BBC Question Time: why you should complain

Tonight at 10:35 the BBC will broadcast a very special edition of Question Time, from Edinburgh’s Cornmarket.

Want to join Edinburgh audience tomorrow? There’s still time. It’s audience of 16 & 17-year olds. Apply here bbc.in/zgPIK8 #bbcqt

— BBC Question Time (@bbcquestiontime) June 12, 2013

It’s special on two counts, one overshadowed by the other. Firstly, because the audience will all be 16 and 17 years old – the age range who will be able to vote for the first time on 18th September 2014. (Properly speaking it should have been an audience of kids with birthdays between September 1998 and September 1996, since anyone 17 today would have been able to vote in September 2014 anyway.) But, this means an audience of interested politically aware youngsters will be able to put questions to politicians directly concerned with the independence debate.

Except no.

Gorgeous George

Btw; any damages I recover from the NUS for defamation will be donated to Defence Fund for Julian Assange and Bradley Manning

— George Galloway (@georgegalloway) October 1, 2012

Warning: this blog discusses rape.

Bradford West: Respect

Since May 2010, there have been six by-elections, and every one of them a hold for Labour until last night.

(BBC)

• George Galloway (Respect) 18,341 (55.89%, +52.83%)
• Imran Hussain (Labour) 8,201 (24.99%, -20.36%)
• Jackie Whiteley (Conservative) 2,746 (8.37%, -22.78%)
• Jeanette Sunderland (Liberal Democrat) 1,505 (4.59%, -7.08%)
• Sonja McNally (UKIP) 1,085 (3.31%, +1.31%)
• Dawud Islam (Green) 481 (1.47%, -0.85%)

Eoin Clarke very nicely shows that the biggest slide towards George Galloway was among Tory voters. (Update: And more realistically, Matthew Butcher notes that Galloway’s victory should be a wake-up call to the left – GG campaigned on an anti-austerity platform in a constituency where a Labour council had implemented ConDem cuts.)

But the 2010 election results for Bradford West had Labour winning with a margin over 14 percentage higher than the Tories: 2.9% of formerly-Tory voters were voting Labour: Bradford West was a safe seat, in ordinary UK Parliamentary understanding.