does any one know where i can get the following information-


a break down of votes casts in each constituency?

thanks

There are 2 useful tables for the elections here

Table European parliamentary election results
 http://politics.guardian.co.uk/elections2004/tables/0,14549,1234741,00.html

Table local election results 2004
 http://politics.guardian.co.uk/elections2004/tables/0,14549,1231654,00.html


It is obvious now that the launch of Respect was a big mistake,its to do with the whole way it was set up which has all been discussed here and elsewhere.I feel it is a pity that the Greens are very low key when it comes to campaigning ,in fact I did not notice them doing any at all in the North West.In spite of this quite a lot voted for them.One gets the feeling that there are not many of them,they arent bothered if anyone joins them and think elections are a joke.I am saying this after having only ever met a few of them so it must depend where you live.

There does seem a need for some sort of green,socialist,anti war grouping, not one that has been set up by a small group of people in someones flat.
and I know I am not alone in thinking like this.
I find it so sad that the likelyhood of that happeneing soon is not likely.

But it is urgent if we are to halt the rise of nationalism in all its forms.
I am even contemplating voting labour at the next election.I hope it doesnt come to that.

We have our summary results from last night which include a breakdown on an Excel spreadsheet. Send me an email and I'll be happy to pass on the information.

Peter Cranie
North West Green Party

sorry did'nt make myself clear.

i am seeking GLA/Euro election data which can be broken down into individual wards especially in relation to lambeth and southwark. e.g brixton ward, streatham hill ward ect
thanks

"Socialists must look long and hard at how the left should organise after failing to hold their deposits anywhere other than London."

As far as I am aware, the Labour Party retained all of its deposits! Just because YOU don't believe them to be socialists or because it is the trendy thing to say, doesn't mean it is right.

Don't know about all this stuff re:Respect being a mistake.

They polled a quarter of a million votes.

They beat the Greens and the BNP for mayor of London.

Got good votes in working class areas: 30% across 5 wards in Preston. Topped poll in Tower Hamlets and came second in Newham. Got over 9% in Leicster and got 20-30% in some wards in Birmingham. Not bad for a new party that was ignored by most of the press, and villified by those that did pay it attention. Contrast to the safe, 'respectable' Greens who were heavilly promoted by the media and yet still couldn't increase their share of the vote. At least Respect, even where it did badly, tended to double the old Socialist Alliance vote, and their vote suggests several seats are winnable by them in the next general election.

Think the real failure of the night was that of Respect and the Greens not standing on a joint slate, or at least not standing against each other. Hopefully the Greens can overcome their sectarian attitude towards Respect and come to some sort of an agreement? After all, if they can ally with some cornish nationalists, why not a new left of centre party?

Just a nice little excerpt from Private Eye:

Jan 94: George Galloway visits Saddam Hussein. "Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability," he drools

Dec 99: George Galloway spends Christmas in Iraq with his friend Tariq Aziz, Saddam's Deputy Prime Minister

7 June 2004: George Galloway writes to the Guardian protesting at a reference to his "shameful links with Ba'athist Iraq". "I never had any kinds of links with the Ba'athist regime," he insists.

Just thought you'd like that! Not surprising he is anti-war.

Comments about Respect and the Greens are falling into the same old category. I'm sorry anti-Bush anti-Blair, but you are being pretty selective in your analysis. The only positive result for Respect was in Preston. The Respect share of the vote in the North West was 1.2% compared to 1.2% for a combination of the SLP and Weekly worker in 1999.

I recognise Respect did really well in a couple of areas of London, but that was based on a promise that this time it would be different for the left and that Respect would indeed sweep to power. To now talk about winning General Election seats is denial in the extreme. Greens got 57% of the vote in seats in Watford and over 30% of the vote in council seats up and down the country, but the political reality is that these do not translate into election seats. Right now Respect have lost a lot of money because they have lost all their deposits except London. The SWP is in financial difficulty as well which is presumably why they closed down their printing presses. The actual survival of these organisations may itself be precarious. I don't know - does anyone want to comment?

The Greens are disappointed not to have made progress at a Euro level but they have continued to make steady gains in their number of council seats. I certainly think that there has to be some cooperation between Greens and Respect but not on the basis of unilateral demands made in January. Back then, the minimum demanded by the Respect coalition was that Galloway topped a joint London list, under the name Respect, with Jean Lambert second. The Greens have been shown to be absolutely right in not agreeing. Both Jean Lambert and Caroline Lucas have been re-elected.

