Local Government Elections - UK

by **BobHelm** » May 7, 2011, 8:57 am

Not a good day to be a Lib-Dem in the UK from the local Government Election results.

No Northern Ireland results in yet & a handful of English ones still to come in, but a damming reflection on what previous Lib Dem supporters think of the Alliance.
The vote has moved dramatically away from the Lib-Dems to the Labour party.

I think most rational people would see that the Lib Dems have done rather a good job of ensuring that a Conservative Government has been rather less right wing in its' economic approach than if it was flying solo. However the evident distaste that many Lib-Dem supporters have for the Tory Party means that they have deserted for Labour.

To make matters even worse the whole reason behind the Lib-Dems throwing their support behind the Conservatives was to have a shot at changing voting practices to include a form of Proportional representation. This is the 1 big chance for the Lib-Dems to ever form a Government in the future. The price for their Conservative support was a referendum on the subject.

That also happened yesterday.

So far more than 400 areas of the UK have voted No, while only 10 have voted Yes - six of which are in London.

Lib-Dems in tatters.
Clegg will take much of the blame. He gambled on supporting a Conservative Government so that he might, one day, be Prime Minister himself. He has failed dismally on that front. After such a resounding NO it will be difficult to bring another referendum in the future. Worse, he has now lost his party the majority on many local councils. This is a place where Lib-Dem support has been strong for years & somewhere where they played very much on a even keel with Labour & Conservatives.

by **pienmash** » May 7, 2011, 9:11 am

UK politics and polititians in general are shambolic , do they have the whole of the population in mind when decision making ? - i think not - most seem to be out for their own ends and will stand on anyone to get where they wanna be. Clegg is and always has been a wimp , Camerons pillow biting bed partner the wally cant even sit on the fence properly ...... all said im trying to think of any nation in the world with a decent government / leader at the moment . The one fella i like is Sarkozy mainly due to hi strong policy on keeping the French identity and kicking out the freeloaders and radicals , could you ever imagine the British or many other leaders having the balls to ban the burka ? ban the buggars wearing it as well.

by **jackspratt** » May 7, 2011, 9:36 am

Jon, the French don't seem to be sharing your amour for Monsieur Sarkozy.

From the recently conducted local government elections in France:

President Nicolas Sarkozy's UMP party was the one, single loser of the elections, and in terms of political figures it was the president himself, expected to run for a second term in office next year, who suffered the biggest setback. But his party, which scored just more than 20%, did win control of the Val-d'Oise département north of Paris. That was all the more precious because this is the former electoral base of International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, tipped to become the Socialist Party candidate in next year's presidential elections.

But the poor performance nationwide, and the rise of the far-right Front National, largely to the cost of the mainstream right, has opened up splits in the ruling conservative right camp. Dominique Paillé, a former UMP spokesman and rival of current UMP secretary general François Copé, on Sunday criticized the party for its recent attempts to appeal to the far-right electorate, describing it as both "a positioning error and a strategic error". This includes President Sarkozy's controversial drive for a debate on the place of Islamic practices in secular France.

http://www.mediapart.fr/journal/france/ ... _article=2

The rise of the far right (Ms le Pen) seems to be the most unfortunate result of the elections. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the presidential election next year. :shock:

by **pienmash** » May 7, 2011, 10:06 am

There will be some fireworks IF / WHEN Ms Le Pen gets in , i can definately see it happening but just when is the question , i read up on some of her (and her dads) far right ideals/policies and the Sh*t will hit the fan with many if implimented , should make for interesting viewing

by **MALC** » May 7, 2011, 10:02 pm

well said piemash.we call the french but they leave us standing.when it omes to protecting their own.people.

Local Government Elections - UK