THE ELECTION RESULTS THAT POLITICIANS IGNORE!

THE ELECTION RESULTS THAT POLITICIANS IGNORE!

The following are the 2015 Local Election results across Tameside. They show the percentages of the people in every ward who DID NOT VOTE on Thursday 7th May: 

Ashton Hurst (42%); Ashton St Michaels (48%); Ashton Waterloo (43%); Ashton St Peters (50%); Audenshaw (38%); Denton North East (43%); Denton South (43%); Denton West (37%); Stalybridge North (46%); Stalybridge South (41%); Dukinfield (46%); Dukinfield Stalybridge (47%); Droylsden East (42%); Droylsden West (42%); Hyde Godley (47%); Hyde Newton (46%); Hyde Werneth (36%); Longdendale (42%); Mossley (40%).

The fact that the Deputy Leader of Tameside (the most well-known and outspoken voice of the Labour Council in the borough) received almost 50% of the votes in his Dukinfield Ward sounds great - until one considers that only 54% of the electorate actually voted and 46% stayed at home. So the re-elected councillor only received support from 27% of the voters - and that was despite his 31 years continuous service and the "massive interest" generated from all the hype of the General Election.  

The General Election campaign in 2015 was supposed to have been the closest and most exciting election for decades. And that is the scary thing. The above percentages in the Local Election would have been much worse were it not for the General Election held on the same day!

Every one of the main political parties, except the Liberal Democrats, saw a huge increase in their local vote - despite not even putting out a single leaflet in some areas - such is the distortion that a General Election can bring to a local campaign. 

Not that the 2015 General Election itself was very encouraging. In 1950, only 15.2% of people entitled to vote failed to do so. The number of non-voters has steadily increased in almost every General Election since, so that, by 2015, 33.9% of the population did not vote. The three Tameside constituencies show that the percentage of people not voting was even worse: 

Stalybridge & Hyde (40.6%); Denton & Reddish (41.9%); Ashton-Under-Lyne (42.5%)

There are, no doubt, many reasons why so many people chose not to vote. But does the individual vote really count when almost 4 million people can vote for UKIP and another 1 million can vote for the Greens - yet each party ends up with only 1 MP each? Does the national vote mean anything when a majority Government can be elected by less than a majority of the electorate? Finally, how can any Local Government claim any real legitimacy, when the voters cannot even change the political party that controls the council in a single election?

These are the election results that politicians do ignore. However, that these statistics were no doubt repeated in every local authority across the country should set alarm bells ringing and give concern to any true believer in Democracy. That so many people did not vote should be a source of both worry and shame to all parties - for it bodes ill for the future of democracy both locally and nationally. 

Carl Simmons
Denton South Independent
Saturday 16th May 2015



.