BRIDGWATER RESULT 02.32AM

To no-ones surprise, Tory incumbant IAN LIDDELL-GRAINGER has won the safe Conservative seat of Bridgwater and West Somerset. In a night when Tory swings ranged from 8-10% it is of great satisfaction to note that in Bridgwater they dropped by 0.1% - clearly local factors and a clear indication that outside the dyed in the brain tory faithful, ILG is NOT appreciated.

The vote was as follows;-
Ian Liddell-Grainger Conservative ..........24,675 .....45.3%..... -0.1
Theo Butt Philip Liberal Democrat ..........15,426 .....28.3% .....+5.7
Kathryn Pearce Labour .......................9,332 .....17.1%......-8.5
Peter Hollings UK Independence Party ........2,604 ......4.8%..... +1.1
Donna Treanor British National Party ........1,282 ......2.4% .....+2.4
Charles Graham Green ..........................859 ......1.6%..... -1.2
Bob Cudlipp Independent .......................315...... 0.6%......+0.6

It's a great shame to see such a high Fascist vote in the constituency for a candidate who doesn't live in the area and well, is a Fascist, and although we won't see her again she's certainly left a bad taste in her wake and a whole spawning ground for her evil creed to be nurtured.

It was also an inevitable by product of a dirty campaign by the Lib Dems that they hoodwinked the electorate into thinking people should vote for them in order to get out the Tory- that combined with the National lib dem mania has put them in an undeserved second place and inevitably the big promise of a lib dem victory locally and Nationally obviously failed to materialise.


Kathy Pearce had a great team of helpers throughout the campaign which was hard fought in the face of a very difficult time in Government for the Labour Party yet held the local vote up by a margin of 2% to buck the regional trend of a swing against labour which generally dropped by 10%.

and at 03.43 with the final election results as yet unknown we'll sign out.

THURSDAY MAY 6TH TODAY IS ELECTION DAY

Despite the drizzle (not to mention the volcanic ash) that covers Britain today the General Election 2010 is off -probably the most important one for a Generation. in Bridgwater & West Somerset KATHY PEARCE was up at the crack of dawn to cast her vote at Westfield church in Bridgwaters West Street before heading off to the Minehead end of the vast constituency and back again throughout the day.

"Tory and LibDem rosettes seem to be noticeable by their absence at the moment - which to me shows the Tories are less than convinced by their absentee candidate and the Lib Dems are relying on their x-factor style TV hype as they have absolutely no Party members active on the ground here! "

AFTERNOON UPDATE

Turnout in Bridgwater, like elsewhere in the country, is high. Very little sign of the opposition. Polling stations around the country opened at 7am and will close at 10pm - with the first results expected before midnight.

Bridgwater is expected to be declared at about 3am.

Final Opinion Polls showed Tories in the lead with 36% and Labour second on 29% and Lib Dems trailing on 27%. This would translate into a Tory minority Government and of course the Lib Dems failing to gain much more than 10 extra seats showing that in a First Past the Post election a Lib Dem vote is a wasted vote.

BNP candidate Donna Treanor hasn't been spotted at all-probably because shes standing as a council candidate where she lives in Croydon today as well! Which of course doesn't mean her candidature here hasn't unearthed a dodgy underbelly of racist supporters who have taken to the local blogosphere.

UKIP candidate was pictured voting early on but their campaign today has been dominated by ex leader Farages plane crash which occured this morning when he tried to take off with a 'vote Ukip' banner that got entangled in the planes tail and brought it down. His agent said he was 'drifting in and out of conscious, but still talking' (no surprise there). His injuries were declared as 'not life threatening'. Belgium has declared a day of mourning.

Every last available Lib Dem appears to have left the Bridgwater constituency (in a Mini Metro) to help in other areas where they have a chance of winning leaving Butt-Phillips wishing he'd been selected in the winnable consituency of Wells (where he lives)

Tory candidate Ian Liddel-Grainger appears to be trying to combat his non-visibility during the election campaign by driving at top speed around the constituency -but failing to stop for fear he falls victim to a similar stunt that held up his leaders photo op this morning when he went to vote. ( Two men, one dressed in a blazer and boater, unfurled a large banner at Spelsbury Memorial Hall in Witney, Oxfordshire. It featured a picture of the Conservative party leader with the slogan. "Britons know your place. Vote Eton - vote Tory." )

EVENING UPDATE

Polling stations are open until 10pm. Turnout is high.

Labour supporters have been greeting voters at almost all polling stations with seevral Tory, a couple of UKIP and only 1 LibDem presence . Response from the public has been positive.

