“I am very pleased to have been in office for so long and for my votes to have just gone down by 2,000,”
“It was a good turnout which is great for democracy.”
“I need to see what the shape of Government is going to be tomorrow (Friday) before I can say anything about policies, but I want to look after my constituency and the people who live in it- and that’s what I will be doing whatever the result.”
Source: Dinnington Today
Politics in the Rother Valley 
The reality of this election in the Rother Valley is that only 40% of the turnout of the electorate voted for the MP Kevin Barron. This means that 60% did not. The Lib Dem vote was up, the BNP took votes as did UKIP. The Conservative vote nearly doubled to 13,200 and this bucked the national trend offering a swing of 8.3%. The reality is that this was the worst election ever for Labour in the Rother Valley. People are beginning to realise that living in Rother Valley does not mean they only have Labour to vote for and democracy is really about offering a choice.
I like your statistics Lynda. Obviouslky if 40% voted Labour then 60% did not, but that inckudes numerous other parties which you son;t specify the percentages of – not even your own. What percentage of the vote was your 13,200 ? “The reality is that this was the worst election ever for Labour in the Rother Valley. ” Could you explain this statement please ?
I hate to say it, but I disagree with both Kevin and to a lesser extent, Lynda.
Kevin,
Your vote did not just go “down by 2,000” , your vote went down by over
2,700, or “almost 3,000”, when the number of voters went up by over 7,250.
Your local colleagues John Healey (who was responsible for government statistics, so you should be able to check your sums with him) and Denis MacShane maintained their share of the vote much much better than you did. (Their average -8.6%, you -14.4%, overall nationally -6.2% ).
Relative to quite possibly all other sitting Labour MPs, Kevin, you did really really bad (I still need to confirm just what your overall ranking was, but I guess that you will already know).
Lynda,
You say it is “the worst election ever for Labour in the Rother Valley”
well, maybe but I think it was a little bit more complicated than that.
There are so many factors involved, both national and local.
It is the local factors that need to be isolated.
But what is clear is that Rother Valley is way off trend, with a hugely increased turnout over the 2005 election. (Up 6.3% against an average for the other two Rotherham consituencies of less than 3%).
What is equally significant is your relative performance against the Conservative candidates in the other Rotherham consistuencies. (Up 9% against an average for them of 0.2%).
So my working hypothesis is that the most significant factor in the RV result was the Conservatives running a campaign that managed to pull out a lot of extra voters.
What I would love to know is the Conservative spend in the 3 consituences – when will the figures be published?
Changing the election funding system is far more important that changing the voting system.
(Figures courtesy of the 1944 Eduction Act and Heywood Beamers, Twisters and Drawers Association, whose Treasurer, my Grandad, taught me the value of being able to add up.)
For Lexia
2010
Rother Valley Votes % of total
BARRON, Kevin John The Labour Party 19147 40.95%
BLAIR, William Robert British National Party 3606 7.71%
DONALDSON, Lynda The Conservative Party 13281 28.40%
DOWDALL, Tina Charisse UK Independence Party 2613 5.59%
PAXTON, Wesley Liberal Democrats 8111 17.35%
(sorry if these get scrambled – oh for an edit feature!)
You can also find them here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/constituency/1258/rother-valley
Cheers afterforty. I reckon 28.4% of the vote is enough to keep quiet about 🙂
Lexia,
It is a remarkably good vote however you look at it. You should never take just one number and wave it around like a flag just to satisfy your existing prejudices. That is called cherry-picking data, and it is bad manners. 🙂
I am trying to produce a reasonably object analysis of what actually happened in the RV election, it is interesting, it isn’t reflected in other Rotherham constituencies, and it takes up a fair amount of my time.
If you really want some numbers to play around with try these:
Conservative total votes in RV parliamentary elections:
1997 election: 7,699
2001 election: 7,969
2005 election: 7,647
See any pattern?
2010 election: 13,281
What happened to the pattern?
Looks as though somebody broke the mold.
Some now I am working through the Borough Council elections for the RV wards to see if similar patterns arose there.
AF 🙂
Thanks AF for your comments – though I do take exception to you suggesting I wave a flag or even have “exisiting prejudices” ! I was merely pointing out to Lynda that she seemed to be waving flags too. 😉 I do see the pattern and yes soemone clearly broke the mould. If it’s because of Lynda’s policies, then good luck to her and lets hope we see a better situation for us “ordinary folks”.
Do you by any chance have any statistics on Maltby Town Councillor Andy Foster who didn’t seem to fare too well in his campaign. Thanks in advance !
Hello Lexia,
I’ve never heard of Maltby Town Councillor Andy Foster, or his campaign. What was he campaigning about? Have you asked Google?
AF – Andy Foster is a Cllr on Maltby Town Council – working for the benefit of Maltby one would think. But for some reason he stood for Borough Councillor for Hellaby. This seems a bit strange to me. I’d have thought he would stand for Maltby, as the other ” Independents” did, but maybe this is a real example of cherry picking !
Lexia
got it now! Hellaby was not a good place to choose to stand, since Lynda Donaldson was the borough councillor there who was up for re-election, and it would be naive to think that the extra exposure she would get as parliamentary candidate would not have a positive knock-on in the borough election.
Notwithstanding that, with the borough elections taking place at the same time as the parliamentary elections, it brought out far more voters for the borough elections than happens in other years, and since these extra voters are likely to be the less committed/supporters of parties that have no hope in that constituency, you do get distorted results.
In Hellaby: 5937 voters in 2010, 3373 in 2008.
Result:
Hellaby
2010
Labour 1970
Con 2254
UKIP 861
Ind 852
2008
Labour 769
Con 1865
UKIP 739