AV referendum results: yellow = areas voting no to AV, purple = areas voting yes to AV (not many).
Usually on election night I'm glued to the gogglebox until the early hours of the morning watching the results roll in.
Last night I turned off at the modest time of 10.30 pm expecting the Conservatives to get a pasting on the back of their essential but electorally unpalatable national economic reforms. It hasn't happened, the electorate instead targeting their venom at that most worthy of recipients the Liberal Democrats.
The Conservatives are four English councils and 81 councillors to the good, with the Lib Dems having lost nine councils and 695 councillors at the time of writing. The Conservatives have also gained two members of the Welsh Assembly, with the Lib Dems losing one. The only fly in the ointment, not unexpectedly, is that the Conservatives lost five members of the Scottish Parliament. Oh well, if Alex Salmond has his way Scotland will be a completely different country within a decade so who cares?
The best result of the night as far as I'm concerned is a resounding NO to the Alternative Vote. Here in Northumberland of the 99,846 votes cast almost three-quarters, 72,500, were opposed to electoral reform. You don't get much more clear cut than that. Nationally the story was similar with 68% of the vote rejecting AV.
The Lib Dems, like opportunist flies swarming a warm dog turd, are out in force claiming the electorate didn't understand the question and the No Campaign was dishonest. A little humility wouldn't go amiss from the most yellow of Liberals including Chris Huhne, who didn't resist the question when it was first decided.
I also see some Yes Campaign mouthpieces on Sky News saying "if the question said would you prefer PR/STV then they would have voted yes, so we'll be pushing the issue again". Bollocks would they. Be magnanimous in defeat and give the people some credit. Voters understand perfectly well that four or five selections on a ballot paper are more costly and time consuming to count than just one selection. The vast majority of people know who they want to vote for and don't give a stuff about second or third choices. The electoral reform bird has well and truly flown and for this generation at least is peppered with duck shot. To coin a phrase from The Wizard of Oz - electoral reform is not only merely dead, it's really most sincerely dead.
The nation decided emphatically yesterday that First Past the Post was a perfectly acceptable means of electing MPs to Westminster. No second chances and no further compromises to the Liberal Democrats.
They have had way too much Tory benevolence already.
Last night I turned off at the modest time of 10.30 pm expecting the Conservatives to get a pasting on the back of their essential but electorally unpalatable national economic reforms. It hasn't happened, the electorate instead targeting their venom at that most worthy of recipients the Liberal Democrats.
The Conservatives are four English councils and 81 councillors to the good, with the Lib Dems having lost nine councils and 695 councillors at the time of writing. The Conservatives have also gained two members of the Welsh Assembly, with the Lib Dems losing one. The only fly in the ointment, not unexpectedly, is that the Conservatives lost five members of the Scottish Parliament. Oh well, if Alex Salmond has his way Scotland will be a completely different country within a decade so who cares?
The best result of the night as far as I'm concerned is a resounding NO to the Alternative Vote. Here in Northumberland of the 99,846 votes cast almost three-quarters, 72,500, were opposed to electoral reform. You don't get much more clear cut than that. Nationally the story was similar with 68% of the vote rejecting AV.
The Lib Dems, like opportunist flies swarming a warm dog turd, are out in force claiming the electorate didn't understand the question and the No Campaign was dishonest. A little humility wouldn't go amiss from the most yellow of Liberals including Chris Huhne, who didn't resist the question when it was first decided.
I also see some Yes Campaign mouthpieces on Sky News saying "if the question said would you prefer PR/STV then they would have voted yes, so we'll be pushing the issue again". Bollocks would they. Be magnanimous in defeat and give the people some credit. Voters understand perfectly well that four or five selections on a ballot paper are more costly and time consuming to count than just one selection. The vast majority of people know who they want to vote for and don't give a stuff about second or third choices. The electoral reform bird has well and truly flown and for this generation at least is peppered with duck shot. To coin a phrase from The Wizard of Oz - electoral reform is not only merely dead, it's really most sincerely dead.
The nation decided emphatically yesterday that First Past the Post was a perfectly acceptable means of electing MPs to Westminster. No second chances and no further compromises to the Liberal Democrats.
They have had way too much Tory benevolence already.
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