London Assembly election in Lambeth & Southwark

Full result now published:
http://results.londonelects.org.uk/Results/AssemblyResultConstituency.aspx?id=10

pidgeon just failed dismally in the seat but being no 3 on the libdem list still makes it ...

The ward-by-ward results are out now. Looking at the six wards that cover most of SE1:

Caroline Pidgeon 'won' Cathedrals, Grange, Riverside and South Bermondsey wards.
Val Shawcross 'won' Bishop's and Chaucer wards

Shawcross pushed into third place by the Tories in Riverside.

For the London-wide list:
* Labour received the highest number of votes in Bishop's, Chaucer, Grange and South Bermondsey
* The Lib Dems received highest number of votes in Cathedrals
* The Conservatives received the highest number of votes in Riverside

Overall the results will please the Tories in Riverside ward after their poor showing in last year's by-election, and will please Labour in Chaucer where it was a very, very close result at the last borough elections in 2006.

Sean Fear at Political betting.com speculates that Boris Johnson's plurality of votes in South Bermondsey is the first Tory "victory" in that part of the world since 1918.

Unfortunately, the one thing that had already drawn the ward to my attention was the depressingly high vote for the BNP (over 10%). After years of hoping that the politics of hatred that tarnished Bermondsey's name for so long was no more, this is really quite depressing.

>>After years of hoping that the politics of hatred
>>that tarnished Bermondsey's name for so long was no
>>more, this is really quite depressing.

Agreed. Unfortunately that is the obvious side-effect of proportional representation. Loony parties only require a few votes here and there in order to become a part of the political process. That way lies madness and extremism - the National Socialists would never have got in without PR.

The Mapmaker wrote:

the National Socialists would never have got in without PR.

PR helped prevent the Nazis from ever having the majority in Parliament that the first-past-the-post system would have given them in elections in the early '30s (even though they never polled close to 50%). Of course even as a minority party they still usurped total power anyway but the point still stands.

With extremism of any kind I think the best policy is to tackle the issues / hatred head-on rather than ignoring it or relying on the voting system to keep them out.

Neil. You miss the point. Without PR they would never have had a presence in Parliament in the first place. Give the devil your little finger... The BNP are now a serious force in British politics, you cannot ever turn the clock back.

>I think the best policy is to tackle the issues head-on

So if we kick all the immigrants out then the BNP will no longer have a reason to exist. Excellent!

The Mapmaker wrote:

Without PR they would never have had a presence in Parliament in the first place.

Well obviously PR gave them their first seats in Parliament at that point in their history but it is debateable that those initial minor electoral breakthroughs were responsible or necessary for the major progress made in the lead-up to and after 1930. I would disagree though obviously neither of us can prove our point on this. It is certainly the case though that, once established as a major player, first-past-the-post would have strengthened their position.

The Mapmaker wrote:

So if we kick all the immigrants out then the BNP will no longer have a reason to exist. Excellent!

As an immigrant myself this wouldnt be my favoured course of action. It isn't the only alternative to tackling extremism either.