After the last Election, Labour told us (again and again and again, yaaawn) that the new Government had NO REAL MANDATE, coz they had received NO REAL MAJORITY from the electorate.
So the mid terms are where the voters traditionally boost the Opposition and kick the incumbent administration.
But only 32% bothered to turn out.
And Labour only got 39% of that 32%
So the Trots were only endorsed by 12% of the electorate.
Or, put another way, 88% of the population have rejected Labour.
By their own criteria, that was a disastrous night for Labour.
Its mid term in government....this is the usual pattern of local elections....in a general election I am sure people will realise that the bunch at the head of the Labour Party are not capable of governing.....and this is from me a lifelong Labour voter.
think the press and the BBC (stop gloating wil you!!!) could have wrote the headlines a year ago, or dug up the headlines from any mid-term election over the last few decades!
Apathy rules, but will the politicians take any notice of that.... of course not. They will gloat, excuse and lambast but I guarantee not one will answer how they will re-engage the electorate.
As Labout kept telling us after the General Election, the "apparent" victory hides the fact that the majority (88% in this case) do not support the outcome.
No sympathy for the Electorate at all........sorry.
At the election the voters were swayed by TV debates and the young charismatic Liberal leader Nick Clegg put on an extrovert performance. Voters left the traditional main parties and voted for the outsiders (including Brighton I may add with the Green Candidate) and so one is reaping what they have sewn.
No typical Labour policies.
No typical Tory policies.
Just a shambles.
Don't blame the politicians, blame the naive voters.
Can't see weekends doing the trick, especially if we're picking the weather slots for people to vote in, what about people who go away weekends, or the ever growing bank of people who work weekends.
Don't think Thursday is the problem somehow, been that way for many a year and almost everyone is near their polling station (on a weekday) for a couple of minutes between polling hours ....which cover a 15 hour period.
I didn't vote, then again I'm not even sure we had a local election as we had no polling cards or postal votes (which we signed up for) through the door.