A Mixed Night

So, another election over, and with the current chaotic horse-trading going on, I suspect that we may end up with one before 5 years are up.

Overall, I'm very mixed on the night. With regards to my own outcome, my UKIP vote didn't get in the way of booting out the dreadful Labour MP to bring in a Conservative who is at least a little better (and I believe a better "local" MP). So, the UKIP share goes up at least. That's the 2nd best outcome (to UKIP winning which wasn't likely to happen).

It doesn't appear that UKIP did particularly well, and my feelings are that we didn't run a strong media campaign. UKIP have the best policies, but we need to get the message out more.

The interesting message from last night's polls was about the personality of candidates. Gisela Stuart stayed in power in Edgbaston because she wasn't afraid to be her own person, and local people trust when their candidates do that. Perhaps we can hope that parties will realise that they can't just parachute in candidates who've been carefully selected to represent the wishes of the party - they are to be the representative of the people first.