Well it's all over and it would appear that it isn't the road to Scaitcliffe House that I have taken. All I can say is that I gave it a shot - I did my best but it wasn't quite good enough. Considering all the national sleaze scandals I probably did well to not lose any ground.
I still don't understand why people vote for him. But I suppose that's like anything that you believe passionately about it's very hard to see the opposing view. There are obviously a lot of people (704 to be precise) who think he's doing a good job and they've got what they wanted and voted him back in!
There was a lot of talk about the LibDem taking some of my votes but I don't think the result would have been too different if he hadn't been standing. He actually got about half the number of votes that he got from last time so both Peter and I took votes off him.
It was a bad night for Labour in general and in Hyndburn - we lost three seats and gained one so Ossy does have at least one Labour councillor now!
The process of vote counting is interesting. So for the benefit of those of you who don't know what happens here goes! First they do a count of votes without dividing them into who the votes were for. The purpose of this is to make sure that the number of votes tallies up with the number of people who they believe have voted. Then they start dividing them up into votes for each person and bundling them into 50s. They then put a red or blue card on the front of each bundle of 50 to show which side the votes belong to. You then start to see your bundles pile up and it begins to be pretty obvious how it's going. They then speak to the agents with the result and then any recounts can be ordered. From what I understand you can carry on recounting again and again until everyone's happy with the result. My own ward had one recount but to be honest there was no way that they'd find another 150 votes, it was more a case of not giving in easy.
They then declare the results as they come in. You can then still walk around the outside looking at other peoples votes being counted. After mine was declared I stayed looking at Colette's result in Immanuel to help verify it because there were three recounts before the Tories finally declared defeat on that one.
It was an interesting process from start to finish, one that I'm not sure I wish to repeat. Never say never and all that but for now I'm quite happy to relax and not worry about it.
So, this is the end of this diary for now. I can go back to being a regular member on here again and not worry too much how every little thing I say could be misconstrued. Thank you to anyone who's been reading it I hope its been interesting. Cheers.
I still don't understand why people vote for him. But I suppose that's like anything that you believe passionately about it's very hard to see the opposing view. There are obviously a lot of people (704 to be precise) who think he's doing a good job and they've got what they wanted and voted him back in!
There was a lot of talk about the LibDem taking some of my votes but I don't think the result would have been too different if he hadn't been standing. He actually got about half the number of votes that he got from last time so both Peter and I took votes off him.
It was a bad night for Labour in general and in Hyndburn - we lost three seats and gained one so Ossy does have at least one Labour councillor now!
The process of vote counting is interesting. So for the benefit of those of you who don't know what happens here goes! First they do a count of votes without dividing them into who the votes were for. The purpose of this is to make sure that the number of votes tallies up with the number of people who they believe have voted. Then they start dividing them up into votes for each person and bundling them into 50s. They then put a red or blue card on the front of each bundle of 50 to show which side the votes belong to. You then start to see your bundles pile up and it begins to be pretty obvious how it's going. They then speak to the agents with the result and then any recounts can be ordered. From what I understand you can carry on recounting again and again until everyone's happy with the result. My own ward had one recount but to be honest there was no way that they'd find another 150 votes, it was more a case of not giving in easy.
They then declare the results as they come in. You can then still walk around the outside looking at other peoples votes being counted. After mine was declared I stayed looking at Colette's result in Immanuel to help verify it because there were three recounts before the Tories finally declared defeat on that one.
It was an interesting process from start to finish, one that I'm not sure I wish to repeat. Never say never and all that but for now I'm quite happy to relax and not worry about it.
So, this is the end of this diary for now. I can go back to being a regular member on here again and not worry too much how every little thing I say could be misconstrued. Thank you to anyone who's been reading it I hope its been interesting. Cheers.
Margaret P said it all, and hopefully made you smile as well as me.