Here in the North West, discussions to keep out the BNP foundered on the requirement that Respect had 4 candidates on the list, although my understanding is that they may have stood under the name Green Party. 2 candidates will be a generous offer in June 2009 based on our electoral strength, but it is worth noting that the combined Green / Respect vote would have been more than the BNP vote. We were indeed fortunate that UKIP spent its vast sums of money and stole the BNP's best opportunity.

If there is going to be future co-operation, then that has to take into account that the electoral support for the Greens (irrespective of the number of party activists they have, and we know that is an issue for the Greens) is four or five* times greater than that for Respect or a Socialist group. The Greens don't want to be called Respect or rush into a coalition with a smaller electoral force on the terms put forward by the smaller group.

The question is, what can Respect / SA offer the Greens? The Greens can afford to ignore the left and still make very slow progress, but they may do better if they can engage the many hard working activists and experienced campaigners that the left has. On the other hand, there will have to be some sacrifices in ideological purity from those on the left who choose to work with the Greens. The pragmatic steps taken in developing the Socialist Alliance and then forming Respect to try and capture the power of the anti-war movement show that the hierarchy on the left is open to change. What about the activists?

Could activists on the left campaign for (not just vote for) local Greens? Will the hierarchy of the organisations on the left look at who is best placed to challenge New Labour pro-war candidates and be prepared to defer to the Greens in areas they are stronger? Can the left recognise that within the Green movement there are socialists, light greens, dark greens and (to quote Cartman) some "tree hugging hippy crap"? The Greens can be inclusive of Socialists within the party and they can also work with Socialists outside the party. That is very much up to individual Socialists to decide.

What is clear is that if there is co-operation it is going to be much more on Green terms than on Respect / SA terms because of the relative electoral strengths of our movements. I think two things will happen. The absolute ideologists will be unable to make this leap but a number of people who came into Respect on the promise of a principled new party will see that the Greens are the way forward. It will be up to the hierarchy on the left how this plays out as a failure to work with the Greens will leave only the ideologues as their pragmatic members leave or switch allegiance.

This is the time for discussion. We need to adapt to a political landscape where the hard / far right got 20% of the national vote. The Greens are a very small player in the national picture at the moment but Respect will have very little after the next general election. My final point, being open and honest, is that Galloway cannot lead Respect forward. His views on a range of issues directly contradict the progressive agenda and his personal appeal has obviously been vastly overestimated. Feminists are outraged by him and you risk alienating 50% of your support merely by keeping him in place as your figurehead because his anti-war views are not enough to overcome his obvious political deficiencies.


* Take the Galloway effect out from London and it is more than 5 times. The Greens don't rely on an individual to sell their party.

dont speak too soon, respect is here to stay.

after 20 weeks, respect managed to get a very reasonable share of the vote in certain parts of britain. it would be wise for respect to raise its profile. i.e stand in the local elections 96 (target areas). theres a bye-election coming soon in leicester south, Respect could do well, working class asian area.

in places like neath (very working class white area), preston and others respect came second in council elections. i believe theres alot of future for respect. respect was only 0.5% away from getting a GLA seat. the key for respect is to make it more well known, unless it starts winning council seats the press will continue to ignore us. it means that all respect supporters and activist need to start to campaign now, there are already respect meetings up and down the country ,

the greens where approached by respect in feb but declined to work with us. its interesting that greens do not do as well as they should. i would be willing to work with the greens but do not believe that they would want to associate themselves with us. i think they will suffer because unlike respect the greens do not really appeal to working people. whereas respect has already been sponsered by some RMT branches and likely to get funding from FBU.

the BNP did not do well as they expected, no breakthrough, but they where close in gaining a euro seat, no complaincy. UNITE manage a excellent campaign, where UNITE leafleted and enegaged with the community the BNP vote went down or remained the same. in epping forrest there was no UNITE campaign.

p.s. galloway is respected for his stand against the war, but this has not made much of an impact in relation to gaining media attention (MP and all). with or without him respect should continue to do well. p.s for the record quote 7th june guardian letters page "i believe in the right of women to choose".

keep the discusion going

Surely more relevant is that Respect today are in the exact same position as the SLP and Weekly Worker 5 years ago? London is an exception and maybe, just maybe, you could make the case there. But in 5 years time there will be no Galloway, no war and maybe no Labour government. How easy will it be to repeat those results?

