Elections night predictions (1)

One of the stories of tonight might be the rise of The Others - the BNP, the Greens, SNP, Plaid and maybe even UKIP.  Later today we'll be having our now traditional prediction competition for Tory gains but there's three mugs to be won by the three people with the most accurate predictions for the performance of The Others.  Here are the five tests ...

1. Councillors won/ retained by the BNP in today's elections (750 candidates, currently has about 50 councillors in total, none are defending their seats today);
2. Councillors won/ retained by the Greens in today's elections (1419 candidates, currently have 93 councillors in total with 45 defending their seats today);
3. Councillors won/ retained by UKIP in today's elections (1031 candidates, currently has 19 councillors in total);
4. Welsh Assembly seats won by Plaid (Currently has 12 out of 60);
5. Scottish Parliamentary seats won by the SNP (Currently has 25 out of 129).

We may obviously have to wait a few days for definitive results to judge the entries.

Comments

[comstock]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6549353.stm

93 Greens 46 BNP "15-18" UKIP

[comstock]

Mind you, are those all up for election. The article isn't clear on that......

[Deputy Editor]

Yeah they're the total figures.

[Pisaboy]

Great graphic!

Very rough guesses:

1. 60
2. 140
3. 40
4. 19
5. 49

[Aeolitus]

Greens defend probably something like 20-25 seats.

BNP defend 4 seats in Burnley and 1 seat in Stoke-on-Trent if I remember correctly.

UKIP probably don't defend anything as their couns due to the re-election this year decided to stand as independents.

No idea on Plaid/SNP

[Richard]

That picture of Griffin amuses me.

The BNP hasn't had its usual media coverage so it's had to estimate whether they'll do well in spite of the attention. I suppose if they've been quietly working away they might do.

[Richard]

*lack of attention

[VOTE FREEDOM]

The number of bnp council candidates is 750 with another 80 for parish and town councils.

So please get your figures correct.

As for what the BNP will win, all depends on postal vote rigging by the main three, recounts till the BNP lose the ward and any other dirty trick which will be inacted.

The seats won should be a minimum of 30 if all things go well 50 and there is a possible landslide option of over 120 seats if labour vote collapses and people turn to the BNP, If this happens you can expect all 16 candidates in Thurrock to be returned. the last option is slim but who knows what will happen.

I go for 50 seats won by the BNP.

The greens should do well in their targeted areas and expect another 30 or 40 councillors.

UKIP will grab a couple of seats but the poor performance in last weeks chingford by election should be the notification that the UKIP is a busted flush and this should be the election in which they do a Veritas. get an average of 5% in votes where they stand they may even struggle to get anyone elected and then disperse into other parties and collapse into insignificance.

SNP to win scotland but by a slim margin, due to the fact the scots will give the labour party one last,last,last,last,last chance. But the chances must be almost out and it is only the fact that the next PM will be Scottish is saving the party from ultimate collapse in Scotland. tories and lib dems come far behind and greens to win a seat with socialists vote up for those who are pee'd off with Labour but dont wanna vote SNP.

Wales will see labour vote collapse but not drift away but simply not turn out, they have no one to turn to. they wont vote plaid, and the plaid will do better then expected by the support coming out but not by claiming support from else where. tories and lib dems the same. UKIP will nick some tory votes which could stop the tories win a seat or two extra. and this is the most credible chance of the BNP winning one seat through the top up system. building on the 20,000 votes from the euro elections. with support tripling in the years since that vote and all other parties support falling, the BNP could win one seat throught the top ups.

As for the Griffin picture is it dave camerons body ???

[Michael Rutherford]

I'm hoping to beat two greens in Fishergate, York today. So knock two off all your predictions!

[VOTE FREEDOM]

1 BROXBOURNE

1 STOKE ON TRENT

1 CALDERDALE

1 BRADFORD

4 BURNLEY

defending BNP seats, plus the TORY defecting councillor is stand for the bnp in South Holland with 2 others.

[Deputy Editor]

Happy to amend VF, what's your source? (mine was the Guardian)

Do you know how many council seats the BNP are defending today?

[VOTE FREEDOM]

If you care to look at my site, i have listed all the BNP candidates by region and then council. I also have a list of councillors and details. and can let you know the figure i have is 49 which does exclude the 7 parish / town councillors which was elected unopposed this election.

I am not an official BNP site I simply am a BNP supporter which enjoys election results. so i have just removed the header where i said 879 ways to vote BNP to winning candidates number. the 879 split was 52 for wales and scotland. that left 827 approx 77 for parish and town councils. leaving 750.

the guardian and many other rags have been giving all sorts of figures. feel free to check my site to see how much effort i have put into sorting the numbers there is also a full list on the official bnp site.

[VOTE FREEDOM]

just for fun maybe we could have a game of guess the bodies.

1. Dave Caneron
2. Margeret Beckett
3. Graham Norton
4. David Brent
5. Peter Mandelson

[John Craig]

Mike Rutherford
Good luck in Fishergate York tonight - the greens are well dug in and offer a credible alternative to those Liberals who are destroying York. Give my regards to Robin Dixon and tell he was good on tv last night.

[Deputy Editor]

All future comments should be predictions please, within reason!

