May 2005 Archives

A report on ePolitix.com says that a committee of MPs, peers, academics and journalists, which included Martin Linton, has called for parliament to be given a renewed role in public life.

The Wandsworth Guardian concentrates on the human side of the election campaign with a story about Claire Leigh who broke her arm while out campaigning for Martin Linton on election day.

An article in the Independent about electoral reform mentions Martin Linton's previous quote describing our current system as "crazy".

Writing in Tribune, Alexander Hilton mentions the Make Votes Count meeting.

In conjunction with Make My Vote Count and The Electoral Reform Society, Martin Linton has organised a meeting on electoral reform which is to take place at the House of Commons on Wednesday 11th May. Speakers include Billy Bragg, Polly Toynbee and Martin Linton.

Full details are here

Update: The meeting has been written about on a number of blogs and some of them include quotes from Martin Linton. For a start, take a look at the pieces by Anthony Barnett, Paul Davies and Nosemonkey.

IC South London covers the drama of the Battersea recounts. They also mention the speech by the UKIP candidate Terence Jones.

The Independent calls for proportional representation. And includes a quote from Martin Linton.

We have the most unsophisticated system in the world, By the simplest system of just 1, 2, 3 instead of X you could have a representative system.

So that's it all over then. After two recounts, Martin Linton was returned as Battersea's MP for the third time.

But he was one of the hardest hit victims of the protest votes against Tony Blair's style of government. He lost almost 5,000 votes and is now the fourth[1] most vulnerable Labour party MP with a majority of only 163. The Tories will certainly have their eyes on the seat for 2009 or 2010.

It's going to be an interesting four or five years.

[1] Behind Laura Moffatt (Crawley, maj: 37), Derek Wyatt (Sittingbourne and Sheppey, maj: 79) and Bill Rammell (Harlow, maj: 97)

An article about e-voting from silicon.com mentions the Battersea result.

Early coverage of yesterday's results from IC South London, the Telegraph and the Evening Standard.

Majority: 163
Turnout: 59.0%

After two recounts!

Today's Wandsworth Guardian sums up the situation in the three Wandsworth constituencies.

There is a summary of the election lineup in a number of South London constituencies in today's IC South London. It specifically mentions Battersea and says that "Labour's Martin Linton [is] hoping to prevent the Tories' Nick Schofield from taking the inner-city marginal".