Election stats

Well that was an eventful election. Stayed up to about 1230 watching the initial results come in, which was as pointless as ever. Sunderland results are never going to tell you anything leaving paxman and dimbleby to discuss pretty much nothing for hours attempting to make it sound valid. Jeremy Vine engulfed in his virtual house of commons trying desperately to extrapolate results from one constituency into a government. I got up again around 3am expecting results from sheffield but it seemed they weren't forthcoming, instead i endured the excitement of party leaders getting into a car, driving in a car and getting out of a car again. Gave up about 4:30 and got up again at 6:30 just in time to see nick clegg win his seat.
The best result of the night definately goes to Caroline Lucas winning a seat for the green party in brighton pavilion. I've heard her speak on numerous occasions and she is adept and focussed on raising the green agenda and will be an excellent addition to parliament. Disappointing to see UKIP and BNP in 4th and 5th position in terms of proportion of votes throughout the uk, though thankfully they didn't win a seat, it does show that there is a strong lean towards exclusive right wing policies from the electorate and this is something that still needs to be addressed.

But what happened to Rod Rodgers in sheffield central? well unsurprisingly he didn't really make any impact, claiming only 40 votes. I think if i was a counter i would have been quite excited to have come across a ballot paper with a vote for him, it would feel like a golden ticket. Paul Scriven narrowly missed out to Paul Bloomfield, probably due to tactical voting from the anti-tory majority in sheffield. In the end a vote for LD would have been better to increase the left of centre proportion of a coalition government.

Anyway, poor rod got me thinking, did he poll the lowest number of votes out of all the candidates nationally? Well thankfully the guardian have provided the entire results for all constituencies in downloadable format here. There were 16 people who returned fewer votes and outlined below is a series of interesting numerical data from the election

Who polled the least votes at the 2010 election

This accolade goes to Godfrey Spickernell who stood for the Blue Environment Party in the Chelsea and Fulham constituency who polled just 17 votes. I feel a bit sorry for Godfrey, for unlike rod rodgers he has a website and appears to be able to spell and have policies that aren't completely off the wall

who polled the most votes at the 2010 election

This goes to Stephen Timms standing for labour in east ham, polling over 70% of the constituency vote, 35,471 people voted for him. He is followed in second place by our new leader mr cameron who collected 33,973 votes, but only 59% of the vote. The top 50 candidates in terms of votes received are broken down as 32 seats for conservative, 5 seats for labour and 3 seats for the Lib Dems. Due to differences in constituency sizes and turnout this is not an entirely accurate measure of success so....

who polled the most votes in terms of percentage of voters at the 2010 election

When we analyse the results like this we get Labour candidate Steve Rotherham standing for liverpool walton as the most popular candidate with 71.96% of the vote, followed by Gerry Adams of Sinn Fein standing for Belfast West with 71.08%. Reviewing the top 50 most popular candidates in terms of votes we have 24 seats for labour, 22 seats for conservative, 2 seats for lib dem, one for Sinn fein and one for independent (Sylvia Hermon, Down north - previously UUP but recently standing as an independent due to UUP alliance with the conservatives)

which candidate got the most votes but didn't win a seat

Somerton and Frome: Annunziata Rees-Mogg received 26,976 votes and 44.51% of the vote for the conservatives but still lost the seat to David Heath of the lib dems who polled 28,793 votes 47.50%
Rodney Conner standing for independent in Fermanagh and South Tyrone polled 45.51% of the vote (21,300) but still missed out on a seat to Michelle Gildernew of Sinn Fein who polled 45.51% (21,304) a difference of just 4 votes which must've been the closest fought seat.

