Honestly, BBC Five Live's Norwich North by-election special has been absolutely DIRE. Even allowing for its inherent bias (though the completely irrelevant interview with High Peak Labour lickspittle Tom Levitt regarding his incipient career as a stand-up comedian was far funnier than Mr Levitt's slavish voting record), it has been apparent that the research was slipshod and the execution lazy. Since when was Martin Bell ever on the LibDem shortlist for Norwich North, or anywhere else for that matter? And what was with the interview with the students' union wallahs? UEA is in Norwich South, last I looked, and most students live in that seat. Also, it's becoming a major annoyance that BBC researchers think that there's just one political blogger worth turning to, and no prizes for guessing who that plagiarising Tory is. No sign of Craig Murray on air either, though air time was given to UKIP who are likely to poll less than Murray on the figures I've seen. Amateurs, rank amateurs; at least Alan Partridge might have got Green candidate Rupert "ohnonothimagain" Read to talk about quacking plums in between his usual bouts of organic vitriol.

Enough politics for now, because something that feorag posted reminded me that I want to talk about fonts, as did the funny business I was having with this newly installed FF 3.5. Leopard appears very picky about fonts; if it doesn't like them, it will hang and crash everything, and when it got to the stage where major sites like eBay and Wikipedia were becoming unusable I needed to do something FAST, which isn't easy given FontBook's horrible counterintuitive interface; it's as if that app is a direct descendant of the dreaded Font/DA Mover from System 6. Fortunately I found an answer - this fabby piece of software called Font Finagler which actually works, and now my Fox is on Fire again and beware of my Leopard. Would that there was room to install all those complete font cds I have lying around. On the subject; this is a masterpiece of design. Beautiful.

Man, this Test match is just like a return to the not-very-good old days of Mike Denness or Tony Greig; watching the current England team in action is like watching donkeys led by donkeys, not that I'm taking anything away from the excellence of the Aussies. Men against boys, and high time that the whole ECB setup was shaken up from top to bottom; it continues to be dominated by clueless old buffers in egg-and-bacon ties who still think they're living in the last days of the Raj. One blogger who agrees with me is, not surprisingly, a fellow Yorkshireman; his cricket blog is here and can be added to your LJ feed at lenthekitman. It's the best one I've yet seen about the great game in general and cricket in God's Own County in particular.

I've been quiet on the subject of Coulsongate; like Fayed v Hamilton or Archer v Express Newspapers it's the kind of case where you wish both parties could lose. The most telling thing here has been the near-total silence from News Corp, which more-or-less confirms that Murdoch will indeed be backing the Conservatives at the General Election as expected. Whether David Cameron, who hired the long-standing News Corp placeman Andy Coulson after all, will develop the cojones to tell Murdoch where to stick his tabloid agenda is a matter for conjecture, though one is not holding one's breath. And yet, it's almost as if Murdoch is getting away with this scot free, as he so often does in his New York lair well away from British justice; no matter what his executives were telling the Press Complaints Commission, they were acting directly on his orders. As for Coulson, I do not believe for a moment that someone who rose to edit a national newspaper - and not just any old national paper, but the scurrilous old News Of The Screws - could possibly have been so ingenuous about News Corp's illegal phonetapping shenanigans. This is not a scenario where one can "make one's excuses and leave" like one of your hacks in a knocking shop for "research purposes". If Cameron had any backbone, Coulson would be on his bike. It's possible to become leader of your country without the support of Rupert Murdoch - ask President Obama - though sadly that hasn't happened in Britain since 1974. If there's any truth to said allegations, Coulson could be embroiled in something far more serious than McBride's emails or Expensesgate, and yet the Dirty Digger remains untouchable.

Meanwhile, as the government earmark yet more money for armaments despite the "recession", the unwinnable war in Afghanistan drags on and more and more British servicemen are coming back to Northolt in boxes. And for what, exactly? The time has come to pull out now. Now that he's put his head above the parapet, Clegg should be riding this one the way Charlie Kennedy did with Iraq before he was brought down (much more so by the Murdoch press than by booze, let us not forget).

Many thanks to Ryan for adding my feed to LibDemBlogs by the way. A very useful resource. For a start, it has a "mute" feature, which comes in very dandy when finding out there are allegedly "liberal" bloggers claiming that "Many women don’t have a clue about politics so they need someone to make their decisions for them and for that reason its OK for the man to decide who the woman votes"(sic). There are a few of us have been very hacked off for some time about this particular blogger's lack of Clue; for all I know he could be another party's black ops creation with his inane wibbling. For a good take on it, check out the decidedly non-inane, non-wibbling Caron here.

Welcome news yesterday that managed to pass underneath the radar, which was a little preoccupied with moonwalking; it appears BT, along with Carphone Warehouse, have ditched the Phorm tracking system, branded as "unjustifiable online snooping" by no less an authority than Sir Tim Berners-Lee himself and so intrusive that even direct.gov.uk don't use it. The onus now falls on Virgin and TalkTalk/Tiscali as the two major British ISPs that need to be lobbied in order to drop this controversial data-mining method. Given who Phorm's UK chairman is, I'm half-tempted to dig out *that* Julian Clary video.

Not such good news, though, is that yet more legislation comes up in Parliament today regarding the foul, unflushable turd that is the National Identity Register. Three Statutory Instruments will be voted on by the Commons today, concerning regulations, fees, and potential penalties for refuseniks. I hold out little hope that there will be enough Labour MPs that will grow a pair and stop them in their tracks, encouraging as it is to see former blind loyalists like Mark Todd and Andrew McKinlay seeing sense, so again it seems the best we can hope for is for the Lords to stop it, or at least employ enough delaying tactics to filibuster it out by the time the General Election rolls around; but even then it's nine years since the Lords blocked an SI. So much for any "enlightenment" from Alan Johnson; he was creamed in the Graun's Comment is Free last week with his NTHNTF puff piece that looked suspiciously as if it had been ghosted by senior IPS civil servant James Normington.