The BNP have not put in a presence.

Kathy is having her tea break and is then touring the polling stations again.

The office at Unity House is staffed until 9pm.

The bar will be open late.

IF YOU HAVEN'T DONE SO THUS FAR PLEASE GET OUT THERE AND VOTE FOR KATHY PEARCE



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ABSENTEE MP BREAKS HIS SILENCE "GO ON THEN,VOTE LABOUR!"

Bridgwater's much criticised Tory MP, Ian Lidell-Grainger, has finally turned up on the doorsteps to 'meet the voters' but has run into a storm of criticism which he has responded to by giving his public short measure and not helped his chances of re-election one bit.

On doorstep number 1 the elusive little stranger is asked about what he is going to do for them. He responds about how he will look after pensioners (much to the householders annoyance as she isnt a pensioner). Householder is not convinced and then tells him she's already voted Labour by postal vote anyway, he completely blanks her and storms off down the path, muttering.

Doorstep number 2 sees Liddell-Grainger challenged again ( a few doors along and out of sight of the first one) this time about the fact that he has not responded to his letter of 3 years ago. L-G gets on phone immediately, says 'oh yes they did respond'. Householder says why didn't he get a copy then. This is now definitely a recurring theme in his method of dealing with the fact that he probably hasn't actually responded .

Next stop and The Right Honourable Ian is challenged as to why he is keeping such a low profile. Does not cope with the question well and his parting shot is ' "well go on and vote Labour then".

Labour candidate Kathy Pearce, who has been out canvassing today in Williton and Watchet said "I'm quite moved by what a good response we've been getting as polling day draws ever near.People are incensed at Liddel-Graingers taking them for granted and equally outraged at the LibDems blatant misrepresenting the voting figures on their glossy leaflets and the fact they could con people into splitting the vote and keeping him in. As Gordon Brown said, it is time for Labour voters to come home. There genuinely feels like there are people out there who want to vote true to their beliefs this time and vote Labour with a chance of ousting Liddell-Grainger."

As Traditional Labour voters appear to be swinging back to the party in these crucial last few hours before the country could potentially take a disastrous step back in time to Tory rule, this could boost Kathys chances in a bedrock Labour area like Bridgwater and combined with a tactical anti-Tory vote to oust the unpopular former MP, the Conservative stranglehold on the area could be finally broken.

On the 'Wheres Ian Liddell-Grainger'facebook page today, independent voter Laura Costello wrote "I hope that all the people that have joined this group and have vented their anger about Mr ILG will use their vote on thursday to do the only thing that will get him out of our area, which is to VOTE LABOUR.

I have to be honest and say that I am not Labour supporter in general and do not support some of their general policies and actions, but see voting Labour in our area IS THE ONLY THING THAT WILL GET MR ILG OUT.

I have to add also, that Kathy Pearce (Labour) seems the most likely do to the VERY BEST for our town and to WORK HARD; she has been bought up here and still lives IN THE TOWN (not in a posh pile in the countryside or out of the constituency) and she has shown she will work very hard on the LOCAL ISSUES we all most care about."

Her statement was supported by David Gliddon "Totally agree - and Kathy Pearce has been vocal about supporting Bridgwater and the loss of the Sedgemoor Splash. Where was ILG when the town needed him? "Helping" place the new pool at Chilton Trinity in 2012!! A more inappropritae site you could not have found."

'Wheres ILG 'facebook creator Tom Douglas had to apologise today for deleting pro-Labour comments from his website admitting "It was wrong to do that. Such feelings shouldn't overide freedom of speech". However, the LibDem lie machine stepped up it's attempts to split the anti Tory vote by diggin up the 'Electoral Calculus' website to suggest yet another way that the figures could be doctored in their favour.

Labour Party election campaign manager Brian Smedley clearly refuted this "The problem with the Electoral Calculus website: it assumes a uniform national swing and does not take any local factors in to account. Although the general election is partly about electing a new government, it's also about choosing who you want as your local MP in 650 very localised and individual contests which will be informed by the context and circumstances on the ground. Any website that doesn't take this into account is deeply flawed and best ignored. Kathy is a popular and elected local councillor already, with 10 years experience and was born ,lives and works in the area. The Lib Dems have been wiped out electorally in the local councils and their candidate is from Wells-even though he pretends his address is Cannington! Don;t trust them - vote for Kathy"

THE TACTICAL VOTE IN BRIDGWATER IS LABOUR

This week 'tactical voting' is all the rage. Several newspapers have printed their own guide to which party to vote for in which seat in order to stop Cameron winning and returning us to a new Tory Ice Age where climate change could only be a welcome relief.

