Just another false alarm...

On another election-related note, there are more worrying things happening in Birmingham. Last year Labour lost control of the council for the first time in 19 years. This year another party may well take over, since the anti-Labour protest vote will, if anything, be much stronger. This is potentially disastrous, as the BNP are putting up 24 candidates (the first time there has been so many I think) and are making a sustained campaigning effort across the region. The UKIP have 14 candidates too.

On the other side the RESPECT coalition (which amusingly still needs to add (George Galloway) after its name on the ballot paper) and the People's Justice Party are working to get the disaffected Labour voters. They may both do quite well, but I think they'll lose seats for Labour rather than gaining any more for themselves (the PJP already has a couple).

Hopefully we'll avoid having any BNP or UKIP councillors, but given the voting split it's not certain, and it looks like we might well end up with a Tory council, since their voters seem to be sticking to the party line much more closely than anyone else at the moment. All of this is rather depressing, and makes the Oxford bitching session look very petty indeed.