Super Thursday - Elections 2021

[TravelDream]

We have three ballots around here.
Two for the Welsh parliament and one for the pointless Police and Crime 'Commissioner'.
I've had a fair bit through the door from almost every party running. Some a lot more amateur than others. I don't think many read them to be honest and they end up straight in the bin.
I sent my postal ballot off at the start of the week.

I do wonder how much of a "shy-Tory" effect will apply to next week's elections, but not in terms of underestimating Tory support, but underestimating support for anyone who isn't Tory or Labour, or more specifically, is against all the restrictions. I doubt support for anti-restrictions groups will blow the whole thing away, if there's such a thing, but we may see levels like 10% more than expected going elsewhere can cause surprising results in places.

The shy Tory effect was once real, but it isn't today. In 2019 the polls were about right, in 2017 there was a serious shy Labour vote as Labour outperformed their numbers by 6-7 points, and in 2015 the polls were all over the place with some right and some wrong showing Labour doing better than they actually did.

On minor parties, it's actually the opposite of what you say
Generally on election day, the minor parties fall back a little from their poll numbers and the main two benefit from that. I don't think anti-lockdown parties are going to do well at all.

 

[Busaholic]

Meanwhile Sadiq Khan has literature that claims that voting for anyone other than him in the London Mayoral elections could let the Tories in. That is of course misleading to the point of being false because the election uses the supplementary vote system - which means you can put anyone down as your first preference without any risk of letting in another candidate on less than 50% of the vote. I've been very undecided about which way to vote in London, but I think with that bit of dishonesty, Sadiq has now lost my vote for both 1st and 2nd preference.

I think that's a ridiculous position. If you took 100 samples of election material from all over the country of each party the number that didn't make such a claim would be amazingly small, if you include the corollaries such as 'if you don't vote Green you'll have environmental disaster.' I could quote Hilaire Belloc here but it's too much trouble and conform to Forum rules.

 

[317 forever]

There are election results programmes spread between BBC1 & BBC2 but continuous on BBC News next Friday & Saturday. I have booked part of Monday off work in case there would have been any coverage even then. While most or all results will surely be out by then, there is bound to be plenty of interesting discussion on tv & radio. Any change of Mayors, such as in the Tees Valley or West Midlands, will be high-profile subjects as will the Scottish results with or without an SNP majority. (By way of a disclaimer, I exclude London, Greater Manchester and Liverpool City as these are so likely to remain unchanged with Labour).

Wales could be interesting too, as Labour could easily be short of a majority and have to work with another party. I think they have had agreements at different times with the Liberal Democrats or Plaid Cymru. That said, I see a distinct possibility that Labour + the Liberal Democrats do not achieve a combined majority between them.

 

[TravelDream]

There are election results programmes spread between BBC1 & BBC2 but continuous on BBC News next Friday & Saturday. I have booked part of Monday off work in case there would have been any coverage even then. While most or all results will surely be out by then, there is bound to be plenty of interesting discussion on tv & radio. Any change of Mayors, such as in the Tees Valley or West Midlands, will be high-profile subjects as will the Scottish results with or without an SNP majority. (By way of a disclaimer, I exclude London, Greater Manchester and Liverpool City as these are so likely to remain unchanged with Labour).

Wales could be interesting too, as Labour could easily be short of a majority and have to work with another party. I think they have had agreements at different times with the Liberal Democrats or Plaid Cymru. That said, I see a distinct possibility that Labour + the Liberal Democrats do not achieve a combined majority between them.

I did see somewhere online with details of the results.

In England, councils seem to be all over the place. A few and the Hartlepool by-election are counting over Thursday night. Then lots are counting on Friday, Saturday and a few on Sunday and even Monday.
In Scotland we will find out some results on Friday and some on Saturday. We should have a good idea on Friday though how the SNP are doing and if they are doing well enough to win a majority even if not everywhere is being counted.
In Wales, I think we could find out the overall result on Friday, but it could be on Saturday if they count slowly. It's possible the Lib Dems will win zero seats. I think the most likely result is Labour tries to run a minority government or a Labour and Plaid Cymru coalition.
For the Police and Crime elections, it's also all over the place. Some places on Friday, some on Saturday, some on Sunday and some on Monday. I know in Wales everywhere is counting on Sunday.

