Yesterday were local UK elections and the UK Pirate Party did surprisingly well. While they didn’t win a seat, they did get a return in at least one ward that was surprising, the more so for being in a First Past the Post (FPTP) system. Meanwhile, up in Scotland, the Pirates didn’t do so well, despite using Single Transferable Vote, mainly because of the hot competition between the Labour and Scotish Nationalist parties, and the sheer weight of candidates.
It can be hard to get elected at the best of times. Under a First Past the Post system, it’s incredibly hard to get elected, thanks to tactical voting, and what’s called Duverger’s law (For more details on this, see Breaking the Two Party Two-step). While a proportional representation system can give you a seat or two, or indeed 15, if you get 6-8% of the vote, on a FPTP system, you get nothing.
However, to get so far, to convince such a percentage that such a vote is worthwhile, is certainly impressive, and not all that far behind areas with proportional representation, and therefore, no duverger’s law to put people off.
Overall, though, they feel proud of their best ever result in a UK election.
Catch a replay of events from the election LiveBlog here
Here are the results of the Pirate Party.
Manchester
| Ancoats and Clayton | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ||
| Labour | Mike Carmody (inc.) | 1862 | 74.27 | ||
| Green | Peter Birkinshaw | 215 | 8.58 | ||
| Conservative | Mark Ford | 173 | 6.90 | ||
| Liberal Democrat | Claude-Diele Nsumbu | 100 | 3.99 | ||
| Trade Unionist & Socialist | Alex Davidson | 82 | 3.27 | ||
| Pirate | Tim Dobson | 75 | 2.99 | ||
| Turnout | 2507 | 22% | |||
| Bradford | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ||
| Labour | Neil Swannick (inc.) | 1903 | 77.67 | ||
| Conservative | Sarah Bennett | 159 | 6.49 | ||
| Green | Lorna Bowen | 141 | 5.76 | ||
| Pirate | Loz Kaye | 127 | 5.18 | ||
| Liberal Democrat | Charles Turner | 106 | 4.33 | ||
| Communist League | Peter Clifford | 14 | 0.57 | ||
| Turnout | 2450 | 25.29 | |||
| City Centre | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ||
| Labour | Joan Davies | 704 | 38.39 | ||
| Liberal Democrat | Marc Ramsbottom (inc.) | 465 | 25.35 | ||
| Conservative | Michael Liffen | 234 | 12.76 | ||
| Green | Nick Wilkinson | 190 | 10.36 | ||
| Independent | Ken Dobson | 159 | 8.67 | ||
| Pirate | Maria Aretoulaki | 57 | 3.11 | ||
| UKIP | Adrienne Bennett | 25 | 1.36 | ||
| Turnout | 1834 | 21.54 | |||
Edinburgh
| Meadows/Morningside - 4 seats | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | % 1st Pref | Count 1 | Count 2 | Count 3 | Count 4 | Count 5 | Count 6 | Count 7 | |
| Conservative | Mark McInnes (incumbent) | 29.90 | 3125 | |||||||
| Scottish Green | Melanie Main | 19.75 | 2064 | 2209 | ||||||
| Labour | Paul Godzik (incumbent) | 19.64 | 2053 | 2171 | 2171 | |||||
| SNP | Sandy Howat | 15.79 | 1650 | 1723 | 1754 | 1767 | 1784 | 1857 | 2390 | |
| Liberal Democrats | Jenny Dawe | 12.30 | 1285 | 1574 | 1615 | 1639 | 1661 | 1730 | ||
| Pirate | Phil Hunt | 1.87 | 195 | 211 | 224 | 230 | 264 | |||
| UKIP | William Macadam | 0.76 | 79 | 170 | 173 | 175 | ||||
Glasgow
Ward: 5 - Govan
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Ward: 10 - Anderston
Candidate | Party | Elected | Number of First Preferences |
BAKER, Nina | Scottish Green Party | Yes | 558 |
BARNES, David Scott | Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party | 249 | |
BRAAT, Philip | Scottish Labour Party | Yes | 1,561 |
CAMPBELL, Graham | Solidarity – Scotland’s Socialist Movement | 89 | |
DOCHERTY, Martin John | Scottish National Party (SNP) | Yes | 1,057 |
HARRIS, Rob | Pirate Party Scotland | 46 | |
HOYLE, Ewan | Scottish Liberal Democrats | 89 | |
MACKAY, Craig | Scottish National Party (SNP) | 516 | |
MATHESON, Gordon | Scottish Labour Party | Yes | 1,113 |
MCDOWELL, Alexander | Glasgow First | 20 | |
ROBERTSON, John Moir Bingham | Britannica | 17 |
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(Sorry for the table madness, issues with the css)
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