absit invidia verbo

So, hundreds of pounds have been wasted by councils correcting road signs with spelling and punctuation mistakes (BBC News: Road sign errors hit taxpayers). Having worked on the receiving end of Freedom of Information requests in the NHS, I can’t help thinking that even more taxpayers’ money will have been wasted answering questions about councils misspelling or mispuncuating road signs than on actually sorting the signs out.

Every year LabourStart (”where trade unionists start their day on the net”) hosts the Labour Photo of the Year competition, from submissions by trades unionists and worker activists around the world concerning danger at work and assertion of workers’ rights. This year’s shortlist is now online at http://www.labourstart.org/lpoty/ and you can vote to help decide which should be the Labour Photo of the Year. Well worth a look.

Caught a fantastic interview on the World Service last night with Marcus Trescothick about his experiences of international cricket and depression. Well worth a listen.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p004ct17

Ministry of Truth has an excellent piece about research into the pilots of using ‘voice-risk analysis technology’ (so-called ‘lie detectors’). Even at its best this technology would be no sure-fire guarantee that a claimant is lying or telling the truth, but it is easy to imagine shortcuts being taken in overloaded offices that place too much emphasis on voice stress, and less on proper investigation. Ministry of Truth also tells of the lack of competition for providing the technology (leaving the usual IT contracting suspects) and that someone is going to make an awful lot of money from this. Oh, and the pilot authorities seem remarkably reticent about releasing information about the trials.

Another North East councillor blog from the Lib Dem leader on Durham County Council, Nigel Martin. It’s been going since 2007 (although I’ve only just found it) and focuses primarily on Durham issues. Nigel is the only Durham Lib Dem to be mentioned in a George Monbiot book.

Below are the vote share breakdowns by North East district and changes since 2004 and some analysis. The actual votes for both are online so I won’t bother repeating them here (2004 & 2009)

Key points

1. The Lib Dems and Conservatives have been reasonably consistent in vote share between 2004 and 2009. Only Sunderland saw big changes, where Independent Neil Herron had polled well in 2004 on a strongly Eurosceptic platform. UKIP also benefitted in Sunderland and Labour wasn’t pounded half as much there.
2. UKIP made good inroads in Teesside, particularly Hartlepool where they topped the poll and have some councillors. Could UKIP be heading for second place there at the next General Election?
3. The Lib Dems have failed to capitalise on their activity in the 2004 Parliamentary by-election (confirmed by the dire showing for Mayor)
4. Labour lost across the region, generally bigger falls where there was support to lose but with less bad results in North Tyneside and Newcastle (where there are marginal seats) and Middlesbrough.
5. Dari Taylor in Stockton South must be worried. The Darlington result doesn’t look like a safe Labour seat should, despite the borough including a fringe of Tory villages that vote as part of Sedgefield constituency.
6. Under the new unitary councils County Durham and Northumberland only provide one result each (previously there were several districts). This is boring and provides less indication over the City of Durham and Berwick (although the Co Durham Lib Dems must have been hoping for something better after last year’s local election gains).

2009 share of EP vote by district

See previous posts for details on party’s best and worst areas.

Change in share of vote since 2004 by district

NB Co Durham and Northumberland 2004 figures are aggregates of all district results.

Neil Harding’s right. If last night’s election had been run under the first-past-the-post system, the second highest polling party (UKIP) would probably have left without a single seat. With under a third of the vote the Tories would probably have taken 75% of the seats or so. That is not democratic, and while I utterly oppose UKIP’s policies and philosophy, a democracy has to reflect that so many people backed a legitimate, democratic, political viewpoint.