 

[High Dyke]

Oh! Is it that piffle this week? So excited at not seeing any prospective candidates, I hadn't realised I may miss out on nothing important.

 

[317 forever]

I did see somewhere online with details of the results.

In England, councils seem to be all over the place. A few and the Hartlepool by-election are counting over Thursday night. Then lots are counting on Friday, Saturday and a few on Sunday and even Monday.
In Scotland we will find out some results on Friday and some on Saturday. We should have a good idea on Friday though how the SNP are doing and if they are doing well enough to win a majority even if not everywhere is being counted.
In Wales, I think we could find out the overall result on Friday, but it could be on Saturday if they count slowly. It's possible the Lib Dems will win zero seats. I think the most likely result is Labour tries to run a minority government or a Labour and Plaid Cymru coalition.
For the Police and Crime elections, it's also all over the place. Some places on Friday, some on Saturday, some on Sunday and some on Monday. I know in Wales everywhere is counting on Sunday.

What could take time in Scotland and Wales is having to wait for the constituency results and then calculate how those influence the regional seats allocated. Also, some rural Scottish constituencies especially in the Highlands & Islands tend to need their votes transported to the Mainland for counting.

As the PCC elections are surely the least important, I hope these are kept until last.

It makes for a historic irony that, just as Covid delayed last year's elections making 2021 the busiest year for local elections for decades, Covid is also hampering some of the vote counts.

A little circle being squared in my own life is that with fewer transport developments due to Covid, I am having less holiday than usual. I therefore have a little more annual leave left for local election coverage.

 

[TravelDream]

What could take time in Scotland and Wales is having to wait for the constituency results and then calculate how those influence the regional seats allocated. Also, some rural Scottish constituencies especially in the Highlands & Islands tend to need their votes transported to the Mainland for counting.

As the PCC elections are surely the least important, I hope these are kept until last.

It makes for a historic irony that, just as Covid delayed last year's elections making 2021 the busiest year for local elections for decades, Covid is also hampering some of the vote counts.

A little circle being squared in my own life is that with fewer transport developments due to Covid, I am having less holiday than usual. I therefore have a little more annual leave left for local election coverage

No counting will take place overnight in Scotland or Wales, but all ballot boxes will be transported to the count centres after polls close at 10pm for safe-keeping.

Scotland plans to count some seats (constituency and regional) on Friday and some on Saturday so there's no chance of getting results early. However, we will know the general swing after half a dozen or so seats declare.

In Wales, they say they hope to count all ballots on Friday and all PCC ones on Sunday, but it might be slower than they hope and go on until Saturday. On Friday we will know both the constituency and regional votes for most council areas so should have a very good idea what the results are going to be. The thing in Wales is that three ballot papers will be in the vote boxes and will need to be separated and verified (compare number in each box to the number that should be in each box) before any counting can begin which might take some time with Covid restrictions on the number of people there.

I think most places are counting PCC elections last. It's really a pointless position that nobody cares about. In places with no other elections, turnout will be tiny (below 20%) so the count should be fairly quick.

One thing we will know on Friday morning is the result in Hartlepool which say they expect to declare around 4am.

 

[37424]

Very little campaigning material has appeared through my letterbox, and nothing with regard to West Yorkshire Mayoral elections. I women did park up yesterday in her full size Range Rover (Champaign Socialist?) and started posting Labour leaflets for the local council elections. She would be wasting her time anyway as my local village is about as Tory as you can get.

My Father has received his postal vote even though he unfortunately passed away 2 months ago! Maybe I should email Trump!

 

[yorksrob]

I was hugely impressed to recieve a single booklet for the West Yorkshire mayoral election which gave a synopsis of what the election os for, together with a couple of pages for each candidate to explain their manifesto.

Seriously - well done !

 

[birchesgreen]

I was hugely impressed to recieve a single booklet for the West Yorkshire mayoral election which gave a synopsis of what the election os for, together with a couple of pages for each candidate to explain their manifesto.

