Mark Lancaster Wins MK North

The Conservatives emphatically beat down Labour to take Milton Keynes North.

Milton Keynes North Candidates

The Conservative candidate remained ‘quietly confident’ throughout a very long count at the MK Stadium – delayed by the amount of postal votes and sifting through the local election ballots.  The other two main parties represented by Andrew Pakes and Jill Hope from Labour and Lib Dems were resigned to watch the counting from the fringes as the piles of ballots slowly stacked up for their competitor.

On the balcony watching the less than ferocious counting in the ballroom below, the other Sky News stringer and I rubbed shoulders with BBC 3 counties radio, Look East presenter Jo Black, Heart 103.3fm and other local media.

Verification of the votes occurred at about 3.3oam when the turnout of 65.8% was announced. The amount of coffee in my blood stream was starting to play havoc with my stomach and I was flagging. Watching events unfold across the country through twitter and the main broadcasters kept boredom at bay until around 7.30am when a result finally became apparent.

Despite Sky wanting to be first with the result, offering more cash to the stringer who got in there ahead of rivals, they wouldn’t take my word that the Conservatives were celebrating before the official declaration was made. When I phoned it through they wanted to wait for the final announcement.

The highlight of the night was seeing Matt ‘Bananamatt’ Fensome get 157 votes – beating the independent  Anant Vyas – proclaiming that he was indeed the only real Loony in Milton Keynes. Here’s his reaction during a long night and an impression of how fast I’d hoped the counting would be.

The results were as follows:

Matt Bananamatt Fensome  - Loony Party: 157

Alan Francis – Green: 733

Richard Hamilton – BNP: 1,154

Jill Hope – Liberal Democrat: 11,894

Mark Lancaster – Conservative: 23,419

John Lennon – Christian PA: 206

Andrew Pakes – Labour: 14,458

Michael Phillips – UKIP: 1,772

Anant Vyas – Independent: 95

Election Day!

Tonight I’ll be reporting the election result from Milton Keynes North for Sky News – here’s the lowdown on the constituency:

As always with Sky they want to be first for breaking news, and the idea is that their stringers get a result before anyone else – meaning that they will be able to get the information on air and make a call on who’s won. I expect the result to come out at about 5am. It’s going to be a long night – but I’ll be tweeting all the way!

The wiki:

Milton Keynes (pronounced /ˌmɪltən ˈkiːnz/ ( listen), MIL-tən KEENZ), often abbreviated MK, is a large town in Buckinghamshire, in the south east of England, about 45 miles (72 km) north-west of London. It is also the capital of the Borough of Milton Keynes. It was formally designated as a new town on 23 January 1967, with the design brief to become a ‘city’ in scale.

Candidates for MK North

Three way marginal

As a three way marginal, made even more interesting after the way that the TV debates have skewed the polls, the outcome could have national importance. It is notionally a labour majority by about 800 votes – but the line of the constituency has changed, so the results will differ.

From Sky News

2005 notional results

The Times has the chance of a Conservative win down as 79%.

Covering the Election Coverage – Week 1

Election Week 1: Newspaper review.

For this weeks handy guide to election coverage I’ve been looking at the papers.

Things are really starting to kick off. If you’ve bought any paper you’ll see the big election spreads. So to break it all down for you I’ve done a bit of research:

There were 824 separate articles about the election last week.

If the amount of column inches are anything to go by, here is the state of play:

1) Cameron appeared in 395 articles

2) Brown in 341

3) Clegg in a measely 81 which could all change on his announcement of the manifesto today.

—

1) Labour scored 567

2) The Tories were mentioned 454 times

3) And Liberals a tiny 118.

The Daily Expres chose to direct its attention to the weird statistic that came out saying 98 percent of 1.67million new jobs were taken by immigrants. Though most others went for uncertainty over future VAT rises.

Lots of papers are being distracted by the sideshows. You might expect headlines like this from the Sun on Sarah vs Sam – going on to say ‘they’ve both got husbands willing to pimp them out for votes’, but the Times also weighed in with what it calls ‘the best writing, analysis and wit with ‘Follow the Feet’ guess who owns these shoes. And the Daily Mail notes that Jon Snow, a keen ‘grabatologist‘ (a collector of ties) will be wearing the same tie throughout the campaign to appear neutral.

And with the release of the two major manifestos Private Eye did it’s usual number crunching,

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Naturally each newspaper is following the election carefully with most having minute by minute live updates and next week I’ll be looking at how the election is being covered online.

Election Coverage Day 1 April 6th 2010

If you missed the coverage on the opening day, look no further than my idiots’ guide

The date has been announced. Like 3 bald men fighting over a comb, the main parties jostled for our attention so that they can run this small country for the next 5 years.

In an election special the BBC had rolling coverage on BBC 1 simulcast with BBC News of Gordon Brown going to the palace to politely ask the Queen to dissolve parliament. I can imagine she asked him why he was 2 years late and why he wouldn’t hang around for tea because he was quickly seen heading off to St Pancras to go to Kent and kick off his election campaign.

To fill dead air between Police, Camera, Action! type shots from a helicopter following Brown’s cavalcade, there were lots of long two ways with political correspondents in various locations around The Palace of Westminster and Downing Street. Poor Huw Edwards was there all day – up to the 10 O’Clock news – which added some pre-recorded packages from the regions and showing the other leader’s kicking off their campaigns in London.

Sky news had a similar type of coverage.

Newsnight put the icing on the cake – or rather the ice cream – with a rather cynical stunt trying to recreate the famous scene where Blair gave Brown an ice cream on the trail in 1997. ‘Theatrics play a part in politics’ and in political reporting it seems. In a commentator threeway, I agreed most with Daniel Finklestien of The Times, who noted that Cameron’s staged photo ops were the most slick. Especially when he entered a room full of party sympathisers in Birmingham with sleeves rolled up and missing a tie. Nick Clegg took the wise decision, as pointed out by a Lib Dem commentator Olly Grender, to ditch his wife in favour of Vince Cable.

On the cliché-ometer or buzzwordinditcator: ‘change’ is leading the way, then ‘hung-parliment’ and ‘big’ – as in Cameron uses the big prefix ‘big’ too much.

The poll average shows at the moment:

Last date of interviews

Cons Lab Lib Dems

UK Polling Report Average of the main polls:

38 30 20

http://timesonline.typepad.com/election10/poll-watch/

Covering the Election Coverage

And they’re off! ‘Brown fires starting pistol’

The shroud of secrecy, the cloak of inevitability had been lifted. Date that was the worst kept secret in politics has been announced: May the 6th. In the words of Murray Walker, it’s GO GO GO!

Whilst the eyes of the media will be on the election candidates, I will be turning the focus onto the newspaper columns and television programmes from now until the results. Watching and tracking the movements of the election coverage. Particularly since The Times website will be disappearing behind a pay-wall (free trial initially) in early May.

Who will have the best local news?

Who will get the big interviews?

How will the TV debates go down?

When will O.K or Hello! start their campaign for better dressed politicians?

All will be revealed in the coming month – which is bound to be fascinating.