AV losses badly, Lib Dems routed

Conservatives hold up well in England, Labour surges in Wales

Scottish Nationals win big

by Clifford F. Thies

Several cross-currents in the just conducted elections in the United Kingdom. The Scottish National Party has won a majority in the local parliament. There is now a real prospect for the scheduling of a referendum regarding independence.

Across the country, the referendum on what they call "AV" and what we would call "Instant Run-off" was defeated. Based on only a partial count of the vote, the margin looks to be something like 2-to-1. The scheduling of this vote was part of the deal that brought the Liberal Democrats into the ruling coalition as junior partners of the Conservatives. The size of the loss precludes any renewed effort any
time soon for replacing the country's "first past the gate" system of voting.

Along with the loss of the referendum on AV, the Lib Dems suffered huge losses all throughout the country. The success of the party, in the last national parliamentary election, can now be seen as a personal triumph for its leader, but not part of a movement to a new orientation of the electorate. This centrist party finds itself, again, in a struggle for meaning in a voting system that call forth two major parties.

If anything, the Conservatives find themselves in an even stronger position with regard to local councils throughout England, following this election. Given the increasingly clear choice between a Labour Party that acts as though Tony Blair had never re-defined it, and a Conservative Party that embraces the growing diversity of the place, a clear majority of the voters of England are going with the center-right alternative.

Photo - Baroness Sayidi Warsi, Cabinet member in David Cameron's government, and Co-Chair of the Conservative Party.