Seriously - well done !

Yes we had similar for the WM mayor election.

 

[JamesT]

It’s hard to tell there’s an election on. Apart from the polling card, the only bit of electoral material I’ve had is from ‘Stand Up to Racism’ attacking the ‘For Britain’ party standing for the County Council. One of the candidates for the City Council lives on my street, but not even a leaflet through the door.

 

[TravelDream]

I don't know if many people realise this, but if you are standing for the UK Westminister parliament or the Welsh/ Scottish parliaments, you have the right to have Royal Mail deliver a leaflet to each house in your constituency/ region free of charge. You/ your party has to pay for the leaflet cost and deliver them to Royal Mail in the manner they require (which is actually quite complex).

If you are standing for PCC, council or other local elections, you don't have the right to have something delivered free and in some safe seats with cllrs who don't campaign hard, I imagine a fair few people have received nothing but their polling card.

In some areas, the electoral authority in the area or similar has designed a booklet explaining the role, how the vote works, and containing some information of each of the candidates. E.g. In London, candidates were asked for £10k to pay towards the booklet (https://www.londonelects.org.uk/sites/default/files/2021-04/GLABooklet2021_0.pdf). In the West of England (Bristol/Bath) regional mayor, they were asked for £1,500 contribution to the booklet's production (https://www.westofengland-ca.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/West-of-England-Mayoral-Booklet.pdf)

 

[Starmill]

It’s hard to tell there’s an election on. Apart from the polling card, the only bit of electoral material I’ve had is from ‘Stand Up to Racism’ attacking the ‘For Britain’ party standing for the County Council. One of the candidates for the City Council lives on my street, but not even a leaflet through the door.

Greater Manchester Combined Authority have been doing lots of outdoor advertising reminding people that two elections are being held across the county on 6 May. There is also the booklet which is part funded by the candidates appearing in it which I think is happening for all Combined Authority areas this year(?)

If you're living somewhere where only a council election and / or a Police & Crime Comissioner election is taking place however I can see it being much quieter.

 

[Purple Orange]

Greater Manchester Combined Authority have been doing lots of outdoor advertising reminding people that two elections are being held across the county on 6 May. There is also the booklet which is part funded by the candidates appearing in it which I think is happening for all Combined Authority areas this year(?)

If you're living somewhere where only a council election and / or a Police & Crime Comissioner election is taking place however I can see it being much quieter.

Yes it is strange seeing the difference. I live just the other side of the border to Greater Manchester and there are no placards or anything of the sort in my immediate local area (given we are just electing a police & crime commissioner), but cross over and there are loads of houses with various labour/libdem/conservative placards.

Pedantry alert: Greater Manchester is a city region

 

[TravelDream]

The Press Association has released it's like declaration time timetable. https://uk.news.yahoo.com/elections-2021-likely-declaration-times-230100951.html
It seems like Friday PM and Saturday PM are when we should expect big groups of results. Sunday is wrong as all four Welsh PCC elections will declare then.

https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/likYn5RMF9EWLLQJhnONMQ--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTk2MDtoPTk0ODtjZj13ZWJw/https://s.yimg.com/uu/api/res/1.2/Riqw2JAks.h3P8choNiuqg--~B/aD02MzI7dz02NDA7YXBwaWQ9eXRhY2h5b24-/https://media.zenfs.com/en/pa_viral_news_uk_120/f2a9f4f336e4b8bef8d2173896137096

 

[bb21]

Got a leaflet through the letterbox today:

"You have received this leaflet because we are aware that the racist British National Party is standing a candidate in the upcoming local election and we are urging you NOT to vote for them!"

They are almost like Nasty Nige, keeps rearing his ugly head when there is a crisis to take advantage of.

 

[HSTEd]

Wildly divergent polling for the constituency vote in Scotland.

Savanta have the SNP on 42%, Yougov on 52% and Survation at 49%.
Which lead to completely different results.

Either SNP loses seats or gains an absolute majority.

What a mess.

 

[brad465]

Wildly divergent polling for the constituency vote in Scotland.

Savanta have the SNP on 42%, Yougov on 52% and Survation at 49%.
Which lead to completely different results.

