Hackney Elections 4 May 2006

Phew!!! Labour had an amazing victory in Hackney's elections on 4th May. The masterful, fatherly victim of unwanted publicity Jules Pipe was re-elected as Mayor with a whacking great increase in his popular vote - bigger than anything I've seen since the populace flooded into Moscow to give Khrushchev 108% of the poll!

Everywhere else in Britain they may have snubbed the Blair Labour Project, but here in Hackney we kept 44 of our 45 Labour councillors. Apart from our long-standing deals with Eric and Ian, nobody else got a look in except that mawkish little Green woman and we'll deal with her next time.

This is my take on what happened:

Despite the move away from 100% postal voting and the fact that hardly anyone went to the polling stations, there was a massive increase in turnout (I think we got away with it). Turnout was down in the wards that nobody contested like Springfield and Lordship but right up in hotly contested wards like Queensbridge, where our masses of foot soldiers toiled tirelessly to give Andy Pandy a good bloody nose. That'll teach the snivelling little wannabe Mayor to filch one of our seats in a by-election by filling the place with new Tory voters and offering a year's free supply of organic West Country veggie burgers and fair-trade coffee beans to thousands of New Labour yuppies in Broadway market.

The masses showed their enormous love for Pipey, me and the vegetables for everything we've done for them over the past four years. Purely by the strength of the popular mindset, without sending postal votes or visiting polling stations, the populace showered us with additional votes, offsetting a large adverse national swing.

There was a swing to Labour everywhere we wanted one, except where we agreed to keep our noses out and where those bloody Greens got above their station.

The Labour vote increased in two-thirds of the wards despite our vote share decreasing in two-thirds of the wards, partly because of increased turnout (er... is that right, Linda? Has anyone got a slide rule and some log tables?).

The masses loved Pipey so much that everyone who voted for Labour councillors also supported "the Stud", along with 500 or so who voted for more re-cycling and parks in Clissold ward but knew Jules was the man to deliver them. Not the first (or the last) small personal bonus for Pipey this year!

Large number of LibDems helped Labour to retain seats by voting for themselves in derisory numbers.

We made sure that the piles of votes were more evenly spread across the wards this time (except in the "you-know-where" seats). We didn't waste votes by piling them up in ultra-safe wards like last time.

We mirrored the national trend with a geographical pattern under which the further south and east you go, the better the Labour vote (er... I am holding this map the right way up, aren't I Linda?).

Hackney South proved yet again that if you convert wastes of space like schools into useful private developments, encourage city financiers to move into luxury flats, get a dozen restaurants listed in The Michelin Guide and fill the place with organic veggie burger munching yuppies... the New Labour vote will soar away skywards!

Hackney North is still a problem because: (a) gentrification there damages Labour unlike gentrification in Hackney South (help me out with this, Linda), (b) lots of Muslims live there in mainly Jewish areas who normally vote for us but didn't because of Iraq and re-cycling (is that right, Linda?), (c) that bloody woman Diane is doing us no good at all by schmoozing up to Denzil Xavier on The Abbott & Portillo comedy show every week and sending her kids to Eton.

There was lots of split ticket voting, particularly where high profile individual opposition candidates were no longer standing due to being deceased, being replaced as boyfriends and other feeble excuses.

I correctly forecast all of the key marginals and my organisation retained all but 1 seat by moving a lot of things around on polling day.

Unlike me, Boffie proved that he knew absolutely nothing about voting trends and he spent all his time in Broadway market chatting to Labour-voting yuppies when, if he followed my advice, he would have been trying to get the Muslim vote out in Leabridge where nobody votes Tory anyway and to get the homophobic Jewish vote out in New River to support him for mayor.

The Tory strategy in the north was to counter Labour, but only if they thought it was worth the effort (er... that can't be right, surely Linda?).

LibDems focused their efforts in Hoxton and Cazenove but did really badly. They are still paying the price for the destructive behaviour of Labour councillors who refused to put up with Labour's cover-up of Trottergate, left Labour and forced a hung council (God, I hate the LibDems!).

In wards where the incumbent LibDem councillors were defeated by Labour in 2002 there was a double incumbency bonus and further movement to Labour (d'you think they'll believe this crap, Linda, if I use lots of big words?.

The Greens got over confident and could have taken all three seats in Clissold, especially if the ballot papers had been printed correctly (hehehe) and if the two halves of the Green Party were not concentrating on different wards (what they need is a strategist like me who can knock heads together and get the party going in a straight line to victory!)

Respect did badly. (Who are Respect? Don't they live in Tower Hamlets? Are we borrowing them to service Hackney like we borrow the Tower Hamlets refuse collection vehicles? Did we swap them for Victoria Park? Help me out Linda, I'm getting confused).