which candidate polled the fewest votes to win their seat

Angus MacNeil representing Scottish National Party polled just 6,723 votes to win the Na h-Eileanan an Iar seat, however this was 45.68% of the vote

which candidate polled the smallest percentage of the vote to win their seat

Simon Wright of the lib dems won Norwich South with 13,960 votes which represented 29.36% of the vote

interesting numbers

100 votes

Haji Choudhury, independent - Bethnal Green and Bow
Margaret McMahon-Morris, Lawfulness Trustworthiness and Transparency - Great Yarmouth
Paul Swansborough, independent - Redditch
all polled exactly 100 votes

1000 votes

Jo Willcott, green - Norfolk South
Bill Manwaring, UCUNF - Belfast West
all polled exactly 1000 votes

Prime numbers

There were 533 candidates who polled a prime number of votes, the largest prime number being Conservative candidate David Gauke of Hertfordshire South West who polled 30,773 votes

other numbers that are interesting

David McBride for Lib Dem Orpington polled 12,000 votes
Thomas Simpson for DUP Upper Bann polled 14,000 votes
Andrew Robathan for conservatives Leicestershire South polled 27,000 votes

candidate with the longest name

Zahra-Melan Ebrahimi-Fardouee of the Green party standing in Kensington has 28 characters in her name, she polled 753 votes

candidate with the shortest name

was ANON standing for the 'no description' party in Bath polled 69 votes

the constituency with the longest name

is Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East with 38 characters

the constituency with the shortest name

there are two with 4 characters:
Bath
Hove

lets try truth truth

I've found the build up to this general election really quite interesting. Last time there was a general election i was out of work doing various temporary bit jobs and so i applied to be a poll station clerk, a job i enjoyed fulfilling an integral role in the democratic process. The tv debates have been great at raising the profile of parties but you wonder how much people are fully grasping about policies. A number of websites are providing quizzes that you can complete to see which party best fits your responses and filling them in i find, unsurprisingly, that i don't agree with any right leaning parties. In fact i think in elections it is easier to say who i don't agree with then who i do. There are plenty of policies from lib dems, green and labour that i think are great and others that are not so. Leaving a conundrum about which way to cast my vote. Boundary changes to the Sheffield (Central) constituency has given me the opportunity to vote in a seat that could quite well be marginal. A demographic that now includes more students and (as jarvis cocker describes them) pre-raphaelites down in broomhall, leading to a potentially huge swing from labour to lib dems. And with lib dems holding the local council they are in a good position. I've never seen so many pamphlets coming through my door, each day there seems to be forests to wade through, 'personalised' letters from vince cable, nick clegg, paul scriven (the candidate) and responses from the labour candidate. Though it was interesting to note that the last labour pamphlet had changed tact quite severely moving from highlighting differences between labour and lib dem to the apocalyptic vote for lib dems will give you a tory government, exclaiming that there can only be a labour or tory government. The rise of lib dems election on election means that things are becoming more and more 3 party politics.
Anyway, not only the 3 main parties want my vote but also the greens, bnp, ukip and an independent. An independent candidate sounds interesting and i wonder under what grounds is he standing and why would he want my vote. So i turn to the great world wide web and search out Rod Rodgers and come back with little return. It seems he doesn't even have his own website, political websites can only provide his name and address and so it seemed my search had been in vain. Then i spotted a link to this photo, evidently a poster on his car door, and it appears he is standing, not for change and not for truth, but for truth truth. You know, not normal truth, proper truth truth. Quality, such an error strung poster just oozes class, all we here is change? and what on earth does 'change is not always progress truth' actually mean? It sounds like some chinese proverb that has been spat out of the babel fish application.
As philosophers around the world debate what is truth, rod rodgers has acknowledged this and created a whole new genre by creating truth truth - some may mock and laugh, but perhaps we have just uncovered a philosophical genius.

enjoy voting

thanks to
http://twitpic.com/1fjkjx

bank holiday I

I've been pretty busy lately, too busy to blog as i've been out enjoying the nice weather we've been having. i don't particularly like super long blogs, they are just little morsals of thoughts and things i've been doing. if you've got time to be reading long in depth debates and shenanigans you really ought to be getting out more. so i'll blog some small episodes over the coming days:

