Meral Ece's personal vote
Regular readers will know that one of my least favourite Lib Dems is ex-Labour turncoat and Hackney to Islington carpet-bagger Meral Ece, whose blog can be found here: http://meralece.blogspot.com/
Meral demonstrated her personal popularity in London North East today with a stunning performance as Lib Dem candidate, her vote share down 3.4% compared to Terry Stacey in 2004 and dropping from second place to narrowly avoiding coming fourth.
Labour's GLA member, Jennette Arnold, who Meral has attacked in her blog, saw her vote share go up 11% and her number of votes go up by 36,000!
Mystic Meral also had this interesting take on her blog about the likely Mayoral vote:
"I believe that when the votes are counted, the big surprise will be that Brian (Paddick) will do a lot better than has been predicted."
The results for London North East show the hapless Paddick is in fact even more unpopular than Meral.
posted by Luke Akehurst at 9:56 pm
9 Comments:
Vote share up 11% and her number of votes up by 36,000!
Alarms bells should be ringing in the Electoral Commission
10:51 pm, May 02, 2008
Even though Labour's vote is up 10% or 12% in all the neighbouring seats too?
11:00 pm, May 02, 2008
Do you know, Luke, that when I saw Ken concede defeat last night, I felt dreadfully sorry for him. I do believe he did his best for London, it just wasn't good enough. And I think we are all agreed that Boris Johnson will be a disaster for this city.
Any sympathy I had for the Labour party evaporated when I read this. I simply cannot understand why you have to continue dragging your party's name through the mud by gloating like a toad at every perceived "failure" by your opponents, be they people in other parties or those within your own who don't follow the exact brand of militant anti-socialism that you do.
Your analysis is actually quite poor as well - looking at Ece's result in the context of the others in London for the Lib Dems, and indeed comparing it to the result the Lib Dems got for the list and the mayor in NE, you will notice that:
1. It was the third lowest swing against the Lib-Dems across London, only beaten in that respect by the two seats that were flooded with money and supporters in South London.
2. She polled significantly higher than Brian Paddick despite a considerable third party squeeze.
3. She polled very significantly better than the Lib Dems did in the list vote.
All of these would typify a personal vote.
This is just typical of what happens when council seats are run on the same day as general elections - the third party sees a major squeeze. Because the Lib-Dems were the third party for the Mayoral election that has translated into them getting the squeeze for the constituency too.
And regarding the comment about Brian Paddick doing "a lot better than has been predicted", correct me if I am wrong, but er... actually, he did do a lot better than predicted by much of the press.
11:17 am, May 03, 2008
I don't know either Luke Akehurst or Meral Ece personally but on the basis of this spat I'd take Meral any time. What happened to winning gracefully?
Meral Ece appears to have been one of the most popular Lib Dem individual candidates this time judging by the London wide results.
A lot of my friends wanted to vote Lib Dem but were afraid of either Ken or Boris winning and didn't understand how the voting system worked. Ultimately noone believed Paddick would win and people don't want to waste their vote.
I congratulate Jenette Arnold on getting elected, although I have never heard of her. Perhaps she's warmed up after 8 years and can now make her mark on us lucky north Londoners.
2:28 pm, May 03, 2008
Disappointing and totally uncalled for personal attack on someone who I know works incredibly hard with great commitment and who on effort alone deserved to win.
Turncoats, now there's a thought, the biggest turncoat in the Labour Party was a certain Mr Blair, aided and abetted by Mr Brown, who have taken the party well and truly into Tory waters. Betraying the workers, betraying their members, betraying the values of their forefathers and mothers. Taking us into an immoral and illegal war, lying about the evidence, selling their birthright for a mess of pottage.......namely the endorsement of the likes of Murdoch and big business. No, Meral didn't change, it was the party. The saddest thing is that this betrayal of values has lead to the very real prospect of another Tory government.
3:45 pm, May 03, 2008
Boris will be great for London and I can't understand why people are running him down before he's even started thejob.
9:00 am, May 04, 2008
Linda
Meral didn't defect over the Iraq War (which happened 8 years after she defected) or New Labour. She helped lead a split in the Hackney Labour Group by forming a group called "Hackney New Labour", suggesting that at the time she was quite keen on Mr Blair.
3:40 pm, May 04, 2008
I left the Labour Party nearly 12 years ago in 1996, having served as a Labour cllr in Hackney for 2 terrible years. It was the best thing I did, I've never had a moments regret. Mr Blair was still in oppostition, and already dismantling any semblance of any values and principles that the Labour party stood for.
Frankly Luke, I've long moved on, having served as a Liberal Democrat councillor for over 10 years. I can understand your fascination with me, but its really time you, (as my teenagers would say) Got Over It!!
5:20 pm, May 04, 2008
You leaving was pretty good news for the Hackney Labour Party too.
You would be surprised how many of our activists did extra work purely because you were the opposition.
9:10 pm, May 04, 2008
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