Posts tagged "Lib Dem"

Miliband hopes for Labour victory

YouGov survey suggests ‘Ed’s converts’ are likely to propel him to an outright election majority

Ed Miliband is in a strong position to secure an outright majority at the next election without having to win over swaths of Tory voters, according to a new opinion poll that analyses the views and voting intentions of recent converts to Labour.

The YouGov survey for the Fabian Society shows that “Ed’s converts” – people who didn’t vote Labour in 2010 but currently back the party – are made up mostly of disgruntled leftwing Liberal Democrats, many so disillusioned that they are very unlikely to vote for Nick Clegg’s party again.

About 75% of the converts – who have helped Miliband and Labour open an eight-point lead over the Tories in the poll – are former Lib Dems, 18% are ex-Tory supporters, and 7% are former supporters of other parties or people who did not vote in 2010.

In an essay for the Fabian Review website, the society’s general secretary, Andrew Harrop, argues that the responses by converts to detailed questioning “suggests that around half of Labour’s new supporters are pretty much undetachable, even if the coalition parties stage a good recovery”.

Yesterday in a speech to the Blairite thinktank Progress, Miliband said it was clear Labour had “an opportunity and we must seize this moment”. But, as he announced plans for Labour’s biggest registration drive in a generation, he cautioned that low turnout at the local elections showed Labour still had to re-engage voters. “It tells us we have a very long way to go to generate trust, enthusiasm and deep allegiance,” he said.

Last night Miliband received a further boost from an approval rating poll that put him six points higher than Cameron. The YouGov poll for the Sunday Times also pointed to widespread disillusionment with the coalition and suggested Conservative voters were losing faith in Cameron to win the next election.

Of the converts to Labour questioned for the Fabian Society poll, 57% say they will not or are highly unlikely to consider voting Lib Dem at the next election, and 83% say the same about voting Conservative.

In all, 86% of the converts say they will definitely, or are likely to, consider voting Labour next time. The poll also showed that 32% of those who voted Lib Dem at the last election say they will not or are very unlikely to vote Lib Dem again. Harrop said this suggests the recent Lib Dem local election result, where it received 16% of the vote, could be an upper limit on the party’s likely future support. The poll of more than 2,000 people was taken in April – before the local elections – and puts Labour’s support at 41%, with the Conservatives on 33%, the Lib Dems on 10% and others on 16%. This compares with the 2010 election when the share of the vote was Tory 36%, Labour 29% and Lib Dems 23%.

It also shows the views of the “convert” group to be well to the left of the population as a whole, and in some cases of Labour voters in 2010. Among converts, 77% say public services should not be run as businesses and 40% support higher taxes to pay for public services, compared with just 22% of all adults.

Harrop said: “This shows that the former Lib Dems who have swelled Labour ranks mainly come from the social democrat left of the party, typified by people like Charles Kennedy. This comes as no surprise, but it is surprising there are enough of these new left-leaning Labour supporters to give the party such a comfortable lead in the polls.”

He added: “With the ‘uniting’ of the left behind Labour it becomes possible to imagine a Labour majority without a ‘New Labour’ appeal to large numbers of swing voters who choose between Labour and the Conservatives at each election. All Labour would need to do to win would be to keep the very modest number of former Tory supporters who have switched to Labour so far.”

In his speech Miliband, who may announce a reshuffle of the shadow cabinet as early as this week, argued that people were becoming disengaged from politics because politicians were – as witnessed by the Murdoch scandal – seen as working for elites at the top. Work to convince the British that Labour was changing had to intensify.

Miliband said: “This change is about showing Labour stands up for all the people of Britain. Not powerful vested interests. Showing politics can change lives to make the economy work for all working people. Not just a few at the top. Showing we’re a party which reaches into communities. Not one that just talks to itself. And showing we’re a party that keeps promises we make. Not one that makes promises we can’t keep.”

Cameron and Clegg defiant as they reaffirm commitment to coalition

PM and his deputy insist they will stick with cuts plan and strive for growth as pressure mounts from Labour and their own parties

David Cameron has insisted that the coalition is “as important and necessary today as it was two year ago” as he and Nick Clegg launched a fightback in the wake of grim local election results for their respective parties.

The Conservative prime minister and his Lib Dem deputy made a joint appearance to reaffirm the need for the coalition relationship as they made clear they intend to stick with the “tough decisions” made to restore the country’s public finances, “redouble efforts” to create growth and “get behind families that work hard and do the right thing”.

Cameron said: “I believe the need for that coalition — two parties working together to solve the problems we have in our country – I think is as important and necessary today as it was two years ago.”

