BCP Council Election May 2nd Analysis…

Well, it was a tough election for me personally with one nightmare after another occurring and the main one being the uselessness of Royal Mail. I wanted to send a letter to every resident of Newtown and Heatherlands apply to them for the job of being their councillor, it took numerous emails and three weeks before I was able to get a response and then was told there was nothing they could do until after May 20th… Not a lot of good for a May 2nd local election so other than social media and the few I met whilst out and about on my mobility scooter I was virtually a paper candidate in that election. I wholehearted thank the 356 people who did go to the ballot boxes and put an ‘X’ next to my name but it was not enough to compete against the flooding of leaflets we saw from the LibDems and they won all three seats…

We had previously arranged to go to the Brixham Pirate Festival on May 3rd and the count was far from a pleasurable experience with the LibDems gloating and showing their disdain for anyone who was not a LibDem, what a truly nasty bunch they are when in their little pack. Anyway, the count was taking too long and it was obvious I was not going to win, so I left the count and set of with my wife to enjoy the Brixham Pirate Festival, what a truly great weekend it was and I totally ignored politics over the bank holiday weekend, it was after all my wife’s birthday on May 4th and our wedding anniversary on May 6th, so it was time for us and I wasn’t going to let anything spoil that…

I got back late Tuesday and started to check through the internet and echo to find out the full results of May 2nd, to my surprise the Tories had done far better than I expected and they had won 36 of the 76 seats on the new BCP Council, however that is three seats shorts of controlling the council and that is a result in itself. Poole People did exceptionally well winning 7 seats but even though the LibDems only won 15 seats, they were acting like they had won hands down, which certainly was not the case.

Here are the 76 seats now on the BCP Council:

36 Conservatives
15 Liberal Democrats
11 Independents
7 Poole People
3 Labour (that surprised me but is probably a good thing)
2 Green Party
1 UKIP
1 Alliance for Local Living

And that is the makeup of the new council and reading through the reports none of the above are willing to team up with the Tories to give them control.

LibDems are apparently trying to form a controlling group with the other parties to stop the Conservatives but I don’t think that is going to happen, It is more likely that the Conservatives will end up running things as a minority group but considering what a mixed bunch we now have in opposition, I do think that is a better idea than allowing the LibDems to call the shots and that is what will happen if a coalition of non-Tories is formed, you never know they might find they will all have to start working together to get things done for the betterment of those they were elected to represent and if the 11 independents hold firm, that is likely to happen. I guess we will have to wait and see now…

The Conservative won by a wide margin though and sadly some of the useless ones were re-elected and the better ones who actually did work well for their communities did not but that is how politics works. As the old saying goes many a bad politician gets elected by those who do not vote and the turnout for such an important local election was diabolical. In many wards, more than 70% of the electorate simply could not be bothered to vote and for whatever reasons they have, there is never a good one as far as I am concerned. Though I suspect they will be the first to start shouting if things are not going well!

So contrary to what the LibDems are saying about giving the Tories a kicking and I have to admit, they certainly did deserve one, it never actually happened like that at all…

Firstly, here is the overall vote share of every parties/Independents total number of votes before the count as you can see the Tories certainly gained the most votes across the BCP Region.