It actually took the Greens 26 years to get into the Euro parliament from their creation in 1973, despite getting 15% back in 1989. If you are genuinely happy with the results red letter, then I can respect that, it's just that I know that a lot of Respect people are not. Glad we are all talking though.

How do people see the way forward based on the realities after this election?

Red Letter is very selective in his/her use of evidence. Despite some good results RESPECT crashed and burned in most of the country – less than 1% in 4 constituences, less than 2% in 4 others.

RESPECT indeed did well in London and Preston.

Huw Pudner’s result in Neath was also very good, but must be compared to the much more consistently good votes for Forward Wales in Wrexham (one seat won, two seats missed by a dozen votes) and Caerfilli.

If you look round the country the left did quite well in local elections whatever banner they stood under, and outside Preston RESPECT did not show itself different from the pack.

The Socialist party got some 8600+ votes across Coventry, and the IWCA won 3 seats in Oxford.

So Respect is just one competing model that was successful in London and Preston - - it is not one size fits all.

I have sympathy with PingupPete’s point that RESPECT need to be cautious about assuming that the Tower Hamlets vote will be translated into a general election. However I think that depends upon what RESPECT does now.

A good book to study is Phil Piratin’s “Our flag stays red” that explains how the Cp built their base in Stepney during the 1930s, leading to him winning a seat in parliament in 1945.

The key is the attitude of the SWP. If they work consistently through RESPECT over the next few moths to turn it into a campaigning body then they may consolidate their base of support in East London and elsewhere.

If they treat RESPECT like they did the SA, with just a few of them doing consistent wok and the rest turning up for elections or important votes then RESPECT will fail.
The point is that the SWP effectively competed with the SA by putting up their own high profile public face ( Marxist Forum, paper sales , fly posting) which prevented the SA having a high enough profile outside elections. If the SWP do the same again (as Party notes has already said they should), then RESPECT will not take off.

Undoubtedly the negotiations with the Greens in January displayed arrogance and tactical incompetence on RESPECT’s side. The electoral support for the Greens has been built up over 20 years, and they haven’t done that just so that they can lend it to Galloway to prevent his career ending prematurely. The point about negotiation is to find a solution that benefits both parties.

However, I think the greens are in a cul-de-sac, a victim of their own success, because the votes they get are not reflected in organisation on the ground. Nor is it clear that they have a strategy to move to a higher stage. Where they have formed coalition with mainstream parties (usually Lib Dems) to run councils they have been a disaster.

So what am I saying.
RESPECT has succedded in London, but it is hard to see that it is a model that works everywhere.
The left do need to work with the greens. The key is building up trust and relationships locally and working up from there.
Ironically I have found the left are better at actually campaigning on the ground over environmental issues than the Green party – who tend to just rely upon elections. Let’s work together.

However I do take exception to the purely electoralist logic of PingupPete assuming that the Greens are the party who should necessarily challenge pro-war MPs, just because they get more votes. In many cases the Greens may be best placed, but I think it should also depend upon the calibre of candidate.
If the left can put forward a better candidate who has proven themselves locally as a campaigner, and the greens have a weak paper candidate then I think the Greens should stand aside – it is about creating a different type of politics where people do things for themselves and campaign between elections. If the greens don’t try to reshape politics to be about self reliance and community and workplace activism, and just rely upon elections then they are just tree hugging Lib Dems.

It is ludicrous to assume that left activists who are leading figures in their comunities ahould stand aside and then campaign for a green candiadte who has never got out their armchair except for elections. (and this has been suggested in some places). I think Pete is a little self serving with this argument.

Red Letter is very selective in his/her use of evidence. Despite some good results RESPECT crashed and burned in most of the country – less than 1% in 4 constituences, less than 2% in 4 others.

RESPECT indeed did well in London and Preston.

Huw Pudner’s result in Neath was also very good, but must be compared to the much more consistently good votes for Forward Wales in Wrexham (one seat won, two seats missed by a dozen votes) and Caerfilli.

If you look round the country the left did quite well in local elections whatever banner they stood under, and outside Preston RESPECT did not show itself different from the pack.

The Socialist party got some 8600+ votes across Coventry, and the IWCA won 3 seats in Oxford.

So Respect is just one competing model that was successful in London and Preston - - it is not one size fits all.

