The 2008 London Elections Previous publications on local government elections General Election of Greater London Councillors - 9 April 1964 London Borough Council Elections - 7 May 1964 General Election of Greater London Councillors - 13 April 1967 London Borough Council Elections - 9 May 1968 Greater London Council Elections - 9 April 1970 London Borough Council Elections - 13 May 1971 Greater London Council Elections - 12 April 1973 London Borough Council Elections - 2 May 1974 Greater London Council Elections - 5 May 1977 London Borough Council Elections - 4 May 1978 Greater London Council Elections - 7 May 1981 London Borough Council Elections - 6 May 1982 London Borough Council Elections - 8 May 1986 Inner London Education Authority Direct Elections - 8 May 1986 London Borough Council Elections - 3 May 1990 London Borough Council By-elections - May 1990 to May 1994 London Borough Council Elections - 5 May 1994 London Borough Council Elections - 7 May 1998 London Borough Council Elections - 2 May 2002 The 2004 London Elections London Borough Council Elections - 4 May 2006 Published 1964 to 1982 by the Greater London Council, 1986 by the London Residuary Body, 1990 to 1998 by the London Research Centre, and from 2002 by the Greater London Authority. The London Elections 1 May 2008 Michael Minors Copyright: Greater London Authority November 2008 Published by: Greater London Authority City Hall The Queen’s Walk More London London SE1 2AA www.london.gov.uk enquiries 020 7983 4100 minicom 020 7983 4458 ISBN 978-1-84781-185-1 Acknowledgements: The author recognises the considerable contribution made by the kind help, advice and support given by many people at the GLA. Principal among those have been Anthony Mayer, John Bennett, Rob Lewis, Gareth Piggott, and Kelly Rump. Thanks are also due to Dennis Grenham who has kindly helped with proof-reading this publication. The report makes extensive use of the 2004 report - authors Michael Minors and Dennis Grenham. All maps in this publication are based on Ordnance Survey material with permission of Ordnance Survey on behalf of the Controller of Her Majesty’s Stationery Offi ce and are © Crown Copyright. Unauthorised reproduction infringes Crown Copyright and may lead to prosecution or civil proceedings. (Greater London Authority) (LA 100032379) (2008). Data from the elections for the Mayor of London and the London Assembly were provided by the London Elects Team at City Hall. Electronic counting at the elections was undertaken by INDRA, on behalf of the Greater London Returning Offi cer. Further information on GLA elections can be found on the London Elects web site: www.londonelects.org.uk. Data for parliamentary and London borough general elections were taken from The London Borough Council Elections, 4 May 2006. The author would also like to acknowledge the following sources of the photographs used in this publication: City Hall Chamber - the cover: Kelly Rump; the Assembly Chamber - page 5: Hayley Madden; City Hall spiral ramp - pages 27, 121 and 153: Kelly Rump; City Hall - pages 35 and 129: Sarah Dyson; the ballot - pages 55 and 165: London Elects; ballot papers - pages 57, 73, 89 and 105: London Elects. Page ii The 2008 London Elections GLA Data Management and Analysis Group Contents page page Foreword iv Detailed tables 55 Introduction 1 Results – Assembly constituencies 57 Summary 2 Mayoral election – fi rst preference 58 Mayoral election – second preference 73 The results of the elections 5 Assembly election – constituency members 89 Election for Mayor of London 6 Assembly election – list members 105 Election for the London Assembly 10 Comparisons with recent elections 18 Statistics – Assembly constituencies 121 Elected Members 25 Turnout 123 Postal ballot papers 124 The election statistics 27 Rejected ballot papers 125 Turnout 28 Spoiled ballot papers 30 Results – London boroughs 129 Postal ballot papers 32 Mayoral election – fi rst preference 130 Assembly election – constituency members 132 The parties’ performances 35 Assembly election – list members 134 British National Party 36 Mayoral election – second preference 136 Conservatives 38 Greens 40 Statistics – London boroughs 153 Labour 42 Appendices 165 Liberal Democrats 44 Respect 46 Party codes used 167 Christian Choice and Christian People’s Alliance 48 United Kingdom Independence Party 50 Nominations 168 Left List 51 Technical notes 173 Other parties and groups 52 Electing members to the London Assembly 173 The d’Hondt formula 174 The conduct of the election 175 Electronic counting 175 Adjudication 176 Spoiled ballot papers 177 GLA Data Management and Analysis Group The 2008 London Elections Page iii Foreword I am delighted to present this major report on the 2008 elections for the London Mayor and Assembly. The