News in brief

Occasional newsletter - mainly for expats

5 May 2007

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A clear winner

As expected, Frank Branston won a second term as Mayor of Bedford. He gained more than 19500 votes, 6000 more than his nearest challenger.

Unfortunately, it seemed to take an age to come to a declaration! The voting system this year was more complex than in previous years. Voters were given two sheets, one for the Mayor post, one for local borough councillors. When voting for councillors, there would have been no problem. However, in the case of the Mayor, unlike indicating one's preference by an X we were asked to nominate two candidates, placing a 1 or 2 next to their names. No fewer than 20% of votes were deemed to be spoiled papers as electors struggled to come to terms with first and second preference.

In addition, the borough had been invited to test a computerised system to speed up the process. However, this experiment proved a disaster, and almost 17,000 votes had to be checked manually. So much for the new technology!

So the result of the election was not announced until 1:30 a.m. on Saturday. By this time an exhausted Frank was for ever looking at his watch!

Nationally, the trend was clearly away from Labour, but Luton was regained by the Labour Party against the trend.

Frank therefore takes on his role for a further four years. However, this depends upon the decision of the government as to whether Bedford becomes a unitary authority or is swallowed up by Beds county council. This decision will not be revealed until mid-July.

More soon!

Robert