I've added how many councillors the fringe parties already have in total, it's not ideal but I'll keep trying to get the figures of how many are defending their seats today.

[VOTE FREEDOM]

Well your figures are wrong for the BNP.

there is 49 standing BNP councillors now. and the total standing for full council elections is 750. I would have emailed but couldn't find link.

[Yet Another Anon]

No doubt as usual - the BNP will make some gains, but also lose some gains they have made and will highlight the gains they have made and gloss over the losses and probably end up with not many more seats than they started off with.

UKIP may make some progress - it all depends whether they manage to convince many more people to consider them as a party of Local Government rather than just a means of moving the UK to withdraw from the EU.

No doubt the Greens will make some modest gains.

Given the numbers of candidates all 3 are fielding I would expect a lot of lost deposits by them.

Labour and the Liberal Democrats between them in Scotland will probably end up with about the same number of seats as last time - more Liberal Democrats and fewer Labour than before. John McConnell will resign in humiliation and there will be a continuation of the coalition, the SNP will get about the same number of seats as Labour and the Conservatives will make no progress. Solidarity and the SSP may even be wiped out.

In Wales I imagine Plaid Cymru and the Conservatives will make modest gains and the probability is a Labour\Liberal Democrat coalition.

In the Local Elections I would expect the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat overall shares of the vote to be much the same as last years - this will mean fairly sizeable losses of seats for the Liberal Democrats and some further losses for Labour and major gains in terms of seats for the Conservatives, the Conservatives may even scrape 40% of the vote - in terms of control of Local Government at least it will be good news for the Conservative Party, but will provide some cheer for Gordon Brown as well. Mixed results for all 3 parties, but not anything to shake any of the leaders of the 3 main parties out of their trees.

[Deputy Editor]

Ok I've rang around the press offices to try to clear this up, this is what I found out:

Green - defending 45, hoping to gain about 30.

BNP - no incumbents defending seats to their knowledge, they have about 750 candidates standing in about 850 wards.

UKIP - 1031 standing all together, not sure how many are incumbents.

[Anthony Broderick]

1 17
2 80
3 15
4 15
5 41

[Michael Hewlett]

1. 15
2. 60
3. 10
4. 20
5. 50

[all the 8's]

58
108
8
18
48

[Not campaigning today!]

20
74
11
4
68

[simon]

1-82
2-127
3-36
4-17
5-48
There you go. Better than Mystic Meg! I don't want a mug, but a piccie of Mr Coates without a shirt will do!

[Yet Another Anon]

1. 55
2. 120
3. 40
4. 15
5. 40

[VOTE FREEDOM]

dear deputy editor.

there is 8 candidates defending their seats if you had looked at my post 10.03 am it shows you the councils and numbers in which they are defending seats.

Thank you for correcting your previous mistake. and it is 750 in 750 wards. the extra 130 is made up of parish/town and msp/assembly candidates.

[Deputy Editor]

I was going by what the BNP's Head of Press told me but he wasn't quite sure so I imagine you're right - I'll add a caveat to the post.

No more comments dwelling on the BNP now please, they will be deleted.

[Guestimator]

1 50
2 100
3 50
4 20
5 50

Nice round numbers for you!

[Yet Another Anon]

I expect in the Scottish Local Elections that Labour and the SNP overall will probably be fairly evenly matched in much the same way as in the Scottish Parliamentary Elections.

SSP and Solidarity no doubt will manage to fight each other into the ground and Greens and Liberal Democrats will make modest gains.

[Toby Harlon]

How about:

1 - 16
2 - 122
3 - 21
4 - 38
5 - 38

[Martin Wright]

1 - 50
2 - 70
3 - 10
4 - 15
5 - 52

[Richard Baxter]

1 - 94
2 - 104
3 - 6
4 - 24
5 - 58

[comstock]

I was going by what the BNP's Head of Press told me but he wasn't quite sure so I imagine you're right - I'll add a caveat to the post.

No more comments dwelling on the BNP now please, they will be deleted.

Then this will be deleted,but hopefully you will read it first.

Are you sure it was wise contacting the BNP press office? Many sites would have a policy of not giving them the oxygen of publicity so I feel that was a mistake.

In fact I'm not even sure including them in this competition was CH's best ever idea.

[Edward]

18
76
11
14
52

[Yet Another Anon]

1. 55
2. 120
3. 40
4. 15
5. 40
1 to 3 were actually for the number of councillors I thought they'd have in total at the end of the day so in fact for the BNP a net gain of 5, for the Greens a net gain of 27 and for UKIP a net gain of 21.

I think they are possibly overstretching themselves a bit. I think though that UKIP's raised profile in the Local Elections may yield them some results though this time.

[VOTE FREEDOM]

Having heard reports from a few differing areas I would like to revise my totals.

numbers will be gains number in brackets councillors after gains

1. 150 (199) BNP
2. 40 (133) Greens
3. 5 (24) UKIP
4. 15 plaid cymru
5. 53 SNP

[Orlando]

1. 62
2. 115
3. 14
4. 16
5. 46

[A Syed]

1 58
2 108
3 22
4 15
5 53

[Dave H]

1 32
2 53
3 12
4 14
5 42

[Editor]

No more predictions thanks!