And so, the first-ever Welsh Test Match is under way at Sophia Gardens. Why is Monty Panesar there? I love Monty but he's been hopeless all season, and certainly doesn't deserve a place ahead of the in-form Graham Onions; for what it's worth, if the wicket was taking spin, now would be the time to play Rashid alongside the much-improved Swann, and young Adil's fielding and batting capabilities would not only have been an all-round boost to England, but allowed the team to play a proper wicketkeeper instead of the consistently useless Matt Prior. James Foster was terrific in the 20/20s and deserves another crack. As it stands, England have won a good toss and rightly chosen to bat, so any shortcomings in the field ought to be masked if the batsmen get their collective fingers out against a relatively weak Aussie side that still hasn't replaced titans like McGrath and Warne. But as I type - Cook has chucked his wicket away, caught by Mike Hussey off the bowling of young Ben Hilfenhaus for 10. Sounds like another long summer ahead...

Story here. This site is not known as a hoaxer either; they broke the Heath Ledger story last year.

The best that can be said for whoever Michael Martin's replacement in the Speaker's chair will be is that it won't be Ann Widdecombe, despite the campaigns by the tabloids; apart from being a lousy, populist, partisan choice for the job, it's fair to say she won't command any support outside the Tombstone wing of the Conservative party. There are only three real contenders for the post - Margaret Beckett, who probably won't get the essential backing of other parties once the vote reaches its sharp end, and who is too identified with the present government; the alleged "left-wing Tory" candidate, former Monday Club member and FCS chairman John Bercow, hated by many of his own side and living proof that you can put a blue Rizla paper between the worst excesses of Blairism and outright wingnuttery; and the safe compromise steady-as-she-goes choice, the "bicycling baronet" and old-style Tory wet Sir George Young. Frank Field is not running, though he should have done so, Parmjit Dhanda lacks the experience, though could well be in contention as the next Speaker but one assuming he holds his seat, and while Alan Beith has the required gravitas and probity for the job, he would offer much more remaining on the Lib Dem benches. I'll stick my neck out and say it will be Young, despite cycle clips not going too well with the Speaker's regulation stockings.

The identity of the next Speaker still remains less mysterious than that of The Stig, however. Not only does Michael Schumacher earn more than Clarko and Mayo and Hammondo are likely to get in a lifetime at the famously cash-strapped BBC, but isn't there also the small matter of his exclusive contract to drive only cars made by the FIAT group? Great television, guys, but you're fooling nobody. What I didn't know up to last night, though, was that Top Gear is also very big in Belgium! Just as well that most of Jeremy's tirades are untranslatable, then.

Hope you all had an enjoyable weekend, m31andy in particular. Now I am going to cook some sausages and then sit and wait to find out how many extra shifts I may have to cover over the next fortnight what with loads of key workers swanning off on their jollies at the same time. Going to leave you with some Jake Thackray this morning, because I can and because you can never have too much Jake Thackray;



EDIT @ 8.30 PM - Arse. It's Bercow, by 322-271 over Young on the third ballot. Ordure indeed.

Well done Commons, you've picked a rampant trougher. For those who don't know him, here he is, seen singing "The Sash My Father Wore" at a Rangers supporters' club. Note the UDA banner behind him;

Last of the names revealed by Expensesgate before the heavily redacted document made its way into the public domain turns out to be the flippin' useless Kitty Ussher; a quintessential NuLab apparatchik, born with a silver spoon in her mouth, PPE at Balliol, never had a proper job in her life and conveniently parachuted into the previously unloseable Burrrrrn-leh. Not that we'll see a by-election there, mind, can't have those nasty FibDems winning here and anyway there's the BNP bogeymen to worry about, and besides Kitty's on message for The Project unlike that expendable anarchist Trot liberal Gibbo in Naaaarge. By the way, if Ussher's a proper Turfite then I'm Bob Lord. If there's anything I can't stand about football it's the prawn sandwich brigade, not that the chip 'oils of Brunshaw and environs are famous for their guacamole dip. Doubtless d_notice_fd will have the definitive rundown at some stage, being a Burnley lad.

One person who'll be most unlikely to stand in Burnley will be former Huntingdon Life Sciences protestor Rupert "Dr Woo" Read, unless of course he really gets pleasure from bleating about how he lost and IT WASN'T FAIR. Dr Read's article for LabourLiberalConspiracy yesterday has to be the most graceless, mardy-arsed flounce I've seen from any beaten candidate of any party since Jammy Fishpaste's booing of David Mellor at Putney in '97.

Better political news today as it seems that ID cards are more-or-less stuffed for the immediate future, barring either the Blairites returning from the dead at the election, or the Tories making one of the most shameful 180-degree turns this side of Napoleon's retreat from Moscow in 1812. Then again, I'm a born pessimist and refuse to rule anything out.

And finally, CURRIED HAGGIS. Sounds so wrong. Tastes so right. Hell, it tastes similar to the delicious curried BRANES they used to have at the Lahore back in those pre-BSE days when the lights on Lumb Lane were red. I'm sure that the Devils In Skirts of the 3rd Foot and Mouth could have trained on this stuff and then gone on to defeat the Khasi of Kalabar before tiffin. Amazing what you can do with the odds and sods in your fridge. Follow that, Gordon Ramsay.

