Talk:United Kingdom local elections, 2006

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Contents

[edit] Preston

Don't know if a link to the article is suitable on the main page, so Preston City Council elections can be put here for reference. doktorb | words 16:53, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

I've been bold and s/Preston/Preston (elections)—Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley talk contrib 22:26, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Format

Can I thank whoever it was who made that graphic of the councils, because it's marvellous. Harry Hayfield 23:48, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] UK or England?

Are the elections across the U.K. or just in England? Pburka 00:06, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

I've s/elections will take place in England/elections will take place in England (only) to make this clear. —Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley talk contrib 22:17, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Going ahead?

There were leaks regarding the government's considering cancelling these elections due to plans by John Prescott to scrap the current system of local government in England next year, but apparently they are now going ahead. Should this be mentioned? —----

That was about the 2007 local elections not the 2006 ones so does not really belong on this page. Davewild 09:55, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 2002 projected national share of the vote

Is this actually particularly relevant? Are the Council Composition and Council Tallies sections based on the numbers of seats/councils won in the 2002 elections - if they are, they're certainly not relevant: all of the mets and many of the other english districts up for election were last fought in 2004, not 2002. Philcrbk 23:59, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

The London ones have remained unchanged since 2002 (apart from by-elections and defections). Captainj 09:16, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
I think at the very least someone with some UK politics savvy should explain why the 2002 projections are relevant. If this really is a 4 year cycle (which, apologies, as a Yank I don't quite get since it appears there are local elections every year--what's the difference?) then I can see how the 2002 results would be relevant -- but why the projection from four years ago. I demand an explanation! :-) FunnyYetTasty 01:32, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
It's convoluted because different councils are elected in different ways. The terms of councillors are four years. Some are elected in "all out" elections once every four years - for example all London boroughs and some districts. So these seats need to be compared to the 2002 election results.
Other councils elect "by thirds" with 1/3 of councillors up for election each year for three out of four years. However if boundary changes occur then the entire council is put up for re-election, with the three councillors in each ward then being due for re-election in reverse order of vote total - so the councillor who came third in 2004 is up for re-election in 2006, the second in 2007 and the first in 2008 - so as to restore the rotational cycle.
Furthermore the political cycle is currently working on four years and 2002 is the equivalent point in the last Parliament - one year into the new cycle.
Hopefully that explains some of the confusion. Timrollpickering 22:25, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
On a related note, what is the source of the numbers listed as "Previous Results?" And what does it mean to say that these are previous results for "these" councils, given that most councils use a staggered cycle? These numbers certainly add up to many more seats than were up for election this year.
Good question. --Robdurbar 09:25, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
I suspect some of the figures include all the councillors on individual councils being contested. Confusing or what? Timrollpickering 10:45, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cabinet reshuffle

I've created a page for the UK Cabinet reshuffle, May 2006. Feel free to expand, and then we could put it on In The News. Dmn € Դմն 13:05, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism?

The BNP results were inflated to 53, wheras earlier versions had them as 32 and the BBC's website has them as 32 councillors also. Vandalism? I have now changed this. I am not a 'regular' editor, so I have no idea really...

Not vandalism, just confusion about the difference between the number of seats they won in this election, and the total number of seats they hold. (the fact that only 1/3 of the seats are up for election means that those figures are different). IOW, BNP won 32 seats in this part election, bringing their total overall to 53 (so must have 21 seats in councils where no election was held this time). (I made a similar mistake in another article too). Might be worth adding a heading/note to the table so the same confusion doesn't happen again? Regards, MartinRe 21:48, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] silly question

What does "NOC change" means? --Asterion talk to me 10:00, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

No Overall Control - see Local election party abbreviations from the BBC. MartinRe 10:14, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, --Asterion talk to me 06:57, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Councillor gains and losses

UKIP - gain one in Hartlepool, lose one in Wirral SP - gain one in Coventry, lose one in Stoke CPA - gain three in Newham, presumably lose one but not sure where

Any ideas on the others? Warofdreams talk 02:10, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

One of the CPA councillors was an incumbent and the BBC site lists this so I guess there were no losses at all. Timrollpickering 08:26, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
Wasn't there a CPA defection to Labour weeks after the last election? Maybe that's what causes the difficulty? Mtiedemann 21:11, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Number of Labour and NOC councils

I notice someone has change the number of Labour and NOC councillors so it is the same as on the BBC website - [1]. However the number they have put up there seems to be incorrect as if you count down the number of Labour councils I get 30 (and 65 NOC). Unless someone can find a council which is incorrectly marked as Labour I think this should be 30. Davewild 17:49, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Number off BNP councillors elected

According to the BBC website [2], the number of BNP councillors elected this year was 32. People have changed this to 53 a couple of times and I cannot find any source for this (apart from maybe being the total number of BNP councillors - including ones not elected this year.) I have already reverted this once so would like someone else to check I'm not missing something. Davewild 18:09, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

