Political elections, where do you stand?

Millions of people across the country cast their votes in England, Scotland and Wales yesterday in what was dubbed “Super Thursday”.

 

The polls will govern the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Senedd, 143 council seats and 13 mayors as well as 39 police and crime commissioners with a by-election also taking place in Hartlepool.

 

The polls officially closed at 22:00 on Thursday, some areas will start counting overnight but most will wait until Friday morning to count the votes.

 

So far, we know that the now MP, Jill Mortimer, who represents the Conservatives was elected in the Hartlepool by-election, she won with a 51.9% vote share.

 

The Conservatives have been in power since 2010, whilst they were in a short-lived coalition with the Liberal Democrats for 5 years spanning to 2015, the Conservatives are now solely in power of the country.

 

Their major competitors are the Labour government who were in power from 1997-2010 and have been shortly behind their percentage vote share for a number of years with, in the 2019 elections, the Conservatives securing 43.6% of the votes and Labour securing 32.2% of the vote share across the UK.

 

Surprisingly the Labour government is more popular with 56% of voters aged between 18-24 preferring Labour with only 21% of voters aged 18-24 preferring Conservatives.

 

This trend slowly transforms over the age groups up to voters aged 70+ preferring Conservatives with 67% of voters taking their side, leaving only 14% of voters voting for the Labour government.

 

In Plymouth there are 19 City Council seats up for election, those who are elected into power will represent Plymouth residents for the next 3 years.

 

A third of council seats are elected every year for three years, with no election on the fourth year, the polls which took place on Thursday were postponed from 2020 due to the pandemic.

 

Currently Eleven of the 19 seats that are being contested are being held by Labour, five are being held by the Conservative party and three are being held by independents who left the Conservative party after differences with the new leadership last year.

 

Unlike the running trend of the United Kingdom, Labour has the majority of the councillor seats with 30 of the 57 seats available, this comes after eight councillors left the Conservative group due to differences with the new leadership.

 

The Conservative party do have a chance to take control or to create an alliance with councillors who left the group last year.

 

While the seat count differentiates from what you would expect to see from the trends of rest of the United Kingdom, this could all change when the ballots results come in tonight at 5pm.

 

A poll on campus tells us that Conservatives may be with a chance to secure control after tonight’s count.

 

Seven out of 29 voted Conservative.

Five out of 29 voted Liberal Democrats.

Four out of 29 voted Labour.

Four out of 29 voted Green Party

Nine out of 29 did not vote.

Five out of 29 refused to answer.

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