Making the voter the v in .gov

Local and regional elections are coming up in much of the UK in just over two weeks' time on 5 May.

• As someone who has just received his polling card, that makes me a voter.
• As someone who is celebrating 40 years of being able to vote—and who has done so at every opportunity since 1967—that makes me old. Old-ish.
• As someone who is fed up with our electoral system, the cynicism of politicians that infects the electorate (and vice versa), the lack of integrity, forethought and imagination—you name it, I'm fed with it—that makes me grumpy.

Put them together and what do you get? Voter old grumpy. Er, let's make that grumpy old voter, gov for short.

This blog has been started initially to track the local elections being held for Brighton & Hove City Council. I hope to make it as positive as possible but, given the subject matter, that might be an uphill struggle. Of course, what is written here, even if it were read by millions, will not make a blind bit of difference to anything. Yet there are tiny flecks of straw in the wind hinting that the attitudes in this blog are not unique, that there is a desire for change, to make politics more accessible and meaningful to us citizens. Let's collect the straws until we have enough for a bonfire.

CURRENT STATE OF PLAY

Brighton & Hove City Council consists of 54 seats: 10 wards with two councillors, 12 wards with three. It is currently run by a minority Labour administration (no overall control, NOC), the seats being held as follows:
Labour 23
Conservative 19
Green 6
Liberal Democrat 3
Independent 2
Vacant 1
This is the line-up as reported on the council's own website (www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/index.cfm?request=b1000143). In fact, one of the independents is a member of Brighton & Hove Independents, a political party registered with the Electoral Commission.

Net changes since the election in 2003: Labour has lost one seat to Independent and one Conservative resigned. At the previous election in 1999, when there were 78 seats, Labour held 44, Conservative 23, Green 3, Lib Dem 5 and Independent 3.

Of the 21 wards, seven returned only Conservative councillors at the 2003 election, six only Labour and one each only Green and Liberal Democrat. In the remaining six wards votes were split between parties.

Candidates this time round
The four main parties—Conservative, Green, Liberal Democrat, Labour—are each fielding a full complement of candidates in every ward. In seven wards these are the only candidates.

Two local parties are fielding candidates: Brighton & Hove Independents is contesting all the seats in two wards, two of the three in a third ward (where three other independents are also standing) and one of three in a fourth ward. The Protest Vote Party has single candidates in two central Hove wards.

Among other parties, Respect and Socialist Alternative each have two candidates, and there is one each from the Alliance for Green Socialism, English Democrats 'Putting England First!', the Socialist Labour Party and Ukip. Single independent candidates are listed in each of five wards and in one ward are two independents, one of whom is Tracey-Ann Ross, who has been prominent in the campaign against the council's controversial schools admissions policy (see Links). Three independents are associated with the Dump the Dump campaign against the waste sorting facility at Hollingdean.

That makes a total of 236 candidates to choose from.

The Lib Dems hope to win between nine and 12 seats and the Greens are hoping to double their presence to 12 (The Argus, 12 April).