Bridgwater is NOT mentioned in any of these 'tactical votes'. This is because it's considered a SAFE Tory seat and, not being a 'marginal', won't effect the General Election result . Of course things are different in say 'Taunton' where Lib Dems hold the seat by a just few hundred votes or in Somerset North east-a Labour seat with less than 1% difference between Labour and Tory -where a LibDem vote would let in the Tory.

So in this whirlwind of 'Tactical Voting' people are getting confused - especially by the deceptive Libdem leaflets which pick and choose statistics to make people think they can win here.

The key deciding factors in the BRIDGWATER & WEST SOMERSET constituency are the following;-

The last General election 2005;- Labour were in 2nd place to the Tories and therefore best placed as the party to 'lend your vote to' to get Liddel-Grainger out.

District Council Election results 2007;- Throughout the Constituency (thats west Somerset + the South part of Sedgemoor) Labour has 12 councillors-10 in Bridgwater but also 1 in Minehead and 1 in Woolavington. The Lib Dems have just 1 (in Carhampton).

County Council Election results 2009;-The County election vote swung to the Tories and they took most of the seats in the County wards within our constituency leaving the Lib Dems with 0 but labour with 1.

But the most important 'neutral' statistics to look at are on the BBC ELECTION 2010 website which shows that in Bridgwater Labour is the best tactical vote . This calculates the previous vote plus the 'Notional vote' which projects figures based on the boundary changes and shows Labour in 2nd place 25.6% to lib dem 3rd place on 22,6%. Combined this would topple the Tory projected vote of 45.4%. There are 4'other' candidates on the ballot paper - which combined are projected at 6.4% (Green, UKIP, BNP & Independent).

The Tactical vote in Bridgwater and West Somerset is LABOUR . Whilst the Lib Dems will try to con people that it's them, the truth is that if we want the Tory out people need to vote for KATHY PEARCE on May 6th

WHERES IAN LIDDELL-GRAINGER????

Sitting pretty on an 8,000 vote majority, the Conservative candidate for Bridgwater and West Somerset in next Thursdays General Election-Ian Liddell-Grainger (359th in line to the throne)has seemingly gone into hiding and apparently refused to face the voters.

The absentee toff has been so noticeable by his lack of presence that a local man, Tom Douglas (not affiliated to any party) has set up a Facebook site 'Wheres Ian Liddell-Grainger?' and asks the question "What strategy is this? Media blackout? Zero public appearances... Why o why? Surely a prospective MP must engage in some electioneering if he is to regain a seat in the Commons? Can he really believe that the esteemed votes of the noble constituency will simply vote for him with no ounce of effort on his behalf? People! This is nothing short of an extremely insulting outrage! "
And now the 'Wheres Ian?'Facebook site has received coverage on the BBC! Shadow Business Secretary Ken Clarke (a Tory) said: "...Ian is a colleague I value and so if he's having a different campaign in Bridgwater then good luck to him. I'm sure Ian is campaigning as effectively as ever."
But this has cut no ice with the other candidates who have all attended public meetings largely to debate which one of them feels they are best placed to grab the, barely warm, seat of the 'Hide and Seek Member '.

Labour's Kathy Pearce, the main contender to Liddel-Grainger , needs 8,500 votes to oust the Tory. "Labour came in second place in the last General Election in 2005 and I am determined to unseat this guy . I haven't seen him at all during the campaign. He's either treating the voters with contempt or is too nervous to face them after he let them down over the Splash!"Kathy's task has been made harder however by a late surge by the Lib Dems (in 3rd place but with such a little power base in this constituency that they've had to bring in a candidate from Wells who has resorted to putting out glossy lib dem leaflets distorting the voting figures and confusing the anti-tories. Kathy said "People want to get rid of Liddel-Grainger and to do that in THIS constituency people really need to get behind Labour . The alternative is a split vote and that lets in the Tories.

The REAL voting statistics;-

2005 General Election;-Conservatives 21240
Labour 12771
Lib Dem 10940

2007 District Elections
Labour 12 Councillors
Lib Dem 1 Councillor

2009 County Elections
Conservatives 10 councillors
Labour 1 Councillor
Lib Dem 0 councillors

The candidates for Bridgwater and West Somerset are: Theo Butt-Philip, Liberal Democrats; Bob Cudlipp, Independent, Charles Graham, Green; Peter Hollings, UKIP; Ian Liddell-Grainger, Conservative; Kathy Pearce, Labour; Donna Treanor, BNP.