Thursday
so it was election time, i'd declined to be a poll clerk this year as i wasn't in need of the extra cash and i didn't fancy the really long day. Ther was little coverage over the elections and they seemed to come and go with little fuss. The predicted labour failure didn't really materialise. my ward was very tight, just a few votes in it. To be honest i'd have been happy with the candidates from labour, lib dems or greens. Members of the labour party were going around knocking on doors to remind people to vote and to get an idea which way people were voting. I'd never seen them do that before - they were obviously keen to win the seat. They lost out to the lib dems by about 30 votes! Thankfully there seemed fewer interest from the british national party around sheffield, though they still collected reasonable numbers of votes in the wards they stood which is a worrying trend.
At bible study we're using an mrdf study guide looking at poverty and slavery. It's been interesting and this week we were looking at some of the laws given to the newly flourishing israel nation after leaving slavery. Rules that ensure profiteering is not a major driver, but the growth and stability of all members, rich and poor, of the israel nation. Laws that give rights to the alien and ensure stumbling blocks are not placed in the way of those less able. Alright if we were to read on in the passage there are numerous odd laws that must really be taken within the cultural setting, but the basics to which the israel nation was raised are a great set of starting ideas. We mused how we would run a new settlement. The key seems to be the 'buy in' from all members of the group. It only works if everyone does their bit, however menial. In practice though, humans seem to be inately selfish which i guess is why capitalism creates greed at the exploitive expense of others, communism breeds apathy and a superior ruling class that has to enforce the pricipals in order for them to work, the welfare state breeds people who exploit the benefits entering a cycle of dependency and an unwillingness to work. It makes you wonder if there is ever a way that the kingdom of god can work here on earth as prayed for in the lords prayer - may your kingdom come on earth, as it is in heaven. Will there be a time when everyone wants to serve god in that way, or will selfish tendancies or disputes about irrelevencies continue.

Yesterday I was mostly a spoke in the wheel of democracy

Yesterday I was up super early to help the democratic process flow. You see I was enlisted to help as a polling clerk again, a job that requires me to tick off voters as they vote and ensure no-one tries to vote fraudulently. It's quite boring, but I quite enjoy it, you get to see all sorts of people, and I feel like I'm helping them utilise their democratic right to vote. I was stationed at a polling station in stannington, amidst a council estate of a mostly aged population. It was interesting to hear some of their grumbles, particularly that they had not seen or heard anything from the people standing, nor had they received any literature. So it just goes to show that a lot of people really do want to identify with the candidates and get a sense that the candidates are interested in helping them. There was of course a few people annoyed with the polling station, some posh guy from one of the larger houses (outside the council estate) moaning that it has taken him 30 minutes to find the polling station. "How is anyone supposed to find this station if they are not familiar with the area"

Errrm, you live here, I found it ok and I live in another part of sheffield. Just goes to show that a lot of people take no interest in their surrounding neighbourhood, especially, i guess, when it is a council estate!

Perhaps the chap wanted his own polling station at the end of his drive!

Then there was an old chap, who according to our records had requested a postal vote and so could not vote in person, insisted that he should be able to vote. He qualified this belief by saying, not only had he not requested a postal vote, but that he was around before the polling station was even built and had always voted there, so wished to do so again!

The police popped by twice to check that everything was running smoothly, and one of the candidates (the liberal democrat) did actually pop in and thank us for working at the station and to enquire how the voting was going. He seemed quite a nice chap actually.

Starting at 0700 and seeing about 10 votes an hour until lunch, it was certainly quiet, but time used to do some reading. The peak hour was from 1900-2000 with 34 votes cast.

A number of people who came to vote said that they had come to ensure that the bnp didn't get in, but thankfully they had no candidates in this particular ward (though those wards where they did have candidates they actually gained a significant number of votes).

A full round up of the sheffield council results can be found here.