The event in Essex follows several stinging criticism in the days since the disastrous council and mayoral elections, in which Labour won 830 council seats, mostly from the coalition partners, and took control of an additional 32 councils in England, Wales and Scotland.

Earlier in the day, Ed Miliband was the first of the three party leaders to turn up in Essex to criticise the government over its refusal to change course on the economy.

Speaking in Harlow, where Labour took control of the council in last week’s local election, Miliband said: “The reality now for people aspiring to get on is that they feel they are running up against a brick wall in terms of unemployment and getting on the housing ladder.”

He added: “I don’t think Cameron gets it when he has a Queen’s speech that will not change course on the economy.”

But in the afternoon, the prime minister said the government had no intention of “letting up” on its deficit reduction programme to deal with the “country’s overdraft”, though he said he underlined this did not mean the government could not go for growth.

Speaking on the eve of the Queen’s Speech, which will unveil bills described as “pro-growth and pro-business”, Cameron said: “We need to think all the things we can do to get our economy growing. Whether that’s encouraging the banks to lend more money, helping firms to start up, making it easier for companies to employ more people, investing in apprenticeships – we need to do all those things and frankly we need to redouble our efforts in doing all of those things. We have to rebalance our economy.”

Cameron said the level of debt in households, banks and in the government had made recovery difficult.

He stressed the need to be very frank with people about the painstaking drive to boost growth: “It is tough, it is difficult, but … let’s build something really worthwhile, and yes it will take time, but it will be built to last, rather than as the last recovery was, built on sand.”

Clegg echoed the sentiment as he insisted the government would constantly strive to do more to promote growth, as well as reducing debt, but warned that voters should not expect quick results.

There had been a “shocking great heart attack at the very centre of our British economy” and there was a six to seven-year plan in place to cure it — well beyond the next general election, he said.

“It is painstaking work recovering from that and it is not something we are going to achieve and so we need to bear in mind the enormity of the trauma we suffered.”

He described the need to deal with debt so future generations did not have it hanging over them as a “moral duty”, but went on to say that two main areas where more efforts were needed was the level of lending to small business and investment in infrastructure by both the public and private sectors.

“Dealing with the deficit is a means to an end,” Clegg said.

“Austerity alone does not create growth. It is a necessary but not sufficient step. But what we are absolutely dedicated towards, is creating jobs, prosperity, investment, opportunity, optimism and hope in our country.

“We know we need to do more, constantly strive to do more, to create and foster the conditions for growth.”

Cameron was under pressure from his own party to steer to the right following dismal local election results.

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Cameron and Clegg go on offensive over cuts, the coalition and growth

Joint speeches aim to halt critics from left and right, with softened stance on seeking growth as pressure rises

The prime minister and his deputy will defy critics on all sides by declaring in joint speeches on Tuesday that “there can be no going back” on the unpopular task of slashing government spending and debt.

But in a strong sign that the coalition is feeling the pressure from a renewed Labour party and an angry Tory right after the government’s huge local election losses last week, David Cameron and Nick Clegg will use their speeches to put new emphasis on the importance of getting growth back into the economy.

As part of the renewed emphasis on growth, ministers will unveil bills they describe as “pro-growth and pro-business” in the Queen’s speech on Wednesday, including less policing of regulations; changes to make it easier to hire and fire workers; and a long-promised Green Investment Bank to help fund schemes to cut and clean up energy use. Another bill will create an ombudsman for the grocery sector intended to crackdown on claims the biggest supermarkets are abusing their power over small suppliers, which will include the ultimate sanction of imposing fines on the worst offenders.

In a joint event marking two years of the coalition, the Conservative leader, David Cameron, will say that the agreement to make the economy the central plank of the government’s programme continued to be the “number one priority”.

“That was and remains our guiding task, and in these perilous times it’s more important than ever for Britain that we stick to it,” he will say. “There can be no going back on our carefully judged strategy for restoring the public finances.”

Both leaders will make their case for continuing with harsh spending cuts by arguing that continued borrowing would have to be repaid by “our children”.

The Lib Dem leader and deputy PM, Nick Clegg, will say: “Ducking the tough choices would only prolong the pain, condemning the next generation to decades of higher interest rates, poorer public services and fewer jobs.” .

The event in Essex follows several stinging criticism in the days since the disastrous council and mayoral elections, in which Labour won more than 800 council seats, mostly from the two coalition partners, and took control of an additional 32 councils in England, Wales and Scotland.

