Friday, May 04, 2007
Lavalette re-elected in Preston
Congratulations to Respect councillor Michael Lavalette who has been re-elected in Preston, four years after first winning the seat (originally for the Socialist Alliance). He received over 50% of the vote in his ward, and Respect came second in two of the other three wards it contested in Preston. Respect also made a gain in Birmingham where, amongst a number of strong votes for the party, Mohammed Ishtiaq won in Sparkbrook to join Salma Yaqoob as Respect's second councillor in the ward. Let's hope the left has some other victories to celebrate as the night rolls on...
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14 comments:
Well done to Trish Law.
...but it looks like a very bad night for the SSP - less than 2% in Glasgow.
Looks like a bad night for everyone to the left of the SNP in Scotland. The Green vote looks down, the Solidarity vote is small, and the SSP vote is shockingly low....
Yes Glasgow has declared now, and both Rosie Kane and Tommy Sheridan have lost their seats.
Respect have also won a seat in Bolsover.
RESPECT in Birmingham gained Sparkbrook but lost Aston to Labour; they had two councillors yesterday and they've still got two councillors. Fair play to them for getting the Bolsover seat, but a net gain of one councillor across the country hardly qualifies as 'breakthrough progress'.
I meant "gained a seat in Sparkbrook but lost a seat in Aston", of course.
Generally their votes have been good. Credit where credit's due.
But they have cherry picked the seats with asian populations (for example Easton in Bristol).
And indeed Rusholme, although they didn't do that well - up a bit on last year but still third place, with 18% of the vote.
Easton in Bristol was not "cherry picked" for its Asian population. Respect have been strong in this area since it set up; but the major factor was the incumbent LibDem councillor was the cabinet member responsible for pushing through an extremely unpopular privatisation of home care services. Respect have been central to the campaign against privatisation in Bristol which has had the result of shifting Labour to an anti-privatisation position during the election campaign. Nothing to do with an "Asian population" - its about local issues.
Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't believe Bolsover has a large asian population..
I will be interested to know more about the Bolsover victory, which dies go against the trend of generally poor results for the left round the country.
Sounds like the guy who won in Bolsolver was an ex-miner and NUM official.
He had also previously stood there for the Socialist Alliance, and the contest was a straight 2 horse race with Labour.
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