I have sympathy with PingupPete’s point that RESPECT need to be cautious about assuming that the Tower Hamlets vote will be translated into a general election. However I think that depends upon what RESPECT does now.

A good book to study is Phil Piratin’s “Our flag stays red” that explains how the Cp built their base in Stepney during the 1930s, leading to him winning a seat in parliament in 1945.

The key is the attitude of the SWP. If they work consistently through RESPECT over the next few moths to turn it into a campaigning body then they may consolidate their base of support in East London and elsewhere.

If they treat RESPECT like they did the SA, with just a few of them doing consistent wok and the rest turning up for elections or important votes then RESPECT will fail.
The point is that the SWP effectively competed with the SA by putting up their own high profile public face ( Marxist Forum, paper sales , fly posting) which prevented the SA having a high enough profile outside elections. If the SWP do the same again (as Party notes has already said they should), then RESPERCT will not take off.

Undoubtedly the negotiations with the Greens in January displayed arrogance and tactical incompetence on RESPECT’s side. The electoral support for the Greens has been built up over 20 years, and they haven’t done that so that they can lend it to Galloway to prevent his career ending prematurely. The point about negotiation is to find a solution that benefits both parties.

However, I think the greens are in a cul-de-sac, a victim of their own success, because the votes they get are not reflected in organisation on the ground. Nor is it clear that they have a strategy to move to a higher stage. Where they have formed coalition with mainstream parties (usually Lib Dems) to run councils they have been a disaster.

So what am I saying.
RESPECT has succedded in London, but it is hard to see that it is a model that works everywhere.
The left do need to work with the greens. The key is building up trust and relationships locally and working up from there.
Ironically I have found the left are better at actually campaigning on the ground over environmental issues than the Green party – who tend to just rely upon elections. Let’s work together.

However I do take exception to the purely electoralist logic of PingupPete assuming that the Greens are the party who should necessarily challenge pro-war MPs, just because they get more votes. In many cases the Greens may be best placed, but I think it should also depend upon the calibre of candidate.
If the left can put forward a better candidate who has proven themselves locally as a campaigner, and the greens have a weak paper candidate then I think the Greens should stand aside – it is about creating a different type of politics where people do things for themselves and campaign between elections. If the greens don’t try to reshape politics to be about self reliance and community and workplace activism, and just rely upon elections then they are just tree hugging Lib Dems.

hi P

u raised several points in the above newswire.

firstly, iraq is going to get worse, u probably been sucked into the crap of the mainstream media on this. a recent survey in iraq suggests that over 50% of the population want americian troops to leave now. only 2% want them to remain in long term. look a yahoo news for details on this survey.

u can bet that the situation will mean more people dying including troops.this is vietnam part 2. even if the situation improved and every thing was going well, british voters still will dispise blair and his neo-liberal policies.

respect urgently needs to campaign on domestic issues, one of the most pressing problems working people face is the shorted of affordable housing. we have built less houses since 1924. hardly any council or social housing is being built. Respect supports the policy of more social and 100% affordable housing. the bnp tap into white working class peoples anger on this issue, of course they blame asylum seekers for all social problems, but if respect campaign and build houses for all, this can see off alot of the bnp support. i think the green party should have the same policy as they would also increase their votes. but the green party mainly appeals to middle class whites where housing is not an issue.

weekly worker and slp have got no where near respect votes. it is hard to estimate as respect hardly stood in any council election. where we did we done well. please provide evidence on your claim that ww & slp did just as well as respect.

there are 2 immediate battles coming up. the 1st is the council bye election in tower hamlets. respect has already developed good links there and gain substanial number of votes. 2nd bye election in leister south , respect managed to get 9% of the vote in leicester, the labour party members will no doubt realise this and will throw their full wieght into the election campaign.

if respect do well in these election ,it will no doubt raise our profile.

also traditional labour activists are changing ship, pissed off with labour see respect as their party.

it looks like tony blair is not going to resign, only because the tories were not the main beneficies. this means the labour party will not re-adjust themselves and the status quo remains the same. in the general and local election respect will target traditional labour areas, (pro -war MPs watch your back).

there are no certainies,we need a united left campaign, traditionally the british left is split and fragmented, we need to learn from our good and poor experiencies, but if u and others want some hope then i believe respect is the place to be. otherwise the bnp and others will make our lives a misery.

