The Elections So Far... posted by Richard Seymour

For a Respect voter, the feeling is a bit like "...aaah, just a few more fricking votes would have done it!" In Preston, as mentioned, Respect got 30% of the vote, but gained no seats - although Socialist Alliance candidate Michael Lavalette retained his seat. We apparently were only 5,000 short of getting a seat on the London Assembly. Our total vote for the Assembly was 87,533 or 4.57% of the total. This compares with only 1.55% for the London Socialist Alliance a few years ago. That is, we tripled our vote. The mayoral vote is even more encouraging. Lindsey German polled 61,731 first preference votes and 63,294 second preference votes . In that vote, Respect actually trounced the Greens. You wouldn't know this from much media discussion of the mayoral vote. Neither the Beeb nor The Grauniad mention Respect. UKIP gets top drawer treatment for having a couple of embalmed cap-toothed celebrities fronting them, but Respect - either we were ignored or pilloried. The Independent have mentioned us in passing :

"...although in London George Galloway's Respect appears to have captured the anti-Iraq war vote."

The Times has a casual mention :

"Respect, the anti-war party fronted by the former Labour MP George Galloway, has been picking up 2-3 per cent of votes..."

And that's it.

According to the Respect website, over 100,000 votes were disqualified in London's assembly elections. They allege that a large number of these were Respect voters, people whose second language is English - they did not therefore understand the voting system in place, and voted twice in one column. I don't know how to evaluate that claim. And the number of votes disqualified in the mayoral election is even worse - 385,000 . Ballot boxes turning up under a table in Walsall after the official count aren't a particularly encouraging sign. There are suggestions of malpractise, and I must say there are worrying indications that they may be accurate.

So, anyway, the Euro election results come out 9pm on Sunday, and Respect expects to get a seat or two from that. Once again, crossing my fingers.