While the leading news story of the day continues to be the fall-out from Ahmadinejad's apparent theft of the Iranian election and all its ramifications for that country and the area beyond, in the background Expensesgate continues to rumble on. Most of the time, it seems, it's apparent that yesterday's tales of troughing MPs become today's fish and chip wrapping - who outside either wonkdom or Livingston has even heard of Jim Devine - and I've a feeling that stories of moats and duck islands aren't going to make a blind bit of difference come the General Election bearing in mind what a supine lot the Great British Electorate out there seem to be, but one couldn't help but laugh when finding out this morning that one of the more obnoxious of the last intake, the bumptious Brian Binley (see posts passim) has been caught doing a spot of creative accountancy. Sadly, it seems Binley will probably keep his seat.

Of course, the first to break the news about Jim Devine was not the BBC or the Daily Telegraph, but a blogger - the consistently excellent Craig Murray, a man who'd make a marvellous MP for Norwich North or anywhere else for that matter - and it's telling that two weeks after Mr Murray's revelations there's been no comeback from Devine's learned friends after being branded a crook. It's encouraging to see more and more news being broken by bloggers, and it makes a pleasant change for it not to come from one of Mrs Dale's knitting circle. Would that the BBC et al could wake up to the fact that other bloggers are available! Sadly it seems that the Murdoch press are taking exception to those that don't play ball; while the Times had no compunction about hiring Eustonite dullard Oliver Kamm to churn out yards of turgid prose to order, its attitude towards certain other blogosphere denizens stinks on ice. Yesterday "NightJack", police detective and worthy winner of this year's Orwell Prize, had his cover blown by one of Murdoch's finest, thus costing him his job on the grounds of "security" - not that the identities of those he refers to in the cases that he blogged about could possibly have been revealed had not Times hack Patrick Foster blown the gaff. In the words of NJ himself;

"My blog is gone now, deleted, slowly melting away post by post as it drops off the edge of the Google cache. The Police Dependants’ Trust is a few thousand pounds better off which may be the only good thing to have come out of this. My family life has changed in ways that they did not want and that is down to me. I deeply and bitterly regret the damage that will be done to the reputation of Lancashire Constabulary, that is also down to me. Next to that, my own career prospects are trivial."

Patrick Foster, I hope you're pleased with yourself for what you've done. Been hacking lately? Or have you been making more of your home movies with your hidden camera? Congratulations, sonny; you've just ruined a man's life there.

With all due respect to inhabitants of those fine towns, wouldn't it have been more apt had new Doncaster mayor Peter Davies of the English Democrats been elected in Scunthorpe or Penistone? This Radio Sheffield interview by Toby Foster, a name well-known to some of my readership, is hilarious and yet a head-meet-desk experience at the same time. A true object lesson in why the best way to deal with far-right nutters in elected office is to allow them free speech and just let them hang themselves by their own petard; SWP take note, amusing though the sight of Nick Griffin covered in egg may be. Consider yourself pwned, Peter. Hat tip to jozafeen.

Elsewhere, it appears many of my flist are here, because many of them are really GOFFS even if they'd never admit to it. I know that 3, 6, 8, 12, 14, 15, 18, 19, and 21 definitely are there, and so will they. NN, NP as usual, though I'm sure they'll out themselves. Thank you andrewducker!

10.55 PM - It appears Labour have lost a seat in Yorkshire & Humberside, with UKIP 2nd overall. Worst of all it appears the BNP's Andrew Brons, formerly of the NF and the National Socialist Movement, will be duking it out for the last vacancy in Yorkshire with the second UKIP candidate. We shall see.

Also, why the hell didn't Labour have Richard Corbett at the top of the list, instead of the useless Linda McAvan? Fools.

11.5 PM - East of England result. (7 seats) By the way BBC, St Ives is in HUNTINGDONSHIRE.

Conservative 500331 - 3 seats (Geoffrey van Orden, Robert Sturdy, Vicky Ford)
UKIP 313921 - 2 seats (David Campbell-Bannerman, Stuart Agnew)
Lib Dem 221235 - 1 seat (Andrew Duff)
Labour 167833 - 1 seat (Richard Howitt)
Green 141016
BNP 97013
UK First 38185
Eng Dem 32211
Christian/CPA 24646
No2EU 13939
Soc Lab 13599
Animals Count 13201
Libertas 9940
Peter Rigby (Independent) 9916
Jury Team 6354

No change at all here.

11.25 PM Yorks & Humber Result - 6 seats

Conservative 299802 - 2 seats (Edward McMillan-Scott, Tim Kirkhope)
Labour 230009 - 1 seat (Linda McAvan)
UKIP 213750 - 1 seat (Godfrey Bloom)
Lib Dem 161552 - 1 seat (Diana Wallis)
BNP 120139 - 1 seat (Andrew Brons)
Green 104456
Eng Dem 31287
Soc Lab 19380
Christian/CPA 16742
No2EU 15614
Jury Team 7181
Libertas 6268

I hope any Yorkshire people reading this who did not go out and vote are fucking ashamed of themselves.

11.45 PM - Wales result (4 seats)

Conservative 145193 - 1 seat (Kay Swinburne)
Labour 138852 - 1 seat (Derek Vaughan)
Plaid Cymru 126702 - 1 seat (Jill Evans)
UKIP 87585 - 1 seat (John Bufton)
Lib Dem 73082
Green 38160
BNP 37114
Christian/CPA 13037
Soc Lab 12402
No2EU 8600
Jury Team 3793

Blimey. The Tories finished top in Wales, with UKIP taking the 4th seat. Labour 12% down.