report discharges an important part of the Greater London Returning Offi cer’s responsibility to inform Londoners about the results and conduct of the elections. An important message from reviews of recent elections across the country is the need to put the voter fi rst and to make the democratic process as transparent as possible. In response to this, the Returning Offi cer has made every effort to use all means at his disposal to present detailed information on all aspects of the elections. The new GLA election rules passed by Parliament in January allow us, as for the 2004 elections, to publish an in-depth analysis of the results of the elections held on 1 May 2008. This new publication includes all the important information in a format which, it is hoped, will be accessible and useful to those who do not have access to the internet, or who prefer the more traditional forms of publication. The 2008 elections were preceded by a more extensive advertising campaign which saw a marked increase in the number of people registering to vote in the early months of the year, followed by a signifi cant increase in the turnout at the elections, bucking the trend generally in elections in the UK in recent years. These were the third Authority elections and, with well over half a million more Londoners voting than in 2004, the election offi cers again used electronic counting to enhance the speed and accuracy of processing. The electronic counting programme again allowed the production of detailed analyses of voting for geographic areas smaller than the divisions traditionally used when analysing parliamentary and local authority election results. John Bennett Deputy Greater London Returning Offi cer Page iv The 2008 London Elections GLA Data Management and Analysis Group Introduction This report will present the full results of each election for the Assembly In the City of London, many of the authority’s 25 electoral wards contain very constituency areas and summary results for local authority areas. Analysis has few or no London Assembly voters, and so data were provided for the three been carried out at ward level and summaries of this work are provided in the polling districts used in the elections. Thus, throughout this report, references form of mapping. The tabulations match those included in the 2004 report, to wards in London should be understood to refer to wards in the 32 London but many of the 2004 tables are repeated here for easier comparison. The boroughs and polling districts in the City of London. data have been enhanced in 2008 to enable analysis of second preferences by fi rst preference in the mayoral election at local authority level. Additional In Merton Longthornton and Lavender Fields wards, the Mayoral fi rst information was also gathered on the registration of postal voters. The level of and second preference votes did not transmit successfully to City Hall for detail in the data was again facilitated by the electronic systems used to count aggregation into London-wide results. Only rejected data were received and analyse the ballot papers. from these wards. The problem was not repeated in any other area. The data presented in this report are the corrected fi gures, and thus may differ slightly The report begins by providing a summary of the fi nal results. It then analyses from those published elsewhere. The overall effect of adding these votes in has voting in each part of the election in turn, treating the Assembly election as been to decrease the winner’s majority by 132 votes. two entities – the election of the 14 constituency members as one, and the election of the 11 London-wide members as the second. The remainder of the Changes in representation between the 2004 and 2008 elections report generally maintains this distinction, referring to the two parts of the Lynne Featherstone, elected in 2004 as the fi rst candidate on the Liberal Assembly elections as the Assembly constituency election and the Assembly list Democrat list, was subsequently elected to Westminster as member for Hornsey election as appropriate. and Wood Green in the 2005 parliamentary general election. Following this, she stood down as Assembly Member, being replaced by Geoffry Pope, who was the Analyses of turnout, rejected ballot papers, and postal voting follow. The fi rst unelected candidate on the 2004 Liberal Democrat list. performance of individual parties in the three elections are then studied, using mapping to illustrate voting patterns. Damian Hockney and Peter Cross, who were elected in 2004 under the UKIP banner, joined Robert Kilroy-Silk in the newly formed Veritas Party early in The commentary is complemented by a comprehensive set of detailed 2005. Later that year, the two Assembly Members were instrumental in forming