On Monday the unoffical Conservative Home website began publishing an “alternative Queen’s speech”, including contributions from 20 Tory MPs led by the former cabinet ministers David Davis and John Redwood. The publication was seen as a clear steer to the right by pressing for “tougher control of immigration, a referendum on Europe, lower taxes on fuel and income, more conditionality in welfare and less community punishment of repeat and serious offenders”.

Mirroring anger among some Tories that the coalition has given too much ground to their minority partners, the Lib Dem deputy leader, Simon Hughes, hit out at Tory MPs, accusing them of acting as if they were “born to rule”, and suggesting that without his party’s support they would not still be in government.

Despite an event intended to emphasise the continuing good relationship between the two men at the top of the coalition and their continuing commitment to the coalition agreement, however, both Cameron and Clegg’s speeches do appear to bend to growing criticism from political opponents on left and right, and among business and international organisations, all attacking the government’s focus on debt reduction over strong policies for growth.

Government advisers insisted their policies remained unchanged, but the language of the speeches was in contrast even to briefings last week by the prime minister’s official spokesman, who met questions about these criticisms with continued emphasis on the debt reduction.

“We must never forget that tackling the deficit is a means to an end and the end we all seek is growth,” Clegg will say, twice. There would be a “renewed sense of urgency” and a “redoubling of our efforts” on two key growth policies: getting more credit into the economy and building infrastructure, he will add.

Labour’s leader, Ed Miliband, will also visit Essex to counter the relaunch attempt with his own event, pressing the apparently successful message that the continuing economic problems can now be blamed on the government’s austerity programme and a focus on tax cuts for the rich to stimulate growth. “One million young unemployed; living standards squeezed ever tighter; a tax cut for the very rich; a recession made in Downing Street,” Miliband will say.The growth theme is likely to be taken up on Wednesday when the Queen’s speech includes two bills under Lib Dem business secretary, Vince Cable, including a wide-ranging enterprise bill bringing together new powers for shareholders over executive pay, reform of the competition regime, and further attempts to reduce red tape such as allowing local councils to opt out of or relax regulations, less strict inspection regimes, and stronger “sunset clauses” to kill off regulations which are not delivering the intended improvements. It will also include changes to employment rights including making it easier for companies to get rid of underperforming staff or downsize in tough times, and to encourage more employees to settle complaints through arbitration rather than formal tribunals.

The enterprise bill will also usher in the Green Investment Bank, which will not have powers to borrow until 2015 at the earliest, and then only if public debt is much lower.

Coalition peers oppose charity tax relief cap

ComRes survey finds seven out of 10 coalition peers are against plans to limit tax-free charitable donations

Ministers are coming under renewed pressure to scrap controversial plans to limit tax-free donations to charity after a poll of its own peers found that seven out of 10 oppose the change.

Opposition from the majority of Conservative and Liberal Democrat peers suggested by the ComRes survey follows a previous poll by the same company showing two thirds of coalition MPs also want the proposals scrapped.

Facing the prospect of significant opposition to the legislation in both houses of parliament, ministers will also face pressure to re-think the budget announcement at the government’s Giving Summit on Tuesday.

John Low, chief executive of the Charities Aid Foundation, the umbrella group that commissioned the poll of 79 peers, said the survey also found eight out of 10 believed the changes would reduce charity giving, and nine out of 10 thought the tax system should be used to encourage more donations.

More than 1,000 charities have joined a campaign against the government’s proposal to cap tax-free donations at £50,000 a year or 25% of earnings, amid estimates that the change could cost the sector up to £500m a year.

“These plans will raise relatively small amounts for the government while costing charities millions of pounds,” said Low. “This tax cap is damaging charities and their work now. Major donations are being thrown into doubt. Now is the time for ministers to listen to what their own MPs and peers are saying and take action to drop this charity tax.”

The “charity tax” was one of several unpopular measures announced in the chancellor George Osborne’s budget in March, also including the “pasty tax” on hot food sales, and the “granny tax” rise on pensioners. Combined, the announcements prompted weeks of negative headlines leading up to disastrous poll showings for both government parties in local elections last week.

ComRes surveyed 79 Conservative and Lib Dem peers by telephone and post between 23 April and 3 May, and weighted the results according to the make up of the House of Lords.

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Nick Clegg risks Tory anger by pressing on with Lords reform

Lib Dem leader says party’s radicalism needed ‘as much as ever’ on issues such as constitution

Nick Clegg has signalled his determination to press ahead with reform of the House of Lords in a move likely to anger Conservative MPs who have identified the issue as an electoral millstone that contributed to the dismal performance by coalition parties in last week’s local elections.