12.45 AM - here's London (8 seats);

Con 479037 3 seats (Charles Tannock, Marina Yannakoudakis, Syed Kamall)
Lab 372590 2 seats (Claude Moraes, Mary Honeyball)
LD 240156 1 seat (Sarah Ludford)
Green 190589 1 seat (Jean Lambert)
UKIP 188440 1 seat (Gerard Batten)
BNP 86420
Christian/CPA 51336
Jan Jananayagam (Independent) 50014
Eng Dem 24477
No2EU 17758
Soc Lab 15306
Libertas 8444
Jury Team 7284
Steven Cheung (Independent) 4918
SPGB 4050
Yes2Europe 3384
Sohale Rahman (Independent) 3248
Gene Alcantara (Independent) 1972
Haroon Saad (Independent) 1603

12.55 AM - East Midlands result (5 seats)

Conservative 370275 - 2 seats (Roger Helmer, Emma McClarkin)
Labour 206945 - 1 seat (Glenis Willmott)
UKIP 201984 - 1 seat (Derek Clark)
Lib Dem 151428 - 1 seat (Bill Newton-Dunn)
BNP 106319
Green 83939
Eng Dem 28498
UK First 20561
Christian/CPA 17907
Soc Lab 13590
No2EU 11375
Libertas 7882
Jury Team 7362

Poor result for UKIP here sans the Kilroy factor.

1.10 AM - Jeremy Vine should be quietly packed off to the Execution Channel. He, and the BBC researchers, don't know the first thing between them about psephology. The figures are all to cock and like is not being compared with like; Euro-elections are even less comparable to General Elections than council ones are. Still, enough people actually believe this lazy research just because it comes from the BBC.

1.20 AM - South West & Gibraltar (don't forget Gibraltar!) - 6 seats

Conservative 468742 - 3 seats (Giles Chichester, Julie Girling, Ashley Fox)
UKIP 341845 - 2 seats (Trevor Colman, William Dartmouth)
Lib Dem 266253 - 1 seat (Graham Watson)
Green 144179
Labour 118716
BNP 60889
Pensioners Party 37785
Eng Dem 25313
Christian/CPA 21329
Mebyon Kernow 14922
Soc Lab 10033
No2EU 9741
Katie Hopkins (Independent) 8971
Libertas 7292
Fair Pay Fair Trade 7151
Jury Team 5758
WAI D 789

Labour 6th in Cornwall behind MK!


1.25 AM - South East (10 seats)

Con 812288 - 4 seats (Daniel Hannan, Richard Ashworth, Nirj Deva, James Elles)
UKIP 440002 - 2 seats (Nigel Farage, Marta Andreasen)
LibDem 330340 - 2 seats (Sharon Bowles, Catherine Bearder)
Green 271506 - 1 seat (Caroline Lucas)
Labour 192592 - 1 seat (Peter Skinner)
BNP 101769
Eng Dem 52526
Christian/CPA 35712
No2EU 21455
Libertas 16767
Soc Lab 15484
UK First 15261
Jury Team 14172
Peace Party 9534
Roman Party 5450

Hannan's a swivel-eyed punchable Tory twat, isn't he? Dangerous too. Reminds me of Peter Lilley and his "little list". Makes Farage almost look sane - though regarding those folded papers, Farage still sounds as barking as ever...

1.34 AM - Polly Toynbee (Polly Toynbee!) calls on Gordon Brown to resign on BBC News. This is on the heels of Jackie Ashley doing so in tomorrow's Guardian.

1.43 AM - Since when did Labour become a "proper party" in the 1920s? Hannan is not only intensely annoying, but ignorant to boot. In many ways he is worse than Farage - there's a nasty careerist streak in him that caused him to join the Tories rather than UKIP.

1.55 AM - The West Midlands result is in (6 seats)

Conservative 396847 - 2 seats (Philip Bradbourn, Malcolm Harbour)
UKIP 300471 - 2 seats (Mike Nattrass, Nikki Sinclaire)
Labour 240201 - 1 seat (Michael Cashman)
Lib Dem 170246 - 1 seat (Liz Lynne)
BNP 121967
Green 88244
Eng Dem 32455
Christian/CPA 18784
Soc Lab 14724
No2EU 13415
Jury Team 8721
Libertas 6961

Labour lose a further seat to UKIP here.

2 AM - Last result of the night, the North West. (8 seats)

Con 423174 - 3 seats (Sir Robert Atkins, Saj Karim, Jacqueline Foster)
Labour 336831 - 2 seats (Arlene McCarthy, Brian Simpson)
UKIP 261740 - 1 seat (Paul Nuttall)
Lib Dem 235639 - 1 seat (Chris Davies)
BNP 132094 - 1 seat (Nick Griffin)
Green 127133
Eng Dem 40027
Soc Lab 26224
Christian/CPA 25999
No2EU 23580
Jury Team 8783
Libertas 6980
Francis Apaloo (Independent) 3621

Labour lost over 240,000 votes here, Greens only 5,000 short of a seat, UKIP only 2,000 short of a second seat - but Griffin wins despite a reduced share of the vote. Shame on the 132094 that voted for this vile fascist thug.

A bad, bad night for British democracy. Scottish and Northern Irish results tomorrow. Here are the final scores on the doors on this sombre night.

Con 24 seats, 28.6% (+1, +1.2%), UKIP 13 seats, 17.4% (+1, +0.5%), Labour 11 seats, 15.3% (-5, -7%), Lib Dems 10 seats, 13.9% (+1, -1.1%), Greens 2 seats, 8.7% (no change, +2.5%), BNP 2 seats, 6.5% (+2, +1.4%), Plaid Cymru 1 seat, 0.9% (no change, -0.1%), others 0 seats, 8.5% (no change, +2.7%)

Thank you and goodnight.

If you don't like politics, go and look at some kittens or something. If you don't like politics or kittens, then either you should try rotten.com, or you are grumpyolddog. Anyway.

