London Assembly election, 2008

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The Chamber of the London Assembly at City Hall.
The Chamber of the London Assembly at City Hall.

An election to the Assembly of London took place on 1 May 2008, along with the London mayoral election, 2008. The Conservatives made significant gains, while the Liberal Democrats lost two seats, and United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) or One London as they became were wiped out. Most notably, a candidate for the British National Party (BNP) was elected for the first time.

The Assembly is elected by the Additional Member System. There are fourteen directly elected constituencies, all of which have, to date, only ever been won by the Conservative Party or the Labour Party. An additional eleven members are allocated by a London wide top-up vote with the proviso that parties must win at least five percent of the vote to qualify for the list seats. Prior to these elections, these seats were held by five Liberal Democrats, two Labour Party members, two Green Party members and two One Londoners.

The two One London members were elected as candidates for the UK Independence Party, but then joined or supported the breakaway Veritas party and subsequently left Veritas to form One London. Compared to the previous election, two separate factions of RESPECT Unity Coalition stood in 2008: Respect (George Galloway), who supported Ken Livingstone in the mayoral election, and Left List, who supported Lindsey German (RESPECT's mayoral candidate in 2004).

Contents

[edit] London-wide lists

London Assembly Election 2008 — London-wide lists
Name Candidates Elected to Assembly Not Elected
Abolish the Congestion Charge Chris Prior
British National Party Richard Barnbrook Robert Bailey, Julian Leppert, Roberta Woods, Dennis Pearce, Christopher Forster, Jeffrey Marshall, Clifford Le May, Lawrence Rustem, John Clarke
The Christian Choice Alan Craig, Paula Warren, David Campanale, Geoffrey Macharia, Stephen Hammond,Maxine Hargreaves, Sue May, Segun Johnson, Tom Conquest, Zena Sherman, Peter Vickers
Conservative Party Andrew Boff, Victoria Borwick, Gareth Bacon Edmond Yeo, Jane Archer, Kwasi Kwarteng, Benjamin Everitt, Andrew Stranack, Adrian Knowles
English Democrats Roger Cooper, Steven Uncles, Leo Brookes, Sati Chaggar, Janus Polenceus, Arvind Tailor, Teresa Cannon, Johanna Munilla, Richard Castle, David Stevens, Carol White, John Dodds, Alex Vaughan, Ursula Polenceus, Kathie Broughton, John Griffiths, Liz Painter, Paul Szatmari, James Ware, Steve Scott, Nichole Vaughan, Peter Tate, Matt O'Connor
Green Party Jenny Jones, Darren Johnson Noel Lynch, Siân Berry, Shane Collins, Laura Davenport, Shahrar Ali, Yen Chit Chong, Miranda Dunn, Adrian Oliver, Jon Nott
Labour Party Nicky Gavron, Murad Qureshi John Biggs, Len Duvall, Jennette Arnold, Val Shawcross, Joanne McCartney, Navin Shah, Ranjit Dheer, Balvinder Saund, Leonie Cooper, Ansuya Sodha, Shafi Khan, Alex Heslop
Left List Lindsey German, Oliur Rahman, Rania Khan, Carole Vincent, Salvinder Dhillon, Sait Akgul, Elaine Graham-Leigh, Kumar Murshid, Glyn Robbins, Berlyne Hamilton, Katt Young, Paul Fredericks, Pat McManus, Tansy Hoskins, Mukul Hira, Pat Stack, Sultana Begum, Mujgan Kazeroonian
Liberal Democrats Michael Tuffrey, Dee Doocey, Caroline Pidgeon Jeremy Ambache, Geoffrey Pope, Benjamin Abbotts, Stephen Knight, Shas Sheehan, Duncan Borrowman, Monica Whyte, Merlene Emerson
One London Damian Hockney, Peter Hulme Cross, Robert Hough, Helena Nelson, Martin Rutter
Respect (George Galloway) George Galloway, Linda Smith, Abdul Sheikh, Zakaria Abdi, Sabia Kamali, Abdurahman Jafar, Carole Swords, Hanif Abdulmuhit, John Mulrenan, Mohammed Rashid, Margot Lindsay, Anthony Collins
UKIP Lawrence Webb, Kathleen Garner, Michael McGough, Ralph Atkinson, Jens Winton, Arnold Tarling, Peter Dul, John Bailey, Mick Greenhough, Jonathan Serter, Magnus Nielsen, Sunita Webb, Lynnda Robson
Unity for Peace & Socialism Christiane Ohsan, Pauline Fraser, Avtar Uppal, Ivan Beavis, Mohammed Khan, Jean Turner, Sarwan Singh, Harunor Rashid, Monty Goldman, Peter Latham, Philip Brand, Charlie May, Eleni Geropanagioti
Rathy Alagaratnam (Independent) Rathy Alagaratnam
Winning list members behind the returning officer
Winning list members behind the returning officer

