Analysis
The SNP might have won a majority – but then, lots of votes were ‘wasted’. Here’s why it was a no-score draw ON Thursday, the SNP took 48% of the vote on the constituency ballot – an all-time high for any party in a Scottish Parliament election. Why, then, did they narrowly fail to win an overall majority, given that we know from the 2011 experience that a majority is perfectly possible under the voting system? The simplest explanation is that, ultimately, the list vote is the more important vote, and by that measure this election was not the SNP’s best showing since devolution – it was only their third-best. It’s true they could have circumvented that disadvantage by doing even better in the constituencies – if they had taken Dumbarton from Labour or Eastwood from the Conservatives, they would have “broken the system” and achieved a majority in spite of the reduction in their list vote.
BBC News
Published
image captionMr Street would like the region to have more power over its investments, skills and training
Andy Street says job creation will be his single biggest priority in his second term as West Midlands Mayor.
The Conservative mayor spoke to BBC Politics Midlands after being re-elected on Saturday.
Mr Street, a former managing director of John Lewis, said the region needed to regain momentum after its economy took a horrible hit from coronavirus.
He beat Labour s Liam Byrne in a second preference count as the Tories made big gains in the region.
Mr Street, 57, received a total of 314,669 votes, while Mr Byrne picked up 267,626 votes for second place.
Some East Coast rail services cancelled as cracks found in high-speed trains
Grantham most affected
Some high-speed trains had cracks on them and were taken out of service for safety. | Photo: R S Mortiss
Rail passengers are facing disruption and delays on the East Coast main line after a string of high-speed trains were found to have cracks on them, causing them to be taken off the railways.
The entire fleet of the Hitachi 800 model trains, used by Great Western Railway, Hull Trains, London North Eastern Railway and TransPennine Express, were taken out of service for safety reasons.
Upon inspection it was found that hairline cracks were forming on a number of the trains, causing disruption over the weekend which will spill into the week, according to
10% drop in Lincolnshire COVID-19 cases week-on-week
Coronavirus infections continue to drop
| Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
There were 310 coronavirus cases in Greater Lincolnshire and three COVID-related deaths last week – 36 fewer cases on the previous week, but one more death.
The government’s COVID-19 dashboard over the weekend recorded 39 new cases in Lincolnshire, 15 in North Lincolnshire and eight in North East Lincolnshire.
The numbers mean a 10% drop in cases, but a 50% rise in deaths, week-on-week.
No deaths were registered at the weekend, leaving the weekly tally at three. These figures include deaths both in and out of hospitals, as well as residents in hospitals outside the county.
Sarah Townsend
The public has re-elected Labour’s Andy Burnham and Steve Rotheram as Mayor of Greater Manchester and Metro Mayor of the Liverpool City Region, respectively, and now they can serve a further three years in post.
The winning mayoral candidates were announced today after voters flocked to the polls on Thursday. This year’s elections saw landslide victories for the two mayors, with Burnham scooping up 473,024 of the votes – 67% of the total 702,784 cast – and Rotheram winnig 198,726 votes.
In Greater Manchester, Burnham was up against eight other candidates: Laura Evans (Conservatives); Simon Lepori (Liberal Democrats); Melanie Horrocks (Green Party); Marcus Farmer (Independent); Stephen Morris (English Democrats); Nick Buckley (Reform UK); Alec Marvel (Independent), and David Sutcliffe (Independent).