But re; this comment of yours -

“However, I’ve got to take issue with the sentiment of your post, which seems to suggest that high turnouts in local elections that coincide with General Elections are a bad thing because many of the people voting in them aren’t fully informed of the local issues. That’s just the nature of democracy – if people really knew quite how badly the Lib Dem / Tory Council was failing, we (Labour) would probably have wiped them out in practically every ward in the borough!”

– I have to say almost the exact opposite state existed in Lambeth. The Lambeth Labour Party is de facto the local tory party; it pushes a low-tax, low service philosophy and campaigns on nothing more than the standard anti-state right-wing agenda of fear-of-crime, slagging public provision for being “wasteful”, and meaningless tabloid bullshit like being “tough on drugs” (and actively stifles any debate on the dreadful failure that is drug prohibition). It has also foisted a truly dreadful ALMO – Lambeth Living – on its council tenants (after increasing council rents by 17% while freezing council tax). These things are close to my heart because I live on a Lambeth Living council estate and we have to handle the consequences of dealing and drug use on a daily basis here.

Lambeth Labour pose as post-ideology “managerial” politicians who make competence their primary claim – yet their major policy initiative – Lambeth Living – is an utter disaster – they are basically now incapable of answering their phones and our local office has been so badly attacked by some poor sod who obviously flipped out and battered the place repeatedly with a club hammer or something that they’ve closed the office! Wonderful.

If local people voted in numers on local issues Lambeth Labour Party would be lucky to get any votes at all, they are hopeless, and worse, they are principle-less self-serving careerists who clearly do not give a crap about those at the bottom of the pile.

You should cross your fingers that their grand plans for mergeing Council departments with Southwark never comes to pass.

At national level I will still vote Labour where that’s the sensible thing to do under FPTP, but I will never ever vote for Lambeth Labour party again.

Thanks for your comment, I think you’re right that it is difficult to say that the elections shouldn’t coincide because they raise the local election turnout.

Since writing the post the one change I think I’d make is to more clearly say “oh well, that’s life and democracy”! I do think it’s an interesting and important observation for democrats and Green activists alike.

First of all, congratulations on getting all of those votes. As a local Labour activist, I have to say I’m glad you didn’t win but as far as I can see you’re a decent, honest chap who wants to make a difference locally, and I don’t think there is any need for the nastiness in blanco’s comments.

However, I’ve got to take issue with the sentiment of your post, which seems to suggest that high turnouts in local elections that coincide with General Elections are a bad thing because many of the people voting in them aren’t fully informed of the local issues. That’s just the nature of democracy – if people really knew quite how badly the Lib Dem / Tory Council was failing, we (Labour) would probably have wiped them out in practically every ward in the borough!

More than 3,000 people voted for Labour Councillors in The Lane because they wanted The Lane to be represented by Labour Councillors. True, some of them may well have chosen not to express their preference had there not been a GE on the same day (indeed, some of the Green voters who voted for Jenny Jones in the Parliamentary election also may not have have turned out to vote Green locally), but that doesn’t make their expression of their preference any less valid. To suggest otherwise puts you at the top of very slippery anti-democratic slope.

Andrew

Commiserations. We’re feeling quite raw here after experiencing a huge Labour majority. Problem is now Labour having a new leader and in opposition is not going to help us locally

In Halton (Merseyside/Cheshire) In the ward I was contesting in 2008 130 votes behind Labour.

We increased our vote by 20% to 622 but Labour was able to turn out a vote of 2121. Probably reflecting the increase in turnout for the general election I couldn’t believe it. I wasn’t aware of this phenomenon ie the tendency for strong cultural support in general elections cascading over into the locals. Labour were recoding such high turnouts in the rest of Halton taking three seats from Cons and one from Lib Dems – bucking the national trends. Check out our blog http://www.haltongreens.blogspot.com

At least Caroline got in.

Derek

At least Caroline got in!!!

My response to Tom’s blog and my reply to Blanco’s comment referred to two different issues. I do think that there is a problem with interpreting local election results as verdicts on local politicians or candidates when they are clearly shaped so heavily by the general election and national policies. This is not indicative of a broken political system, but it a problem for understanding election results and for campaigning. There are ways in which the effect could be reduced if, as I do, you consider it undesirable, starting with much better publicity of the fact that local elections and general elections were happening on the same day and the different issues that are controlled by local and national governments.

Blanco’s comment covered both the local and general elections and seemed to question the legitimacy of parties other than the big two or three given the smaller parties’ low level of electoral success. I, on the other hand, put this down to an electoral system that entrenches the status quo to the benefit of Labour and Conservatives. The system requires changing to allow room for a wider range of political views to be expressed at all levels of politics.

But for quite different reasons I do think electoral reform is needed!