Either SNP loses seats or gains an absolute majority.

What a mess.

Yes I do think many of the polls will be off on various elections tomorrow, but don't know where and who gains/loses unexpectedly, unless certain parties/candidates have runaway leads, such as pretty much every Mayor standing for re-election. On the Scotland polling they all predict a pro-independence majority, but a wide variety in extent and who comprises it, while a poll of leader approval ratings had Salmond on -70%, which someone amusingly said was on a par with coronavirus.

 

[TravelDream]

Wildly divergent polling for the constituency vote in Scotland.

Savanta have the SNP on 42%, Yougov on 52% and Survation at 49%.
Which lead to completely different results.

Either SNP loses seats or gains an absolute majority.

What a mess.

I had a look at the poll numbers. There are five polls out today and only Savanta are showing the SNP doing badly. The other four polls show the SNP doing quite well. The polls have the SNP on 42, 49, 50, 51 and 52%.

Opinion polling for the 2021 Scottish Parliament election - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Though it's possible Savanta are right and the other polls are wrong, it's looks more likely Savanta are wrong as they are the odd one out.

TBH, looking at the poll numbers for the UK, they are all over the place. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election
Some polls show Labour pretty close to the Tories and others show big Conservative leads. Labour just a few points behind would actually lead to them gaining lots of councillors, but Labour 10 points behind would have them losing lots. I guess we will find out on Friday/ Saturday/ Sunday/ Monday when the results come in.

 

[HSTEd]

Though it's possible Savanta are right and the other polls are wrong, it's looks more likely Savanta are wrong as they are the odd one out.

The weird thing is they largely agree on the list vote, its only the constituency vote that is different.

I honestly don't know what is going on, after all polling should in theory converge on the real value, but at the same time it is subject to "herding".

 

[37424]

I was hugely impressed to recieve a single booklet for the West Yorkshire mayoral election which gave a synopsis of what the election os for, together with a couple of pages for each candidate to explain their manifesto.

Seriously - well done !

I finally received this yesterday, yes very good I think we should have something similar for all elections.

 

[KashmireHawker]

I was hugely impressed to recieve a single booklet for the West Yorkshire mayoral election which gave a synopsis of what the election os for, together with a couple of pages for each candidate to explain their manifesto.

Seriously - well done !

All Combined Authority’s and the Greater London Authority, are required by law to send them out and I have to say, they did a very decent job on the West Midlands one too.

Yes I do think many of the polls will be off on various elections tomorrow, but don't know where and who gains/loses unexpectedly, unless certain parties/candidates have runaway leads, such as pretty much every Mayor standing for re-election. On the Scotland polling they all predict a pro-independence majority, but a wide variety in extent and who comprises it, while a poll of leader approval ratings had Salmond on -70%, which someone amusingly said was on a par with coronavirus.

And on the Mayors; big ones in my mind to watch, is here in the West Midlands (despite what some polls say) and West of England - where the Conservatives are reportedly fearing a defeat, whilst the winner in 2017 stood down and he was that invisible; BoJo couldn’t even name him!

 

[brad465]

And on the Mayors; big ones in my mind to watch, is here in the West Midlands (despite what some polls say) and West of England - where the Conservatives are reportedly fearing a defeat, whilst the winner in 2017 stood down and he was that invisible; BoJo couldn’t even name him!

Just having a look at them, yes in the West Midlands the opinion polling between Andy Street (incumbent Tory) and the Labour candidate is similar to 2017, which was a close result after second preferences. I was also reading that Street has been trying to distance himself from the rest of the Tory Party, suggesting he's not confident about the approval of the wider party. I definitely remember Johnson forgetting the West of England Mayor video though, it's just a question of how many in the area saw this gaffe.

 

[roversfan2001]

The only election material I've received in the post is something from the Tories so it's looking like a spolit ballot for me. If the other candidates can't be bothered telling me why I should vote for them then they won't get my vote, simple really.

 

[takno]

The only election material I've received in the post is something from the Tories so it's looking like a spolit ballot for me. If the other candidates can't be bothered telling me why I should vote for them then they won't get my vote, simple really.