Yes, we wouldn’t have the shame of BNP MEPs under first-past-the-post but lets not blame the system. The BNP have MEPs because people voted for them. Some of these will have been the hardcore headbangers that have supported them for years, others casting a fearful vote against immigration or ‘political correctness’ having believed BNP lies, and some casting the ‘ultimate’ protest vote. Perhaps these MEPs will further shock the mainstream parties into local activity and offering choice at a local level, countering BNP lies and providing leadership in the community. Hopefully it also gives an opportunity for the BNP’s elected representatives to show themselves up (particularly given the unsavoury but unadvertised past of their two MEPs). The crisis isn’t that the BNP got two MEPs, it is that sufficient people voted for them to give them two MEPs. You change that by taking the fight to them, not by relying on an electoral system.

No change in the North East’s delegation to the European Parliament (thankfully, the only realistic changes given the national mood wouldn’t have been good). Significant shifts in vote share from Labour split around UKIP, BNP and the minor parties.

Full result on BBC news.

In terms of share of the vote - the best and worst districts for each party

Labour
Best
Sunderland 29.99%
Gateshead 29.87%
Co Durham 28.86%

Worst
Northumberland 17.61%
Redcar-Cleveland 19.32%
Stockton 20.13%

Conservative
Best
Darlington 28.37%
N Tyneside 26.63%
Stockton 25.22%

Worst
Gateshead 12.96%
Newcastle 14.66%
S Tyneside 15.08%

Lib Dem
Best
Newcastle 26.43%
Northumberland 24.95%
Gateshead 20.08%

Worst
Sunderland 11.45%
Hartlepool 11.54%
Middlesbrough 11.67%

UKIP
Best
Hartlepool 25.33%
Redcar-Cleveland 19.99%
Middlesbrough 18.79%

Worst
Newcastle 11.61%
N Tyneside 13.19%
Sunderland 14.01%

BNP
Best
S Tyneside 12.99%
Middlesbrough 10.69%
Sunderland 10.68%

Worst
Northumberland 6.07%
N Tyneside 7.18%
Darlington 7.56%

Green
Best
Newcastle 7.50%
Northumberland 6.92%
Darlington 6.14%

Worst
Hartlepool 4.41%
Sunderland 4.62%
Stockton 4.91%

Only real raised eyebrows for me are quite how much the Tories are beating Labour in Stockton (with two Labour MPs), that Darlington had a higher share of the vote for the Tories than North Tyneside (where Linda Arkley just won back the Mayoralty for the Conservatives) and Northumberland (which has the North East’s only Tory MP) in which the Lib Dems actually managed to top the Euro-poll. Good to see that only 2.7% of the North East’s electorate actually voted BNP (1 in 37 people) given that I’d trust anyone who believes in the BNP’s racist clap-trap, as opposed to using them as a protest vote, would have turned out.

Congratulations to our returning MEPs Steven Hughes (LAB), Fiona Hall (LD) and Martin Callanan (CON). Perhaps Mr Callanan would care to share his thoughts about campaigning positively in the EP given the Tories commitment to leave the bouyant European People’s Party at the same time as the mood in the EPP could shift in the Euroskeptic direction following tremendous results for the EPP in Poland.

Further analysis may follow later this week after my final accountancy exam.

The Tories comfortably held on to Barnard Castle East in Thursday’s by-election to Durham County Council.

Results
James Rowlandson - CON - 1263
Anthony Cooke - IND - 634
Michael Newlands - LD - 479
Sharon Longcroft - LAB - 319
Maj. 629

Not the biggest surprise as the seat (part of Barnard Castle and much of Teesdale) has been represented on the County Council by Tories for years.

Two Co Durham men have been arrested under suspicion of inciting racial hatred and one is now also being held under the Terrorism Act following a suspected find of the deadly toxin ricin. It is reported that both belonged to white supremacist groups. Well done Durham Constabulary.

I can’t help thinking that if they’d been Muslim this would be all over the front pages of both the newspapers and the BNP website. Perhaps that’s because our ‘respectable’ fascist chums can’t square this with their insistence that “the real cause of terrorism [is] the importation of a large Third World immigrant population from which the Islamists can recruit”.