Many congratulations to Henry Cook who won the competition to predict the number of Conservative councillors that would be won on Thursday night. At 5.20pm Henry was spot on when he predicted Tory gains of 316 (although, to keep his feet on the ground, I should tell readers that his prediction of over 450 Labour losses was out by well over 100). Email me your address Henry and I'll post you your ConservativeHome mug.
The average ConservativeHome prediction of +256 was 81% right. Not bad. Not bad at all. We'll test the Wisdom of the ConservativeHome crowd at future elections...
Peregrine and Biodun expressed disappointment that they wouldn't be winning the ConservativeHome mug. I feel their pain because the ConservativeHome mug - bearing the shields of the conservative movement* - is a very, very beautiful thing.
The good news is that anyone giving £30 to ConservativeHome will now receive a free mug as a thank you. All you have to do is send a £30 cheque made payable to ConservativeHome at 16 St Ann Street, Salisbury SP1 2DN or make a secure credit card donation through the PayPal system below.
* In ‘The Right Nation’ Adrian Wooldridge and John Micklethwait likened Ronald Reagan’s coalition to the armies that medieval kings assembled. The soldiers wore the tunics of the noblemen who hired them. The shields that adorn the top of this blog and the ConservativeHome mug attempt to capture the same idea. We come to ‘the party’ with different priorities and we succeed insofar as we can fight together, against the common enemy. We fail when we stopping seeing ourselves as a coalition and start acting like a sect – insisting on litmus tests for membership and excluding those with different priorities.
Feet firmly kept on the ground! As I pointed out on another thread, I didn't realise that the Lib Dems were going to stall their car on the starting line and splutter forward only 2 seats. Very glad they did though.
It was in all truth an entirely lucky guess and I send my commiserations to Biodun and others who were oh so close. Thank goodness for the Crawley lottery, that's all I can say!
Posted by: Henry Cook | May 06, 2006 at 18:00
One other thing - thank you Mr Editor for running the competition, and for running such an extensive blog on election night. I am sure I speak for all ConservativeHomies when I say it is very much appreciated.
Posted by: Henry Cook | May 06, 2006 at 18:10
Thanks for the commiserations, Henry.
I was just about to post a bitter comment about how this competition was rigged but after reading yours, I thought better of it ;-)
For those of you marvelling at my prescience, I have to admit that it wasn't a stab in the dark.
The encouraging responses I heard day in and day out canvassing in a safe labour ward, led me to believe we were due some very positive results.
Posted by: Biodun | May 06, 2006 at 19:01
Sadly many of us didn't have the opportunity to enter the competition as we were out from 6am delivering GOTV leaflets and did not return home until 5am the following day when the counting finished!!!!
Posted by: Andrew Kennedy | May 06, 2006 at 19:47
Huge congrats on all your successes, Tory friends.
Nonetheless, Tim, I can't help but think this sounds like the PBS pledge drives here: send us money and we give you a mug, or a bag, or an umbrella, or a video or whatever, for "free." ;-)
Posted by: Dave J | May 06, 2006 at 21:41
Congratulations to Henry Cook. Word of advice though, with those powers of predictions I would recommend a trip to the bookmakers next time.(just don't bet on Labour losses) You would have won a lot more than a mug :)
Posted by: Martin | May 06, 2006 at 21:50
The phrase "ConservativeHomies" bears uncomfortable similarities to a certain ex-leader's baseball cap. Yeurrrgh :-)
Posted by: Andrew | May 07, 2006 at 02:11
Where's Barbara Villiers when you need her? Keen to hear your take on things post-election, Duchess.
: )
PS I know this is off-topic Tim, but when you are re-launching the site, would you be able to consider numbering posts like politicalbetting.com does? It seems like a tidy way to reply to earlier posts.
Posted by: Alexander Drake | May 07, 2006 at 07:07
You still owe me a mug from the leadership election ;)
Posted by: wasp | May 07, 2006 at 12:42
So I do. Please email me your postal address wasp!
Posted by: Editor | May 07, 2006 at 12:57