Conservative candidate Terry Dos Ramos and Lib Dem incumbent Geoff Dunne both picked up 674 votes, well ahead of the third placed Labour candidate. Turnout in the ward – 38.12%.

As a result, one ballot paper marked for each of the tied candidates was placed into a ballot box, and Three Rivers District returning officer Steven Halls picked out the winner, Conservative Dos Ramos.

Source: Adam Binnie

Actually, I lie, I’ve already used my postal vote.  And I didn’t vote for a party that hadn’t been in touch.  If you want me to vote for you it might be a good idea to tell me you are standing and what your policies are before I see your name for the first and only time on the ballot paper.

It seems to have been rather a quiet year for election leaflets this time round, though I suspect this may be because in the Watford Borough at least there is only a single role up for election, that of your ward’s Borough councillor.

On one side there are the Lib Dems who seem to be leading on a Save Watford Met/introduce controlled parking zones everywhere ticket alongside their usual promises.  On the other, the Conservatives seem to be leading with with an opposition to development in the area – particularly that proposed for Cassiobury Park – and of course Save Watford Met.

I was going to see what their official position on “uncutting” actually was but their website appears to have been, ahem, cut.

Well Wikipedia says they exist to “protest against tax avoidance in the UK and to raise awareness about cuts to public services”. Nothing about “uncutting” there!

This seems far more sensible IMO.

When you get closer you will hear shouts of “Vote ABC for some position” from the candidates and their minions.

I haven’t heard anything of policies though. It’s like this every year and it is becoming an obstacle course to get to lectures. After only two days I have heard a lot of other people expressing their dislike for the way these elections are run – perhaps because we are now third years so the novelty has now worn off for everyone.

On a normally peaceful walk through the leafy campus to lectures you are met with “Vote XYZ” signs littered across campus. They look hideous.

There are 43 candidates standing. Voting doesn’t even open until next Monday AND it lasts a week. I imagine I will get far more annoyed even as I do my best to ignore them all. Imagine if a serious political party ran their campaign in this way.

Apparently the turnout last year was 18%. And I voted (for the least annoying candidates!). The two candidates standing for president (only two!?) are apparently called Rachael ‘Super Rae’ Twumasi and Mark Harrop ‘Potter’. That about says it all.

Ammers20

(Amy Waite-Johnson)

Guild Election time at UoB...can't walk anywhere without someone throwing a flyer in your face! I like the free stuff though :)

On 28-2-2011 15:02:53 from web

gmoutrie

(Glen Moutrie)

Just had lecture shouts from 5 of the sab candidates in a single lecture, not too sure how happy the lecturer was... #guildelections11

On 28-2-2011 16:10:34 from Twitter for iPhone

DeborahBazeley

(Deborah Bazeley)

I woke up today thinking I was oh so popular on here and facebook - then realised it's guild election time so everyone's adding, grr

On 1-3-2011 13:19:22 from web

flukes1

(Greg Hughes)

@unibirmingham Why are Guild election candidates allowed to litter on campus?

On 1-3-2011 20:39:16 from Twitterrific for Mac in reply to Birmingham Uni

“Student protests” pretty much summed up by the question of a BBC reporter to a ‘protester’ earlier today: “Can you tell us why you’re here” Response:  ”Umm…   No”

Mildly amusing comment earlier by a BBC guest opposed to fees/cuts who clearly thinks that we should continue to spend more than we can ever pay back:  ”Concrete breeze blocks aren’t particularly constructive”.  Tell that to someone in the building trade.

Yes the maximum amount Universities will be able to charge is much higher but to be honest I don’t really see why there has been so much fuss.  Not all Universities will charge the top fees.  Students already pay fees.  The new system means that you don’t have to start paying them until you are earning £6,000 more than currently.  If you don’t pay them off in full they get written off after 30 years.   Pretty good deal if you don’t actually make good use of your time at University and if you do well it shouldn’t be a problem.

In comparison with countries such as the United States the British system is cheap but I don’t think landing graduates with a huge sum of debt is the right way to go about funding the higher education system.

The Lib Dems played with the idea of a ‘graduate tax’ which would see those who received the benefit of a free University education (so not me) pay a higher rate of income tax for the rest of their lives. If the University system is working then surely graduates will pay back far more tax anyway from the greater wages they can command (provided the graduates aren’t all working in call centres).  I think the problem is that the previous government wanted more people to go to University than was and is necessary which has led to the creation of degree courses in downright ridiculous subjects (pdf).