First lot of Euro exit polls through from around the continent, courtesy of Julian Harris at Liberal Vision, and a motley-looking lot they are[1]. Most interesting ones are the actual final results from the Netherlands, where the blow from the presence of the loathsome Geert Wilders has been cushioned somewhat by the return from near-oblivion of the D66 party, for whom the excellent Sophie in 't Veld has been re-elected, and will be joined in Brussels by two more MEPs. There will of course be further updates here throughout the night, with the British results expected to be announced after 9pm. Wonder if nwhyte or anyone has any other sources of Euro stat-based wonkery at hand; the British MSM is mostly useless at reporting anything of a political nature from the other side of Calais.

Also, Nicholas (and any other mod. lang. buffs on here); have you seen these absolutely free online language courses? And mia_oia; this is for you, seeing as you enjoy Berlusconi-baiting even more than I do. The full article from El País is well worth your time. Remember what used to happen to Roman emperors on a regular basis in between toga parties.

EDIT @ 7.15 PM - The French results have been leaked to Swiss television, and I have them here;

UMP 28%
PS 20%
Écologie 11.5%
MoDem 10%
NPA/Besançenot 6%
Front National 6%

The national turnout in France appears to have been 33.2%.

7.55 PM - BBC reporter in Manchester says that the BNP "aren't doing as well as they were expecting". I hope he's proven right.

9.5 PM - Those French figures aren't far off, and what it means is that the Socialists have got hammered, mainly at the hands of Sarkozy's party but also by the Greens and various leftists including the old Communist Party and Olivier Besancenot's anti-capitalist NPA.

9.10 PM - Talk that Labour don't even have the most votes in Scotland, though heaven knows how that translates in D'Hondt. Possible even that Labour have been squeezed in the North-East of England; and if so that is really bad news for Brown. South-East England figures all over the shop but Caroline Lucas easily topped the poll in Brighton; could this translate to the first Green MP at the GE? Labour results described as "dismal" by Harriet Harman.

9.12 PM - Politicians should be equipped with electrodes strapped to their genitals, programmed to deliver an electric shock every time they talk about "hard working families".

9.20 PM - German results in; Frau Merkel's CDU party still the largest but haemorrhaging seats to all other parties; her party's figures were very high 2004.

First few results from the continent now up on the BBC's site here

9.25 PM - I'm glad I don't live in Poland. William Hague does not convince me that his possible new allies in that country's Law & Justice Party are anything more than rabidly Catholic right-wing homophobes, a bit like the English Democrats with added Papist superstition. The Conservatives would be crazy throwing their lot in with this mob, who surely can't have too much support in the party outside the TombCornerstone Groupers, if the jerking of knees stops and the analysis begins. If.

9.40 PM - First British result, from the North East of England (3 seats)

Labour 147338 - 1 seat (Stephen Hughes) down 9%
Con 116911 - 1 seat (Martin Callanan) up 1%
Lib Dem 103644 - 1 seat (Fiona Hall) down 0.2%
UKIP 90700 up 3%
BNP 52700 up 2.5%
Green 34081
Eng Dem 13007
Soc Lab 10238
No2eu 8066
Christian/CPA 7263
Libertas 3010
Jury Team 2904

10.35 PM - Better news from Sweden; The Pirate Party has taken 7.1% of the vote and won a seat. A-haaaar, me hearties!

10.45 PM - Very little else coming in from Britain, though I'm hearing potentially bad news from elsewhere here in Yorkshire, some of it from reliable sources, some of it not. Can't do much other than speculate until the count's ready though. I'll be opening a new thread above once the next set of British results come along.

[1] - the results, that is, not LV, despite what one or two readers may think!

The wacky-going-on-sinister English Democrats have just had one of theirs elected as mayor of Doncaster. God help Donny. Toque has more about the EDs and what they're really like.

Elsewhere, while there appear to be ruddy big swathes of blue over the political map, most of them were expected to go that way. The worrying thing for the LibDems, though, is their performance in Somerset and Devon. matgb, you can see why I didn't share your optimism! Better news though elsewhere for the LibDems, as well as Bristol there were very good results in Watford, Ware, St Albans, Eastleigh, bits of Preston, St. Annes(!) and (most of) Burnley. And there's an interesting Parliamentary by-election at last, in Norwich North. Would that it were the other Norwich seat though, I quite liked Gibbo; he had a mind of his own and was very sound on civil liberties, and that valedictory speech was a fine bang-up number.

How many more Cabinet posts need filling, I wonder? The latest I heard, the Hoon of all the hoons himself was last to go, thus opening up Transport. It speaks volumes for the paucity of talent open to Gordon now that Minister for Chewing Gum Ben Bradshaw finds himself in the Cabinet, and that slimy Outspan orange man Hain returns as Viceroy of Wales. Who's coming back from the dead next to join Zombie!Gordon on the front benches then - Blunkett? Reid? Surely not PRESCOTT???

EDIT @ 4.45 pm - Next to go, though not of Cabinet rank, is the vile Tony McNump^H^Hlty, former minister for ID cards, workfare reforms, and second homes three miles away from Parliament despite living within range of the Tube. Good riddance.

And so, Captain Brown of the Titanic rearranges the deckchairs as the brass band strikes up Nearer My God to Thee;

Darling - stays at the Treasury
Straw - stays at Justice
Mandy - stays at BERR
Alan Johnson - new Home Secretary. Hmmm, interesting choice and might save Gordon's bacon in the short term. Now let us hope Postman Pat does not turn into Robocop.
Alan Sugar becomes "Enterprise Tsar", presumably with a peerage thrown in. Cue a zillion "you're fired" jokes.
Jim Murphy remains viceroy of Scotland.
John Hutton goes back to the back benches. Looks like Gord's last throw of the dice is a total purge of the remaining Blairites then. Clever damage limitation exercise if so.
D. Miliband stays at FCO. Also, just been reliably informed that John Denham has been promoted to Communities and Local Government, replacing the dead chipmunk, after speculation about Health. MSM don't yet have this story. A Compassite in the Cabinet - intriguing! And as I type, BBC confirms Denham.
Yvette Cooper to replace Purnell at DWP; Yvette Cooper's other half remains at Education.