Red Letter says that RESPECT did very well in the few local elections it stood in.
I do not dispute that RESPECT got some good results, but they also go some local election results that were no better than other left candidates, and worse than many:
a few examples:

Basildon - Lee Chapel Ward, 57 votes = 2.2%
Benfleet - Canvey Island Winter Gardens Ward, 44 votes = 3.2%
Dudley - Lye & Wallescote ward - 452 votes = 5.36%

Their Euro result of 1.5% across the whole country is poor.

When Red Letter says: “please provide evidence on your claim that ww & slp did just as well as respect.” I suggest (s)he compres the 2004 and 1999 results:
I just give two examples.

East Midlands
1999 - 3.17% split between 2
2004 - RESPECT 1.42 %

North East
1999 - 1.56% split between 2
2004 - RESPECT 1.1%

In the South East RESPECT got no more votes than the Peace Party this time – and the PP hardly campaigned
2004 - RESPECT 13,426 (0.6%)
2004 - Peace Party 12,572 (0.6%)

Of course the SLP and WW did not do a mailing to every house in the country in 1999. Nor did they talk big in advance about winning seats. So RESPECT’s performance is more of a disappointment.

Red Letter says:
“also traditional labour activists are changing ship, pissed off with labour see respect as their party.”

This is self delusion, there are 200000 members in the Labour party, and only a handful have joined RESPECT. Interestingly as Red Letter raises housing - the Labour Cabinet member who joined RESPECT in Preston was also responsible for transferring the town’s housing stock to an ALMO.

Red Letter says:
” there are no certainies,we need a united left campaign, traditionally the british left is split and fragmented, we need to learn from our good and poor experiencies”

Excatly right. RESPECT is both a good and bad experience! It’s good results were localised, not national. The left cannot be united by demanding that everyone join RESPECT, and RESPECT need some humility to realise it was not a success nationwide – certainly the results were generally too poor to convince the sceptics.

Just to let everyone know that this is ongoing on Urban75 as well.

I understand what you are saying Andy about strong local performers. I think general rules are exactly that, general. There will always be one or two exceptions. However, I think where there are local campaigners that have done a lot of work that will be reflected in the Respect/SA/SP votes in that area and they probably will have beaten the Greens, so I actually don't think this will be a problem.

Elsewhere, its pretty fair to say that we will be standing candidates that have no realistic hope of beating sitting Labour MPs. The best that both the Greens and Respect / SA can hope for in the short term will be Lib Dems taking seats from Labour because we damage the Labour vote in areas where we stand. There are positive tactical reasons why we should do this.

Under First Past the Post, neither Greens nor Respect/SA have any chance of breaking into Westminster in the way that the Greens and SSP have established themselves in the Scottish parliament. The only party that even vaguely suggests removing this barrier is the Lib Dems and a hung parliament is the only way it is likely to happen. Tactically, a medium term goal for the Greens and the left should be to boost Lib Dem prospects against Labour. The Lib Dems are more likely to snuggle up to Labour in a coalition now that Europe appears to be the major faultline in mainstream politics. Even limited PR or an STV+1 system getting introduced as a result would be huge progress.

If that is our goal, the most effective way of going about it will be to select candidates who will do well in a particular area. Tories will vote tactically for the Lib Dems if they are best placed to remove Labour, Lib Dems will vote for their own party (as we have seen in the NW Euro results), and either a Green or Respect candidate will take anti-war votes from Labour while building a culture of an alternative vote. This then brings us back to the issue of who is best placed to do so. I'd expect the parliamentary seats we target to reflect our 4/5 to 1 vote relationship.

Staying in the North West, Liverpool, Manchester and Lancaster should let Greens have priority, but even then, Greens alone are unlikely to afford standing in all the seats. At that point we need Respect/SA to make sure everyone is getting the same opportunity to vote against the Labour government. The alternative is that we stand against each other at the cost of more lost deposits (which will probably hurt Respect/SA more than the Greens because of the relative polling strengths) and another opportunity missed, even though this time we are actually able to discuss it.

I understand red letter's point about Iraq. It may well still be going on in five years time and we will be aware of it, but the mass media moves on. When did you last hear about the problems in Afghanistan? 95% of the population probably think everything has been sorted out, because it is no longer newsworthy. Whatever mess Iraq is in, it is unlikely to have the same effect or resonance that it had a year ago.

Just why would anyone want to vote for the Lib Dems (or Tory-lite as they should be known but saying that some of their policies are more ultra-Tory!!)?

Reclaim the Labour Party!