Tories win east London seat
It seems the election for the vacant council seat in Millwall, east London, is over, and the Tory candidate has won! The winner is a guy called Simon Rouse, and it seems that this party won because the Respect coalition split the vote. The results were:
Simon Rouse (Tory) - 828 Paul McCarr (Respect) - 635 John Cray - The Labour Party Candidate 571 Andrew Sweeney - Independent 195 Barry Blandford - Liberal Democrats (Focus Team) 150
So, the Lib Dems, nationally the third party, comes fifth where they might otherwise have come second. The Tories almost never win in east London.
Remember that this is a council election and not a Parliamentary, the issues are purely local (even though people often treat them as a referendum on the government), and that Millwall is not one of the main Muslim areas in east London; the Muslims are mostly concentrated in the area north of the Docklands, not on the Isle of Dogs.
Still, you wonder about the wisdom of Respect putting up a candidate when the only likely result is the most undesirable candidate winning (usually the Tory). These elections are not done on a proportional basis, unlike the major London council elections for the new Greater London Assembly. It’s done on a “first past the post” basis and voting for a minor candidate can let in the one you don’t want to win.
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