More to come through the day. Where's Gordon's new best mate Woodward and his butler then? Come to think of it, where's the Blairite putsch?

Purnell's constituency chairman has just been on, looking every inch an Old Labour man a la Dobbo, banging on about schoolsanospitals and talking through very obviously clenched teeth about "James". Also, why have News24 just lined up Helen Duffett, Alex Hilton and the ConHome guy whom the Aston assures me is called "Tim Mongomerie" left to right on Parliament Square? Looking at them together it reminds me of the Cleese/Barker/Corbett "I look up to him..." sketch; I hope Helen doesn't "know her place". At least the results in north Bristol last night gave us something to cheer about - and how come we won wards in Brentwood? Essex hardly seems like the kind of place where I'd have thought we had much of a chance.

Workhouse has resigned! Rejoice!

The eternal pessimist in me wonders whether he's pitching to be next Home Secretary - or worse, the next Labour leader?

Also, isn't Fiona Phillips incredibly vacuous and thick? Who are the Question Time team going to dredge up next, the Chuckle Brothers? Thank heavens for Paddy, he's just ripped Baroness Royall a new one regarding freedom of information. Shame it's Lembit's turn for QT next week (rolls eyes).

Oh, according to Tory snot Liam "Dr" Fox, "PR takes power away from people". No, Doc, it takes power away from ratbags like you feathering their nest in safe seats.

That's one's civic duty done for another election, and despite the fourth estate's sound and fury signifying nothing, it has to be the quietest poll I've ever seen. A quick glance at the register while I was being handed my ballot paper (folded in half, incidentally, with the Lib Dems on the crease) revealed that no more than about one in six have voted as of 5pm, and even allowing for extrapolations I don't see there being a percentage turnout much higher than the mid-thirties in this very middle of middle England ward, at least according to what these figures would have you believe. Impossible to make any predictions, especially given some of the comedy results in the last week's opinion polls, save that apathy is no friend of democracy. Anyway the deed is done, so don't blame me :)

Now the big question is, where and when will all the radio and television coverage of the results from these Euro and county elections be? Those of you who know me well know that I positively mainline these annual political statpornfests, all the more so as I watch voyeuristically as the Labour front bench implodes, and chances are I'll be liveblogging the results on Sunday, though sadly in recent years I've noticed the quality of such coverage taking a sharp nosedive with much use of inane graphics and annoyingly silly commentary by such political bantamweights as Jeremy KyleVine. Where's Bob Mackenzie and his unerring cardboard swingometer when we really need him (or at a pinch, Peter Snow and his army of tap-dancing CGI Charles Kennedys).

Hoping the phone does not ring in the next couple of hours; on call tonight and really don't fancy having to schlep into town until nearly last orders, but mine's not to reason why. By the way, lovely to hear from you this morning, bugshaw!

Is there only me and The Awesome Gore that reached for the nosepegs on reading this article by the Lib Dems' latest celebrity backer, Polly "£140k pa" Toynbee? Three years may well be an eternity in politics, but it's hard to believe that the unabashed statist writing here and quoted here could possibly have had a Poll-ine conversion in that time given her more-or-less unshakeable cheerleading for Brown in her Guardian columns. While it's to be argued that any support for the Party is to be welcomed, and indeed it's good to see the official backing of both the Observer and the Guardian in their editorials (the latter returning to its Liberal position that it held when it was the Manchester Guardian, under the stewardship of the great C. P. Scott) I nonetheless feel queasy about a dyed-in-the-wool, de haut en bas NuLabourite like La Toynbee switching her allegiance, no matter how guardedly. Step away, Nick!

Whether this endorsement will help or hinder Lib Dem chances in Thursday's Euro-elections, I do not know, and frankly I care rather less. What is shaping up to be true, though, is that it's impossible to make predictions about the results; the polls for all parties have been all over the shop for the last week, and better men than I am have been reduced to gibbering, incoherent wrecks attempting to do the full haruspex thing when the D'Hondt formula has come into play. FWIW I may as well throw in my own poll; while there's guaranteed to be some fairly heavy weighting knowing my readership, I'm sure that the methodology can't be any worse than some of the back-of-a-fag-packet figures being tossed out by pollsters of whom we've never heard before in newspapers whose staff ought to know better. So;

Poll #1409747 Euro Election Poll 2009
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Will you be voting in the Euro election?

If so, for which party?

If "Other", which other party?

Will you be voting for the same party at the next UK general election?

By the way Jennie, what is this Wikio of which you speak?

EDIT @ 1.35 pm; Jacqui Smith to resign in order to spend more time watching DVDs in her bath. W00t! Problem is, does that mean the next Intinfmin will be Workhouse Purnell?

Always a pleasure to have Music for 18 Hot Knives on in the background, as I invariably referred to this magnificent opus while I was a student. Happy memories. Plus it gives me a chance to use the subject line.

Suppose they held an election and nobody voted?

