2015 General & Local
Elections
Photograph below (Liverpool Count) taken
by Patrick Trollope.
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THIS year, the results of the 2015
General Election after the final count was declared has sent shock waves through
most parties; seeing the Conservative gain against all the odds. Nationally, the
Tories have a majority of 12 MPs after the results in all 650 seats were
announced. The turnout for General Election overall are reported to have been
slightly up on 2010. That was the same in Southport, with a turnout of 65.75%.
But the biggest losers in the elections have been the Lib-Dems who have been
obliterated nationally, leading to Nick Clegg quitting as its leader.
The Lid Dems, have fully imploded in most areas in the General Election
(Parliamentary), but Southport's MP John Pugh was just 1 of only 2 Lid Dems to
be voted in across the for the North West of England. John Pugh fought off
several strong challenges from several candidates, with Conservative's Damien
Moore getting a close 27.9% of the vote.
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Photograph above Southport Count, taken by
Martin Hovden.
The final votes for Southport were:-
► John Pugh (Liberal Democrat) - 13,652 (31%)
► Damien Moore (Conservative) - 12,313 (27.9%)
► Liz Savage (Labour) - 8,468 (19.2%)
► Terry Durrance (UKIP) - 7,427 (16.9%)
► Laurence Rankin (Green) - 1,230 (2.8%)
► Jacqueline Barlow (Southport Party) - 992 (2.3%)
Martin Hovden was at Dunes Leisure Centre for the Southport capturing the drama,
excitement, sadness and relief as MP John Pugh was re-elected on Thursday, 7 May
2015. He told us:- "The big surprise was Labour came 3rd, with UKIP in 4th
position. John Pugh had a 1,000 majority over the Tories, last time it was a
6,00 plus majority."
On Merseyside, as it has in other parts of the UK, UKIP has found itself getting
respectable figures. Nationally they had a string of 2nd places wins. At one
stage it was being reported that UKIP might be a threat to John Pugh, but just
as its campaign, it turned in to nothing, but words, with them getting just
16.9% of the vote. Nationally UKIP, despite its achievements, only gained 1 seat
in the UK, leading to Nigel Farage standing down as party leader.
But it was not just UKIP and Lib Dems to lose leaders; heads keep falling, as
Labour leader with Ed Miliband also announced he is stepping down following his
party's disappointing, General Election results
For Merseyside what does the national picture
mean, with the Conservative holding a small majority?
As Lid Dems now have just 6 seats, will John Pugh have any say in the Government
or will the party have to form new alliances to get the Lib Dem voice heard
after their disintegration? If he and his party do, who will it be with? It was
not all good news for Conservatives, as yet again Merseyside went against the
national picture seeing Labour's Margaret Greenwood elected as the new MP for
Wirral West, booting out Esther McVey, with just over 400 votes. As for Labour,
it has done well on Merseyside, but gain, as they are not in power nationally,
will the likes of the Fab 5, Maria Eagle (Garston-Halewood), Louise Ellman
(Riverside), Steve Rotheram (Walton), Luciana Berger (Wavertree) and Stephen
Twigg (West Derby) who succeeded in keeping the red flag flying over Liverpool,
be able to hold ground and fight for Merseyside after their parties
disappointing results. But as one of the biggest parties in the UK, they should
hold their ground, but will undoubtedly have sway over the sole Yellow in the
North of Merseyside. Mayor Anderson said:- "A Conservative majority
government is the worst outcome for Liverpool in terms of our funding
predicament." also adding:- "We will have no money in 2017 to pay
for anything other than the statutory minimum at this rate. The scale of cuts
Liverpool is dealing with is unprecedented and unsustainable."
Many parties must now ask why their political campaigns failed. They must
rethink how they use the media and how to engage the public better. Also, with
lack of information being passed out by the parties nationally, the media and
other groups have focused on the likes of SNP and independents, so you have to
ask, was the message most parties wanted to say to the electorate lost as a
result?
The surprise result has also leads to questions over media coverage, and also
how Prediction Polls work. The British Polling Council (BPC), which acts as the
association for opinion pollsters, has now said it will look into
"apparent bias" and make recommendations for future polls, after the
real results came in. They said it looks like they clearly underestimated the
Conservatives' lead over Labour throughout the build up.
How important do you think Twitter and other social media systems have been in
the North West for influencing votes? Interestingly the last post on Southport
Lib Dem Twitter account was on 19 April 2014.
As an experiment for the 1st time we tried to follow the results by Twitter, the
conclusion we came to was 'Don't' as it is very misleading! Not following the TV
coverage, we found that most online reporting was hard to follow as the results
starred to flow in. We want to know how you followed the results as they came in
and how accurate did they turn out to be?
Local Elections
Not to be overlooked the Local Council results have been announced. On
Merseyside's despite the national trend, Labour solidified its grip on local
Town Halls in:- Liverpool, Wirral, Sefton, Knowsley, Halton, St Helens, and
Warrington.
Many parties must now ask why their political
campaigns failed nationally. They must rethink how they use the media and how to
engage the public better. To see the local results please click on
here to get
the full results for the Merseyside area.
It might be a triumphant night for some, but the question remains how will the
next 5 years go for us and will UKIP realise its apparent potential by 2020 or
not? 5 years is a long time, as the Lib Dems and Labour have learned as of late,
as anything can alter, but one thing is for certain, keep an eye out for more
protests on Merseyside. Where will there be any court of appeal against the
perceived injustices of the very discrepant financial allocations across the
different regions and Cities of the country? Will the EU play any part as
arbiters? This may become far more apparent, now that the developing but
obviously underestimated part the Lib Dems have recently played in modifying
Tory zeal, is now missing!
Please email us your thoughts to our newsroom via:-
news24@southportreporter.com and let us know what your views are?
To see the video and full photo coverage, please use this link to our Standard News Page for this edition.
