Watching the BBC 10 o'clock news tonight, it seemed that their piece on the election results had been put together by someone who really doesn't like the Lib Dems...
It essentially said polling day had been a disaster for us. At one point, it said that we had been decimated by the Conservatives across the south of England and gave a couple of (good) examples, Torbay and Bournemouth. But then they said that our *only* consolation had been taking control of Hull from Labour. Uh, hang on, didn't we take control of Eastbourne from the Tories, might that not have been a good comparison? And there were other councils where we took seats from the Tories to take control too. Not to mention the other councils we have taken seats from Labour on to take control. Hull was a great result, but there were plenty of other great results around the country for us too. Heigh-ho.
Seeing the news about the 'fiasco' of the number of ballot papers rejected in Scotland, it was hard not to think that the problem might be with education more so than the system (as ballots rejected by the computers are then checked by hand anyway). It's not that hard to number candidates '1', '2', '3' etc rather than use an 'X'. Well, it will take a bit of getting used to and needs good clear information, as it is a new system for most people. But surely anyone who can put an 'X' on a ballot paper could also use numbers instead - so long as the instructions are clear?
The one thing they did do wrong, of course, was to ignore the advice not to hold STV local elections on the same day as the Scottish Parliamentary elections. Adding a third vote to the two votes for MSPs, with a third different set-up was bound to be confusing - especially when most people were trying out STV for the first time.
And just as I'm going to bed, have seen late news that we have taken control of Northampton. The Tories were the largest party, but we've taken seats from them to take the council from No Overall Control.
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