While I'm not likely to go as far as prophesying that's what will happen a week on Thursday, this has to be the quietest, most low-key election campaign I've ever seen round here. Apart from Cleggo turning up in town last Friday and one routine mail drop from each of the major parties, there has been absolutely naff all to show that Bradford, along with everywhere else in the EU, goes to the polls next week. While I'm aware that people, rather than posters, have the franchise, I've seen NOTHING. No blobs of red, or blue, or green, nor yet any yellow diamonds with "Winning Here" on them; and tellingly there's nothing in the areas where communalist voting takes place (more on which down the page). Like a vegan's pantry, there's not a sausage. Apathy is the staunchest coalition ally that unpalatable parties like you-know-who could ever have; while you people don't need me to go and tell you to exercise your right to vote, it seems many out there can't be bothered - or worse still, are more interested in Britain's Got Talent than the democratic process. How the hell are we going to convince them about, say, the merits of STV versus FPTP when it seems they can't be bothered to get up off their backsides? I can see some parts of this area registering turnouts that are lower than those for the most piddling of municipal elections.

As I stated earlier, even the communalists seem to be keeping quiet here, though the fact that the ridiculous and easily-defraudable all-postal voting system as used last time around has been dropped round here helps. That said, I felt more than a sense of unease on Monday while locking up the building to find that the station was putting out what sounded like a half-hour advert for MPAC, a very dubious organisation if ever there was one. Of course the scheduling committee - "no platformers" every last person of them - would have been quite unaware that their counterparts in the NUS proscribed MPAC five years ago, and some of their outpourings are shot through with paranoid anti-semitism. Still, trying to argue the toss with management and senior contributors who hold a collective hard-on for Hezbollah is a futile exercise; hell it's hardly as if I'm a Eustonite or worse. Head, meet desk. I'm tempted to propose a half-hour's worth of Jewish-oriented programming every week and see what they make of it, partly as a kite-flying exercise and partly by way of being fair and balanced, not that there'd be many more than enough menschen to form a minyan in this city.

Returning to EU politics, though, it's nice to see our leftpondian chums at fivethirtyeight taking an interest; how this country cries out for an equivalent that's as full of fact-packed goodness. Indeed, without it I'd have never heard of this boardgame, which, to this politics geek, looks rather fun as boardgames go, though it's not as if it's likely to overtake D&D in the popularity stakes. I'd still prefer a copy of War On Terror though.

And finally, let's all laugh at the BNP for their paranoid wibbling about how their web site was taken down at the weekend by a DDoS attack by "Eastern Marxists", while all the while it was merely being moved onto another server, almost certainly after being ToSsed by its hosts. I'm surprised none of them are claiming it was down to the Barclay Brothers; behind the Zeitgeist as usual ;) Meanwhile, I rather like Jailhouse Lawyer's improvements on that flyer of theirs. Good work, John.

In a Marie-Celeste of a studio this afternoon, with the single-handed responsibility of making sure our feed from Headingley doesn't go down and with the job of improvising if, for some reason, it does. So much for bank holidays. Still, it is quiet, and there's coffee on tap, and I can get on with a lot of my other projects as best a non-multitasking man can, starting with arranging that Feargal Sharkey interview next week, so life isn't so bad.

Quite busy for a bank holiday in town, heaven only knows why though. Interesting to find out that the "chuggers" I was dodging on Kirkgate turned out not to be chuggers at all, but canvassers for UKIP! Well, I guess it's a novel approach, and anyway Icouldn'tBA to argue the toss with them about some of their members' dubious political histories or Nigel Farage's champagne-and-caviar lifestyle in the fleshpots of Brussels because it was down to me to open up and crank up the lines and time was of the essence anyway.

A few interesting sidelights on the whole electoral process this weekend as Postman Pat calls for a PR referendum, thus stealing Clegg's thunder again. Come on Cowley Street, up your game! It's laudable in many ways to see this coming from a party that is not the LibDems, though the AV+ system as preferred by Johnson is very flawed (though far better than FPTP, let alone the horrible list system as used in the Euro-elections in Britain). Our own caramel_betty has much more on the story and the methodology behind it here; some good reading to be had. Staying with politics, and also worth your time, comes this history lesson from peake; particularly relevant if, unlike us, you don't remember politics pre-Thatcher. And over in Mid-NarniaBedfordshire, it seems they're not content with having just one clown on the ballot paper next time round. Meanwhile, my inner political geek is sated as I've just bagged one of F. W. S. Craig's essential and long out-of-print books of electoral statistics for a matter of pennies from some American who doesn't know what it is; I've seen the same book going for £69 on Amazon.

Ah well, back to the mixing desk...

To Holy Trinity Church this morning (now there's an opening line you probably weren't expecting to see here) in order to catch our Glorious Leader at one of his open "town hall"-style meetings. Fair enough crowd of about a hundred or so, though few under 40 years old, even allowing for the fact that many people would have been at work; heck of a lot of pensioners and a couple of school parties from Immanuel and Carlton-Bolling. Nick Clegg seemed affable enough and gave some good answers on what were unscreened questions, notably on NHS midwifery and school spending; but unsurprisingly it was Expensesgate that loomed largest and there was the rub. When it came to my question about how to engage the general public whose faith in politics has gone totally, citing the hostile response from the Question Time crowd in Salisbury last night, Clegg was fine on the "what" but didn't really seem to address the "how". And while these parish pump meetings are all well and good for those of us who actually want to take an interest, it's all about the "how" when it comes to bringing the rest of the electorate back into the fold rather than seeing them either stay at home or vote for vapid tv celebs (or far worse). Extra brownie points for a line about how Westminster is now "the eunuch of parliaments" and for working in his support for separation of church and state while standing in a house of God, and extra points for our new vicar Robin Gamble coming out as a LibDem. A fair effort given that Clegg had to think on his feet, but I could have done with fuller answers. Also, there were some "ers" and "ums" in reply to an Asian fifth-former from Carlton-Bolling (is that an Eleven in the new money?) and her rather nebulous question about "wars" - and there was a lot of karate-chopping of the air by Clegg's right hand, almost as involuntary as Dr. Strangelove. Ah well, I'll be quoted in tomorrow's Telegraph & Argus if nothing else.

