Despite the local press carrying the story that Birmingham City Council remains BNP-free and the Council's website still carrying the follwoing statement from its Acting Chief Executive, Stephen Hughes:

I believe the result declared at the count in Kingstanding Ward was wrong. However, in law, I cannot declare the correct result without a court order. I will seek this order at the earliest opportunity so that the result can be corrected.

It appears that an error in the calculation resulted in the British National Party candidate being declared elected, when in fact she should have been placed third. The correct result was that both the Labour candidates should have been elected.

I have immediately launched an investigation in order to ascertain how this has occurred.

Reports coming from the BNP claim that the council have backed down in the face of a threat of legal action and will swear in the BNP candidate that was originally declared as having been elected in Kingstanding.

Even taking anything that emanates from the BNP with a hefty pinch of salt, their account of how this situation arose is pretty disturbing stuff - the original result was declared after two recounts, both of which the BNP claim saw their candidate elected with a 200 or so vote majority, only for a third recount to be conducted without, the BNP allege, any observers present - not even the Police - following which it was declared that there had been an 'administrative error' and that the Council would be going to court to overturn the previously declared result. 

If this is true then the question that has to be answered is was this a cock-up or conspiracy? Either way it does raise serious questions about whether Birmingham City Council is competent to conduct its own elections - and remember this has all taken place under a Tory/Lib Dem administration.

Either way, at the very least there need to be an independent inquiry to establish precisely what happened here and, in the mean time, it would seem prudent for the council to turn over the running of elections in the city to an independent body until the council can provide satisfactory evidence of its ability to do the job properly…

UPDATE

While writing this, a new statement has appeared on the Council's website, which appears to clarify matters, which suggest that a cock-up it is - non of which mitigates the comments above as regards whether the council is competent to run an election:

Kingstanding Result

Statement from Stephen Hughes, Acting Chief Executive and Returning Officer for Birmingham City Council:

I am today writing to all the candidates in the Kingstanding Ward elections on 4 May, to explain the error that was made in the declaration of the result.

The declaration at the count was that Sharon Ebanks (British National Party) and Zoe Hopkins (Labour Party) were elected. However in collating the paperwork it was clear that an error had been made, in that some of the votes had been counted twice.

A recalculation was then done that indicated that the correct result should have been that Zoe Hopkins (Labour Party) and Catharine Grundy (Labour Party) should have been elected.

I have taken legal advice on the matter. This indicates that the only way in which this result can be corrected is for one of the candidates to raise a petition to the courts.

We will support in any way we can any candidates who wish to raise such a petition.

On the declared result (Table 1) a total of 12,329 votes were recorded against all the candidates:

CandidatesPartyNo. of Votes

Candidates	Party	No. of Votes
Anne Rita Bennett	Independent	328
Hubert Joseph Duffy	Liberal Democrat	597
Sharon Elizabeth Ebanks	British National Party	2310
Catharine Cecilia Grundy	The Labour Party Candidate	1973
Mark Haddon	Liberal Democrat	719
Mick Hawker	The Conservative Party Candidate	1349
Robert John Higginson	The Conservative Party Candidate	1043
Zoe Hopkins	The Labour Party Candidate	2088
Mohammed Omar Malik	Independent	109
Richard John William Pitt	The Green Party	606
Terry Williams		1207
	Total votes	12329

As there were only 4,981 ballot papers, with two votes to be cast per ballot, this means that the maximum number of votes that could have been cast were 9,962.

Some votes had therefore been double counted. When these were removed the result should have been as per Table 2:

CandidatesPartyNo. of Votes

Anne Rita Bennett	Independent	171
Hubert Joseph Duffy	Liberal Democrat	446
Sharon Elizabeth Ebanks	British National Party	1329
Catharine Cecilia Grundy	The Labour Party Candidate	1823
Mark Haddon	Liberal Democrat	514
Mick Hawker	The Conservative Party Candidate	1134
Robert John Higginson	The Conservative Party Candidate	966
Zoe Hopkins	The Labour Party Candidate	1894
Mohammed Omar Malik	Independent	58
Richard John William Pitt	The Green Party	315
Terry Williams		615
	Total votes	9265

On the basis of this, Zoe Hopkins (Labour Party) and Catharine Grundy (Labour Party) should have been elected.