It's not necessarily about not being bothered. Organising has been a pain this year, particularly in areas with small local parties, or ones where the local party committee don't "get" zoom. Add to that that it's only recently that they've got the all clear to hand-deliver leaflets, and doing the royal mail distribution is expensive for parties who have less money to spend than ever before. Finally, a lot of printers have been on furlough, or in a position of needing cash upfront.

Ideally you'd get at least one leaflet out to every household that's got a vote, but in the current climate the national party just hasn't got the money to help out tiny local parties in no-hope areas

 

[Ianno87]

The only election material I've received in the post is something from the Tories so it's looking like a spolit ballot for me. If the other candidates can't be bothered telling me why I should vote for them then they won't get my vote, simple really.

Personally, getting excessive crap through the post is a massive turn-off for me.

 

[takno]

Personally, getting excessive crap through the post is a massive turn-off for me.

That's true enough. I've had masses of the stuff, to the point where I lost a fairly important letter in the middle of it for a few days

 

[DarloRich]

Sadly I suspect the Tories will win hartlepooh and retain the Tees Valley mayoralty. So many people just don't want to look at the truth around them.. I am sure @ainsworth74 will have the gen

My ward in MK did have three Labour Councillors but the Tories and the Greens are pushing hard for one of the seats. I hope we retain our local Councillors as they have all proved very responsive to fixing the small mundane local issues that always crop up: rubbish, parking, noise, planning etc.

I know the Police and Crime commissioner is also up for election. That is all i know about that!

IN London i hope Binface storms to power because once Bailey is handed his hat Johnson will look to scrap the London Mayor. it is fine if the voters behave but if they cant be trusted to elect a Tory they should not be allowed to vote

 

[DynamicSpirit]

It's not necessarily about not being bothered. Organising has been a pain this year, particularly in areas with small local parties, or ones where the local party committee don't "get" zoom. Add to that that it's only recently that they've got the all clear to hand-deliver leaflets, and doing the royal mail distribution is expensive for parties who have less money to spend than ever before. Finally, a lot of printers have been on furlough, or in a position of needing cash upfront.

Ideally you'd get at least one leaflet out to every household that's got a vote, but in the current climate the national party just hasn't got the money to help out tiny local parties in no-hope areas

I agree. It's easy to forget just how many people there are for parties to contact - even a single council ward can have as many as 10 000 electors in it. Getting leaflets out to all of those is expensive, requires massive volunteer effort that is only possible if you have a lot of party members living in the area (personally talking to voters, even more so), and you have practical problems like that many people these days live in blocks of flats or gated areas that are all but impossible to deliver leaflets to. And that's in normal times, before you think about the extra difficulties that Covid has put on everyone. And this for council positions that often pay only small remunerations for doing quite a huge amount of work.

In the end, all the main parties and many of the smaller groups have websites with their manifestos on. Existing councillors will have voting records that you can look up, and many of them maintain facebook pages or other social media presence through which they say what they are doing etc. I can see lots of reasons for being unsure who to vote for or being not keen on any of the parties, but to my mind, not voting just because you haven't received a leaflet isn't reasonable and just smacks of, making excuses.

 

[roversfan2001]

Personally, getting excessive crap through the post is a massive turn-off for me.

True enough, a leaflet from each candidate seems sensible enough without it getting excessive though IMO.

In the end, all the main parties and many of the smaller groups have websites with their manifestos on. Existing councillors will have voting records that you can look up, and many of them maintain facebook pages or other social media presence through which they say what they are doing etc. I can see lots of reasons for being unsure who to vote for or being not keen on any of the parties, but to my mind, not voting just because you haven't received a leaflet isn't reasonable and just smacks of, making excuses.

For a general election there's heaps of info about, but the local candidates round here don't really have much of an online presence. whocanivotefor.co.uk is a useful resource but half the candidates here have no info about them. I'll always put a piece of paper in the ballot box but I'd ideally like to know what I'm actually voting for before putting a cross in the box, but maybe I'm not the typical voter.

In 2017 my local ward was only won by a majority of <200 (from nearly 4000 votes) so it's hardly a safe area either.