Still, far better nice Mr Clegg coming up wanting than some of the alternatives; before popping across there I had the misfortune to catch about five minutes of Mad Nad on the radio. Has she finally flipped her lid? Granted, the Barclay brothers who own the Daily Telegraph are hardly a barrel of laughs and not likely to be mistaken for Stephen Fry in a hurry, but it's not as if they are evil entities holed up in a Blofeld-style retreat on Sark hoping to trigger a far-right coup either. Nadine ought to know that in her case at least, it's more about cock-up than conspiracy.

Hoi sin chicken and rice almost ready now, so once that's done might as well take it easy this afternoon; I can get most of my editing finished over the weekend and anyway tonight I really fancy some PUB.

It's official; the worst Speaker of the House of Commons in modern history will resign at 2.30pm this afternoon. I wonder whether Gordon will follow convention here and promote Martin to the Lords once he takes the Chiltern Hundreds? The big question remains whether Martin will be the sacrificial piggy for the others with their snouts in the troughs, or whether the fallout will extend further. I notice that Martin's chief cheerleader, the veteran former pornographer Stuart Bell MP, has been keeping extremely quiet this last couple of days. Bugger off, Gorbals, and don't bang your arse on the HoC door on the way out.

Elsewhere in the world, a belting article from George Monbiot on the subject of policing and politics. George doesn't always get it right but he has a better strike rate than the stopped clock that tells the correct time twice a day, and he's right on the money with today's offering. It's the penultimate paragraph that brings it home. Who could that principled back-bencher be, and why aren't there more of this type?

A happy Bethday to ulygan btw, and also to the amazing clanwilliam, one of my favourite people in the whole world; catch you in the PUB this evening, ${deity} and East Midlands Trains willing, and let us hope that the number 8 runs on time later.

Also, via miss_s_b - NO. It's bad enough that it's Guy Ritchie; it's worse still that there are certain people on my flist who will be guaranteed not to shut up about a naked Robert Downey Jr chained to a bed. Funny, I don't remember Conan Doyle writing anything involving that scenario. Lemon entry, my dear Watson...

Regular readers of this blog will have noticed the strange yet for-some-values-of dignified silence that I've been keeping on the subject of some of our best-known and yet most loathed politicians and their cashback on everything from widescreen televisions to dog food. Why is this, you're wondering? Well, apart from the fact that the spotlight will be trained upon my party tomorrow, with non-MP Lord Rennard of Barcharts being the biggest name in the frame so far to the tune of £41,000, and thus nemesis will follow hubris as sure as inane comments from the usual claque of punchable trolls will appear all over the British political blogosphere like a dose of Bangkok clap, the thing that worries me most here is not so much what will happen to Rennard or anyone else in Westminster but the hidden agenda behind these revelations. The only ones that stand to gain anything in the short term - by which, I mean the forthcoming Euro elections - from spilling of these beans will be the newly Tebbit-endorsed UKIP (whose MEPs aren't entirely behind the door when it comes to living the high life on the Continong), and more worryingly the BNP, who no matter how you slice and dice any of their allegedly "left-wing" economic policies as the bloggertarians would have it, still remain nothing more than unreconstructed fascists. Their top candidate in my area, one Andrew Brons, is a familiar figure of old who once was involved with something called the National Socialist Movement (whose late führer Colin Jordan, to be fair to him, never claimed back the cost of his lingerie on expenses), and whose history is to say the least "chequered"[1].

All things considered, however, these amounts of cash are mere bagatelles compared to top-end directors in the private sector. Fred Goodwin and his cohorts will be laughing their Savile Row socks off at this, not least because it's keeping them out of the headlines. Anyway, if Gordon decides to walk away after taking his inevitable drubbing at the GE, it's not as if he'll be relegated to selling the Big Issue on the Embankment; it's fairly common knowledge that there'll be directorships galore that he could walk into, and none more likely than the mysterious Carlyle Group; the real-life equivalent of a merger between Yoyodyne, Weyland-Yutani and Soylent, whose portfolio covers everything from arms to prisons via Dunkin' Donuts and Hertz Van Rental, and whose senior directors over the years have included George H. W. Bush and John Major.

Still, it's nice to see one well-known name fixed up, not that I'd have had old Two-Bogs Prescott down for this career move. Mind you, the Mouth of the Humber is in fact a Welshman; he's from Prestatyn originally. Great make-up job there, John...

Another pot of coffee and then on to Heckmondwike in order to pick up some arcane electronics including one of these beautifully over-engineered German monsters. It has a Wunschklang! Yes, I know it's the proprietary brand for a 1950s equivalent of a graphic equaliser, but hey, what's not to like about the Wagnerian name. W-U-N-S-C-H-K-L-A-N-G. Say it again. It sounds almost as good as its reproduction quality. Also, a mere 32 pounds 10 ounces is a walk in the park compared to that Bang & Olufsen Acromegalovision 5000 that I picked up a fortnight ago. Ha! In yer face, rheumatoid arthritis.

Finally but by no means least - happy birthday to land_girl, one of the most genuinely nice people I know. May all your ducks turn out to be beautiful swans. Now can we have a bossa nova on the Bontempi, Joan?

[1]There's actually an old article by none other than Griffin himself knocking around on the web which paints Brons in less than flattering terms. I'm not going to dignify it with a link - I don't particularly want to link to loathsome far-right web sites - but if you really want to know you can find it for yourselves easily enough if you run "Attempted Murder 1986" through Google. "Enlightening" is the word, though not in the Buddhist way.