It would seem the right course of action is for Catherine and/or Zoe to put forward a petition with the full backing of the party - it'll be interesting to see how the BNP react to this.

If you've ever watched the Beeb's 'Mock the Week' you'll know that one of the funnier rounds entails Rory Bremner imitating a high-profile politician making a statement about the week's events, which is then translated by Hugh Dennis, into the 'thoughts' behind the statement.

As the Beeb have kindly printed Charles Clarke's statement on being sacked as Home Secretary, in full, this is naturally far too good an opportunity not to give it the same kind of treatment… 

It is with deep regret that I'm today leaving the office of home secretary, in which it's been my great honour to serve for the past 16 months.

[Has Blunkett moved out of that fucking apartment yet?] 

In this role, as in previous jobs in government, it has been my ambition to bring about the change necessary to transform the security of this country in relation to counter-terrorism, policing, prisons and probation and immigration and asylum.

[In this role, as in previous jobs in government, I've done what Tony wanted and now I've been left to carry the can when it all goes pear-shaped] 

As I've sought to make the necessary changes to what are very deep-seated and long-standing problems, I have uncovered areas where still more and faster change is needed.

[The whole department's fucked - no I mean seriously fucked]

One such issue is how to deal with foreign national prisoners - for which I have taken overall responsibility and on which I have staked my reputation.

[Which is why I'm getting the sack while the cunt's who really fucked things up will be getting their usual knighthoods and index-linked civil-service fucking pensions.

God I fucking hate civil servants - bastards the lot of 'em]

The prime minister, as is his right and responsibility, has made the judgement that my continued occupation of the post of home secretary is likely to stand in the way of the continued reforms which remain necessary and though I do not agree with that judgement, I entirely accept his right to make it.

[Anything to save your own skin, eh Tony? You teflon-coated, mendacious twat.] 

However, I do not think it would be appropriate to remain in government in these circumstances and return to the backbenches, where I will be a strong and active supporter of this government and the leadership of Tony Blair for his full parliamentary term.

[I told him to shove his job offer up his arse - no really, I did, honest. I  wonder if Gordon's free for lunch..?]

Thank you very much.

[Yeah, thank you very much you bunch of tossers - I'm going to get you Simon Carr if it's the last thing I do…]

The natural tendency of every government is to grow steadily worse - that is, to grow more satisfactory to those who constitute it and less satisfactory to those who support it

HL Mencken

I think that pretty much sums up where we're at as a party after last night -it's certainly a better reflection of the current situation than the obviously officially-sanctioned line that was being bandied about last night, the fiction that all our achievements over the last nine years have been overshadowed by a couple of weeks of bad press and which is lacking only the obvious coda: "…you ungrateful bunch of bastards!"

I'll get to the reshuffle a bit later on, its enough to say for the moment that it really doesn't look all that promising at the moment - splitting the Foreign Office to upgrade Buff's new job as Minister for Europe rather misses the point that the department that most desperately needs reorganising is the Home Office. Safety's taken the long walk, only to be replaced by John Reid - so no real change there… you get the picture. Little more than Blair circling the wagons and preparing to tough it out in defence of his precious 'legacy'.

One of the more revealing snippets of information to emerge from last night was an opinion poll which put us not only behind the Lib Dems but behind the Tories when it comes to being trusted to run the NHS - behind the Tories, for fuck's sake, how much worse can it get? Put everything to one side for a minute and just reflect on that - even allowing for the usual margin of error in opinion polls, we're now, at best, running neck and neck with the Conservative Party when it comes to being trusted to run one of the shining achievements of the Attlee government.

If you can hear a low-pitched hum in the background, don't worry - that's just the sound of Nye Bevan spinning in his grave at a couple of thousand RPM.