[edit] Constituency candidates

The Conservatives, Labour, the Liberal Democrats, the Greens, the UK Independence Party, Left List and English Democrats stood candidates in every constituency, while the Christian Choice alliance stood candidates, as "Christian Peoples Alliance and Christian Party", in all but one constituency (West Central). The National Front stood in five constituencies. The George Galloway faction of RESPECT stood in one constituency (City and East). Veritas stood in one constituency (Barnet and Camden). Socialist Alternative stood in one constituency (Greenwich and Lewisham). The Socialist Party and Animals Count stood in Lambeth and Southwark. The Free England Party stood in one constituency (South West). The BNP contested one seat City and East. There were also independent candidates in Bexley and Bromley, City and East, Havering and Redbridge and West Central.

[edit] Constituency (First Past the Post) results

Labour gained Brent and Harrow from Conservative (which had been the only constituency seat changing hands in 2004, having then been gained from Labour). The other 13 constituencies remained unchanged, with the two Liberal Democrat challenges, in South West against the Conservatives, and Lambeth and Southwark against Labour, both showing swings against the Liberal Democrats. The Labour-Conservative marginal, with just 1.3% majority, of Enfield and Haringey was defended by Labour with only a tiny swing to the Conservatives. Thus the Labour campaign for the London Assembly was considerably more successful than their campaign in the local elections held on the same day, where they suffered losses of over 330 councillors.[1]

Results by constituency in 2008
Results by constituency in 2008
Party Candidates Votes Share (%) Change (%) Seats Loss/Gain
Conservative 14 900,569 37.4 +6.2 8 –1
Labour 14 673,855 28.0 +3.3 6 +1
Liberal Democrat 14 330,018 13.7 –4.7 0 -
Green 14 194,059 8.1 +0.4 0 -
UK Independence 14 71,984 3.0 –7.0 0 -
Christian Peoples † 13 65,357 2.7 +0.3 0 -
English Democrats 14 37,171 1.5 N/A 0 -
National Front 5 34,840 1.4 N/A 0 -
Left List 14 33,438 1.4 N/A 0 -
Respect 1 26,760 1.1 –3.5 0 -
British National Party 1 18,020 0.7 N/A 0 -
Independent 3 11,096 - - 0
Free England 1 2,908 0.2 N/A 0 -
Animals Count 1 1,828 0.1 N/A 0 -
Socialist Party (GB) 1 1,588 0.1 N/A 0 -
Socialist Alternative 1 1,587 0.1 N/A 0 -
Communist League 1 701 0.0 N/A 0 -
Veritas 1 510 0.0 N/A 0 -

† Joint-ticket Christian Party/Christian Peoples Alliance candidates standing as "Christian Choice"

[edit] Top-up (Additional Member System) results

The Liberal Democrat and UKIP vote shares were both very poor compared with 2004, with UKIP wiped out entirely, and the Liberal Democrats losing two members.

The Labour vote share was up, but because of their capture of a FPTP seat, they did not gain any extra Additional Members against 2004. The biggest vote increase was for the Conservatives, achieving the highest ever showing of any party on the list, 34% (still lower than their FPTP total, because the additional member system largely eliminates tactical voting, since votes for smaller parties on the list could easily give them a seat, whereas on the constituency vote only the major parties realistically stand any chance of winning); as a result and also due to their loss of one FPTP seat, they went from zero to three additional members.

The British National Party won their first seat on the Assembly by reaching the 5% threshold; this was below some predictions that they would win two or three seats.[citation needed]

Party Votes Share Change Seats Loss/Gain
Conservative 835,535 34.05% +6.2% 3 +3
Labour 665,443 27.12% +2.7% 2 -
Liberal Democrat 252,556 11.22% –5.3% 3 –2
Green 203,465 8.29% –0.1% 2 -
British National Party 130,714 5.3% +0.6% 1 +1
Christian Peoples 70,294 2.9% +0.0% 0 -
Respect 59,721 2.4% –2.1% 0 -
UK Independence 46,617 1.9% –6.3% 0 –2
English Democrats 25,569 1.0% N/A 0 -
Left List 22,583 0.9% N/A 0 -
One London 3,430 0.1% N/A 0 -
  • Overall turnout: 45.28%

[edit] London Assembly representation

Party Seats Loss/Gain
Conservative 11 +2
Labour 8 +1
Liberal Democrat 3 –2
Green 2 0
British National Party 1 +1
UK Independence 0 –2 †
Total 25

† Both UKIP Assembly members had subsequently defected and formed the new One London party.

[edit] New members

[edit] Defeated members

[edit] Retiring members

[edit] References

  1. ^ London assembly results | Politics | guardian.co.uk

[edit] External links

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