Few of you my know that I was No2AV coordinator for the Erewash Conservative Association in the run up to the recent local elections. I was also appointed as the Referendum agent for the Conservative Party in Erewash.
I attended the count along with my two counting agents, Cllr Chris Corbett (leader of Erewash Borough Council), Allison Maguire (Deputy Chairman (Political & Campaigning) and my guest for the afternoon .was Jessica Lee MP (member of Parliament for Erewash). Now this was the third count in around fifteen hours and sadly I had lost out in the previous two. So walking around the counting hall I said to Chris, "there is one table with around a 50/50 split, the rest of the room is about 3/4 NO". Now in my bid to learn more about running an effective counting operation, I had speculated with Chris that the more or less even table was probably from the "Sawley Ward" which had a large Lib Dem following, the ward where we had claimed 2 seats to eliminate the Lib Dems from the council earlier that morning.
About 20 minutes later the referendum counting team had been sent for a well earned break. I was sat in the gallery with Jessica and Allison discussing the highs and lows of the previous twenty four hours and I was summonsed to the counting hall. The Deputy Returning Officer read out a list of voting figures to me which I scribbled down. I then returned to the gallery to await the final results. Sitting and chatting with Jessica Lee is always an insightful and extremely interesting experience as she sits scribbling on a scrap of white A4 paper, "This is my mood map" she says, "Winston Churchill's war effort began on a peice of paper". As we discussed the provisional result, Allison calculated that exactly 25% of the votes cast were yes votes. "Your prediction of 3/4 was spot on, Let me copy those figures down" Jessica was extremely happy with the results (as was I after the previous night).
10 minutes later I was waved down to the counting hall again. The results were confirmed. I then went back upstairs to phone the results through to No2AV HQ. We sat for about anonther half an hour discussing the results and the strategy for the next four years. Every 5 minutes or so, Jessica would say "seriously well done and thank you, that was a fantastic result".
But it makes me wonder, where do the Lib Dems go from here? They have another four years to go in government, they failed on Tuition Fee's, they failed on VAT, they failed on AV, MR Clegg seems extremely fragile in his position. If the Lib Dems get rid of him does his successor in October automatically resume the position of Deputy Prime Minister?
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