There's a simple lesson there - it doesn't matter how much you crow about the amount of money you've pumped into the NHS, closing wards and sacking nurse still looks fucking bad…

…and when it comes to local elections, its the simple lessons we need to be learning, the most basic of which is that we won't win elections unless we can cater for the basic needs of ordinary people.

When it comes to local government and the needs of local people there are no more than a half a dozen very basic things we need to get right and its from there that we need to move forward - and what are they? (I'm glad you asked).

A safe place to live - which means effective local policing that is accountable to local people.

A clean and decent place to live - the environment matters, not in terms of big issues like global warming, but the basics -are my bins collected on time? Is my street full of shit and litter. Is the local park safe, clean and well maintained?

A good local hospital and GP service - forget choice, forget endless reorganisations, forget targets, just a good local hospital and a GP they can see when they're ill, that's what people want.

A good local school - pretty much the same as above - who needs a choice of schools if you get you kids in the local one with no problems and they get a decent education.

A roof over your head - affordable housing and a strong social housing sector offering decent properties at fair rents.

A decent income and the basic dignity of a job or a decent pension.

Leaving the last item to one side as that's a massive debate all on its own, the first five add up to a word that's been desperately out of fashion for a good few years but which, for me, still resonates and remains rich and full of meaning - municipalism.

When it comes to local government, if there's one word we need to bring back in the party's vocabulary, then that's it, and that's where the debate has to start.

Over the last thirty years we've seen successive governments, Tory and Labour, preside of over the diminution of local government, local democracy and local accountability and the steady and debilitating transfer of power and authority that rightly belongs to local people to Central Government, to Whitehall and the regional Government Offices and to no end of Quangos, initiatives and gimmicks - when it comes to local decisions bureaucracy has all but usurped the role of local democracy.

It's time for us to reverse that trend - because if we can't start there then we really will be fucked as a party.

Well it's looking a bit ropey - we're 100 councillors and 8 councils down on the night so far and London, which is where things are likely to get really dicey, hasn't started to come in.

Locally, which is what I'm a bit more concerned about at the moment, the news is pretty mixed - if you can make sense of it all.

The official result - as given to the Beeb and posted on the Council's website has us down two seats, with the Tories down one and the BNP picking up three seats - except that going through the detail ward by ward, it actually appears that we lost four seats to the BNP and one to the Tories, picking up one back from the Tories along the way.

Whatever the actual figures, on a more personal note, it looks like everyone who was up this time that I personally have time for got through safe and sound - Bob Piper is definitely back in, and with a good 600 votes to spare, so its still going to be Councillor Bob on the blog. Other names will mean little to people outside this area, but its good to see Mick, Simon, Gurinder and Elaine are safely back on the council as well - and after all the communalist mucking around by the Tories last time out, I should mention that Mahboob got a hell of a good result, probably the best of the night other than the seat we picked up from the Tories.

I know the BNP thing is going to draw a bit of comment - looking at where we did drop seats to them there are few real surprises.

In one ward, the BNP came top when all three seats were up in 2004 due to boundary changes and our own candidate had a bit of an odd history where they went from being a signatory to the nomination forms of a Labour candidate to standing as an independent to being elected as a Tory over the course of three successive elections, and then crossed the floor and rejoined Labour.

In another ward we had a new candidate up, although that one's perhaps the most disappointing of the four as the last run of boundary changes moved a solid block of Asian votes into the ward, which it looks like we failed to get out, even with the BNP in the contest - I suspect that one will cause a bit of headscratching.

The third loss, in Great Bridge, was always going to be a bit of a dicey contest anyway while the fourth, which is going to be the big story as it saw a cabinet member lose his seat on a complete collapse in the Labour vote, coming in fourth and losing over 1,000 votes in the process - well if you know the ward well then you could see that coming a long way off, Should be a hell of an inquest into that result, but that's another story entirely.

A rough night then, if not a surprising one - looks like we've dropped a few more seats in Brum as well, one of them to RESPECT.

Oh bollocks - I'm going to bed.