Foreign students already pay higher fees and make up an increasing proportion of students at UK Universities, I imagine because of the larger fees they are willing to pay. The amount Universities receive in fees from students is less than 30% of their total income.

The repayments for student loans are currently 9% of all income earned over £1,250 a month. On average UK salary (£25,428 a year) on a £20,000 loan at current rates of interest it will take 16 years to pay off.  16 years in which I imagine most graduates will want to buy a house.

Is my degree is value for money? Impossible to tell until I’ve got it and a job but I am pretty confident it will give me much greater opportunities than most other subject choices.

Photo: Stephen Boisvert (cc)

A standard A4 sheet made from 80 grams/m² paper weighs 5 grams. I counted the equivalent of 14 A4 sized pieces of paper being delivered by the Lib Dems in Watford whilst I have been there (either addressed to me or not addressed to any particular member of the household). That’s 70 grammes.

Based on one person per house (in reality some of the literature was received in our house multiple times as it was addressed to each voter in the household) the paper usage comes out at:
(55,208 / 68.3) * 100 * (70 grams) = 5,658.21376 kilograms
(I couldn’t find the registered number of voters in the constituency anywhere so I calculated the total potential voters figure – 80,831.6 – from the BBC total votes and percentage turnout figures)

That’s 5.65 metric tonnes of paper or 1,131,64.75 pieces A4 paper delivered across Watford.

Also worth noting that these figures exclude leaflets/letters that arrived before I came back for Easter or after I left to go back to University.  I wonder how this compares to the local paper’s usage throughout the year, just a fraction of it I suspect.

First a quick recap on the previous scores:

• Selly Oak: Lib 2, Lab 2
• Watford: Con 3, Lib 2

Understandably there has been a huge increase as the election gets nearer and the pile is now so big I have been forced to get counting. Lack of hospital sign photos (obviously not fashionable this year) has meant a slight change in rules – I will now award points for all photos in an identifiable hospital location.

Few more pointers:

• All photos of Gordon Brown in the Libs/Con promo!
• Lib Dems have by far the most negative campaign
• I especially enjoyed the news article style “Green party out of the race in Watford constituency” from the Lib Dems

New Watford scores:

1. Liberal Democrats – 43
2. Conservatives – 8
3. British National Party – 4
4. Labour – 1

Top marks to the University for getting red, blue and yellow Hydrogen cars on show.  After spotting various presenters (Huw Edwards, Adam Boulton and Dermot Murnaghan apparently moonlighting at Sky)  and watching the Sky news presenter read her autocue for a bit we walked over to the Labour Party bus only for Peter Mandleson to appear out of the red hydrogen car.  We followed him, his entourage, the press and wet students until he went inside the security cordon.

Earlier in the day almost got run over by what I now know to be a Labour campaign poster, amusingly at lunch the same mobile ad firm drove past The Goose pub with politically disguised adverts for an upcoming A-Team film.

Loads of police/press/fences everywhere on campus.  Might go over and have another look after dinner.

Didn't realise this was meant to be promoting Brown until later...

Press

No.

Mandleson is in there. Honest

Nick Petrie/Redbrick

Surprisingly this promotional literature (+1) does not appear to be too in your face about the general election instead focusing on the past work of local councillors one of whom, David Radcliffe, is the PPC and is featured on the front page. Recycling is mentioned but there is no photo (boo, hiss!). In fact Radcliffe isn’t featured next to any of the people/items for which points are awarded and the entire A2 sized ‘newspaper’ remains a Nick Clegg free zone.

The back page features a nice graph (presumably from last years local elections) showing that “The Conservatives can’t win here” (+1). This reminded me of a time that one particular party back home (can’t remember which) got in trouble for producing a similar graphic which was not to scale so showing a party in a poor third place when in fact they were much closer. The title of the bar chart is “It’s so close here” but with 674 votes between Labour and the Liberals this annoys me. “So close” is more like 3 votes.

They do have a nice photo of a facepalm Gordon Brown though. I’m almost tempted to give them a bonus point for that. Almost.

Points awarded:  2