Apathy 2 - Blair 1 - Democracy Nill

Did anyone happen to see who won .cam? I assume it was the bitch-sucking anne campbell of 'lie to their faces about what I did last year' fame, but I'd like to know for sure.

Eleven Thousand people in Oldham voted Nazi. Fuck. Eleven thousand.

Pretty much everywhere else the BNP stood it got 500 votes and lost its deposit. In oldham (you remember these riots?) they got third place. Fuck.

The libdems will freak.

Mandelson - showing that a strong personality, even an awful one - can win. "I am a fighter and not a quitter" shouted, but sounding like he was quoting it, not actually meaning it. No sincerity, a practice act.

Blair looking tired and human! 72 hours will do that to you, I guess. Or maybe he secured his leaf a bit better.

Conservatives are going to meltdown, stop, change policies. [Ed. As we now know, hague stepped down]

The interviewers are taking cheap shots, not talking policy - but then the candidates are sticking to party lines and boring defencive rote answers.

Did I mention the Nazis?

Bllairs speeches - he says 'I believe' what, 20? 30? times.

10% turnout drop - roughly half / 60%

Vote out the party leaders. Transfer your vote to another constituency to still vote the same, but vote 'em out. Why not, it'll be fun. Bah.

Oh wow - mandelson directly attacked skargill - a personal attack 'he lost, and lost badly' - there is past precedent for doing that, but still, mocking a competitor in your acceptance speech is a touch ill mannerred.

His whole speech was very anti-labour leadership. Which is very odd. Perhaps he is being set up for the party leadership once the potential of the Blair image is exhausted?

Conservatives lost London completely it seems. Wow.

Roughly 1% of the population wants the UK independance party - secessoion from europe. And that 1% is roughly evenly distributed across the coutntry. Can we shift them all to wales?

Looks like lib-dem took all the marginals. This is aplus for them, but tactical voting was a large part of it.

A crab got about a hundred votes somewhere. Yay.

Portillo (conservative) got in - his speech opened with "This is a very soprry result for the conservative pary..." I know, I know, it was just where the BBC happened to cut to him, but still funny.

Paddy Ashdown! Paddy ashdown, paddy ashdown. PAH-dy ashdown... etc. etc. Damn, he likes charles kennedy. (Aha! So that's who's in charge of lib-dem now. Will have to forget that again ASAP)

One in four - LESS than one in four - voted for labour.

Of course, even less than that voted for other people.

Looks like UK mostly likes the euro - referendum soon.

Of course, tactical voting is now a fact of life, it's not going to go away.

"I'd like to thank the police for the ssecurity" (Romfort, BNP made a big push there)

It looks like it's a pretty straight fight between conservative and lib-dem in those places where labour have almost no votes - no labours being tactical, looks like labour people don't mind between lib-dem or conservative.

Independant parties seem to only get big votes (1k or more) in places where they don't stand a chance, since it's the party heads. Oh, and oldham. Eleven thousand nazi's in oldham. I think I'll be fascist about it, and despite my family living there, suggest bombing it. The entire area is an awful dump anyway.

Impression: People seem to be digging in - majoriites at 'safe' seats are going up - despite the total number of votes going down. Just an impression, probably not actually true :)

Kennedy espouses ditching party politics.

Concept. Euro referendum is called. Conservatives melt down. Vote is (narrowly) no.

Blair calls for a new election - 2003?

Tactical votes implies smart people. Back of the envelope time.

Roughly 6% shift is being blamed on tactical voting. 6% of 62.8% (the turnout) is 3.768%

4% of britains voters are smart and not aligned to the party being voted against. The party being voted against has roughly 30% of the vote.

Before I started this analysis I was going to think that tactical voting was a promise of hope for the UK mind. And to crticise the computer graphics as being overly dumbed down. Hah.

Unless a lot of smart people didn't vote, far more than did.

Mandelsons interview is interrupted by a video of blairs arrival at his club. How... typical.

I wonder if many people who didn't vote watched the TV of it until the end? I bet a lot did.

The oldham race riots get blamed on hague - the conservatives race hatred speechs have convinced some people to go to the fascists.

Hint - to combat tactical voting, get people to vote FOR you, rather than AGAINST the opposition.

For seats, conservatives would have been better targeting the lib-dem, since what has actually happened is they dragged the labour vote down, and people used it to vote lib-dem.

People will tactiucally vote FOR you if they think you're the most likely to win and they dislike the main opposition.

Issue politics - 'protect local hospital' campaign won (58%) by 2x the next nearest vote. Wyre forest. Lessons have obviously been learnt from the 'save withington hospital' campaign. (Plus it's not in a landslide year, sheer bad timing on their part) The guy blames his win on having lots of personal contacts due to being a doctor. Cute.

The commentator now kicks in. Uses the word "connect" one hell of a lot. Suggest that labour may die (next election? election bar one? 18 years?) to masses of independants. [Ed. That would be good, back to the way the system is intended to work] Of course, cynically, they think that the actual 'save the hospital' has no chance of success, labour will stamp down on it, hard.

Celebrity culture is a given now. Emblematic cases. People not connected to parties. Rapid information exchange bring symbolic language rather than discussing the whole, as people need to comprehend a vast number of issues at once - so they symbolise things in single example cases.

Blair: 'mandate' 'life-chance' 'tolerant' 'fair-deal' - a whole new way to use buzzwords, use them once each, in a big list of 'I'm sure' and 'I believe'

They say he sounds defencive, but I didn't hear that in his speech.

Party claims low voter turnout isn't due to people not really supporting them, it's due to 'why bother, we know how it comes out in the end'

I may have skipped some pages....

24%, 16% - 43% 'none of the above' despite it being made very easy to vote.

Of course, it's still a better turnout than the US.

I wonder if there is a standard "I wouild like to thank; Mayor, Ballot counters, Police, campaign manager,..." form for those ppl (mainly lab) to use?

Of course, this is BBC patented 'biasedly un-biased' reporting. You think perhaps they deliberately fecked up by showing each speech at that bit, when such thanks are absolutely local - but showws how the same they are (which the ppl on the ground couldn't see)

And... no quantum miracles are possible anymore. Labour win. Duh. Majority is gonna be huge.

Sleep.

Last thought. Interesting system. For max fame you want your result as close as possible, but that makes counting take longer, and you REALLY want to announce before the overall result is firm.

Thing is - who cares?