on paper it was only libdem and lab). Really don't know if they'll do that or not, especially since the Dundee Tory MSP Candidate Chris Bustin publically promised that the party would NEVER do the same at Holyrood! But you never know them.. If the Tories do promise not to gang up on the Nats, then it's looking as though it'll be a minority government in operation there, which could be very interesting. I heard Labour murmurings about not being happy to work with a certain Liberal Democrat, but then, they'll probably do anything to get his support.. Grr! We'll find out in a week or so though after all the underhand dealings. However wrong it is.. Last time in Dundee, the people made it clear that they wanted the SNP more than any other party, who has the right to take that democracy away? The SNP even asked Labour for a coalition (it would have had 21/29 seats) but they refused.. The people have made it even more clear this time, what's the deal?
As for the Parliament, well, I can only say that I cannot think of a single more deserving candidate than Joe Fitzpatrick. I live in the East, but have seen the hard work he put in as my local Councillor and over the course of the election campaign. Good luck to him I say, and congratulations too to Shona for increasing her majority what, 50 times? She's another person who's worked her fingers to the bone for the people of Dundee, and it's clear that they've recognised that work.
"Whatever makes you think that the Conservatives /Lib Dems /SNP will be any better? People I know who have experienced a change of control of local council have been very disappointed by the lack of improvement."
I don't know much about the SNP, but the Lib Dems were against the Iraq war, which does set them apart from Labour and the Conservatives. Of course, after some time in power they could end up being just as bad. It's the system that really needs changing. First off, we definitely need PR. I don't know about you, but I find the fact that my vote counts for absolutely nothing is quite unacceptable (The Lib Dems always do poorly where I live).
Also, there should be a rule that any kind of military action automatically spawns a full, wide ranging and independent investigation into the reasons for the engagement. This should help to frighten off any future military adventures being conducted for specious reasons.