You're not missing anything, 32 is correct, (and 53 is the total number of councillors, including those not up for election now). I'll correct it now, and also add a comment to this effect at the top of the table (and in the source). MartinRe 18:18, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Disagreement over number of councils controlled in Results

I see that the data on control of councils has been changed back to Labour: 30, NOC: 65. But the BBC table given as the source shows Labour: 29, NOC: 66. Why have the results been changed back to disagree with the quoted source? (P.S. I will revert to the original version). Tamino 10:35, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

That is because the source itself is not consistant. For example, the Lab changes are listed as +1/-19, but if you go through the list individually, you will find one Lab gain, and 18 labour losses. Whether that is because BBC have miscounted, or left out a council, I do not know, might be worth mentioning it to them? Regards, MartinRe 10:56, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
As I stated 2 topics up from here on this page the BBC totals do not agree with the total if you add up the number of Labour councils on the BBC page (or if you add up the number of Labour councils we are showing on this page) which when added up make Labour 30 and NOC 65. Davewild 17:10, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
Problem is, we don't know if the total is wrong, or a council has been mis-credited. Are there other sources we can cross reference with to find out? MartinRe 17:30, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
I have just gone down our list of Labour councils using each of the details links and confirmed that they are all Labour controlled according to the council website or the individual pages already up on wikipedia, so on that basis I am going to change the results back to Labour 30, NOC 65. Davewild 18:08, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

I looked at the BBC table again, and now it says Labour: 30, NOC: 66! Have they got the maths wrong? Surely it should be Lab: 30, NOC: 65? Tamino 13:57, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Projected national share

From the BBC website [3]: "On the basis of results in 700 key wards, the BBC projects the national share of vote at a general election would be as follows: CON 40%, LIB DEM 27%, LAB 26%, OTH 7%."

So the current wording (as far as it goes) is fine, in my opinion: "BBC pundits analysed the results to produce a Projected National Share, which interprets the votes in these elections as if they had been cast in a general election across the whole of Britain. According to that, the parties would have the following share of the vote:"

What might be useful is a note saying that this sort of national share calculation is not a good predictor of the vote share in a real general election, as people vote differently in general and local elections. I will add something of the sort. Tamino 20:03, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

The BBC figures are inferior to those produced by Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher of the University of Plymouth and should be changed over. David | Talk 10:22, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
Why are the BBC figures inferior? It all comes down to which wards they looked at when compiling the figures. Unless there is some evidence showing that one set of figures is correct and the others wrong, surely we should have both sets of figures on here. Davewild 14:23, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
I concur with Davewild, although I would like to know the justification behind both sets of figures, and I would also like to see where the University of Plymouth figures were published. Captainj 14:37, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
The BBC uses a few early declaring wards and does its calculation within a few minutes to show a quick result on the election night programme. Rallings and Thrasher use all the wards and do a detailed calculation to print for academics. There simply is no comparison between the two - when the Rallings and Thrasher figures are available they supersede the BBC calculation. David | Talk 15:26, 20 May 2006 (UTC)


I still think you should deal with this in the article (maybe mentioning what you just did, but with citations / evidence). It was widely reported, for example, that Labour came third in these elections. The Ralling and Thrasher figures contradict this, so in order to avoid reader confusion (and acknowlege what was widely reported, even if that is by explaining it was wrong) and explanation should be given in the article.Captainj 19:45, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article Size

OK, this article is way too long (WP:SIZE). We need to cut it down. I sugggest as a first step removing the long list of results and putting it into a new page (results page) (keep the results summary here and at the new page).

If that doesn't do the trick, perhaps moving the Timeline section to a new page (campaign) (and keeping the campaign launches on both will do it.

I welcome comments, but I ask editors not to act on this yet without giving (the large number of people) previous contributors and everyone else a chance to have their say. Captainj 21:40, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree about removing the results table and moving it to a new page. It is very long and discourages readers from reading the rest of the article. Tamino 05:00, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
I agree that the page is too long but would be very wary of moving the main results table as I think it is the most important part of the article. These are 'local' elections and so while the national picture should be shown, the individual council results are vital and I would not want them to be down to be minimized and made harder to find.
I think that moving the campaign to another page could be sensible while keeping a summary on this page. Davewild 07:04, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
The problem is that it's not that easy to find your local council result at the moment, and in any case even the big (huge) table only provides a summary for each council. Wherever possible it is clearly better to have the results on a local page (preferrably in full), and that has happened in some cases. But it is a huge task.
Just to be clear, I am not proposing deleting this information. It would be available on a seperate page (with a clear link from this page). Further, it may also be available on a more local page. Moving the campaign may not be enough. Would be nice if more people commented. Captainj 11:13, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Summary of results table

Can anybody fix the problem with the table showing the summary of results? On earlier versions of this page I am sure it was ok but can't find what has gone wrong. Davewild 06:57, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Done. (the relevant template was missing). I used the colour the BBC uses, if that is not appropriate, please edit this template.

Captainj 11:09, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

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