In an article for the Guardian, Clegg says that Lib Dem radicalism is needed “as much as ever” on issues such as the constitution and that the party will be pushing “harder for reform”. The tone of his remarks contrasts with that adopted by David Cameron in an article published in Daily Telegraph, saying that the Conservatives need to “focus on what matters”, and by the chancellor, George Osborne, who used an interview to depict Lords reform as a peripheral concern.

Sources at No 10 rejected claims that the Queen’s speech has been rewritten in the light of last week’s election results to give it a more populist flavour – proposals such as gay marriage, which weekend reports said had been dropped, were either never due to be in it, or shelved some time ago. But the issue of Lords reform remains a faultline in the coalition. Lib Dem ministers are determined to press ahead with legislation to make the upper house largely elected, while Tory MPs and peers from all wings of the party spent the weekend identifying it as a key example of a policy showing the government out of touch with the concerns of voters.

Among the Tories joining that protest on Sunday were Lord Fowler, who said it was “bad politics” and not worth any votes, Tim Yeo, who said Lords reform should be “relegated right to the bottom of the queue” and Julian Brazier, who said it was a “ridiculous fringe” policy.

Although the Tory inquest on the local election defeats is wide-ranging, and will continue on Monday with the publication of a rightwing alternative Queen’s speech on the ConservativeHome website co-ordinated by David Davis and John Redwood, there was no support on Sunday for Nadine Dorries, who said the Conservative party would split unless David Cameron and Osborne resigned. Her claim that 46 Tory MPs would demand a leadership election by Christmas, enough to trigger a ballot, was also widely dismissed.

But Lord Baker, a former chairman himself, and Lord Ryder, chief whip under John Major, both said that Cameron needed to appoint an MP as a party chairman because the two people doing the job at the moment, Lady Warsi and Lord Feldman, could not do enough from the House of Lords to defend Cameron politically. Ryder also said Cameron needed to concentrate more on substance.

“[Cameron] has to keep his eyes on the horizon and not be going down the cul-de-sac of day-to-day party management over the management of 24-hour news,” Ryder said. “To this day, he seems to lack coherence, so nobody knows what he stands for, what his beliefs are, what his convictions are. They want to know more about him, they want to know where he really wants to take the country.”

In his Guardian article Clegg writes: “The first two years of the coalition were a rescue mission for the economy. The second half has to be about reform. That means in politics, too. For more than a century, we have been debating the commonsense idea that the people who obey the laws of the land should elect the people who make them. Instead of getting ourselves tied up in knots in Westminster about this, we just need to get on with it.”

Clegg is not claiming that Lords reform should be the government’s top priority. Vince Cable, the Lib Dem business secretary, told Sky that the government should implement Lords reform “quietly and quickly” and in private Lib Dems say that it is the Tories who are pre-occupied with the issue.

We are not obsessed with Lords reform,” a senior Lib Dem source told the Guardian. “It’s some people on the Tory right who are obsessed with it. It’s a gigantic form of political displacement activity for them. It’s completely absurd to claim that Lords reform is the reason that the Conservatives did not do as well as they did in the local elections.”

“We are not obsessed with Lords reform,” a senior Lib Dem source told the Guardian. “It’s some people on the Tory right who are obsessed with it. It’s a gigantic form of political displacement activity for them. It’s completely absurd to claim that Lords reform is the reason that the Conservatives did not do as well as they did in the local elections.”

On Sunday Osborne repeatedly stressed that Lords reform was not a priority for him or for the government . But, unlike his Lib Dem colleagues, he hinted that the government would be willing to compromise on Lords reform if the bill started to clog up the parliamentary timetable. In his Telegraph article Cameron did not mention Lords reform. The lesson the Conservatives should draw from the local elections was “not about tacking right or moving left”, he said. “The message people are sending is this: focus on what matters, deliver what you promise – and prove yourself in the process. I get it,” he said.

“Parliament can discuss these issues. Parliament’s very good at discussing constitutional issues,” Osborne told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show. “But it is not going to be occupying the bulk of the time of people like myself, David Cameron, and indeed Nick Clegg.”Osborne’s comments will reinforce suspicions that the government will eventually concede a referendum on Lords reform. Cameron and Clegg have both said that they see no need for one, but ministers may compromise to get the legislation through the Commons.

Cameron and Clegg have both said that they see no need for a referendum on Lords reform, because voters backed the idea at the 2010 general election, but Labour are demanding one and, with Tory rebels threatening to support them, ministers may decide that granting a referendum is the only way to get the legislation through the Commons.

Lord Ashdown, the former Lib Dem leader, has backed calls for a referendum, but many reformers are opposed to the idea because they believe that it would lead to the idea being rejected – a prospect that seems even stronger in the light of the way elected mayors were almost totally rejected in the 10 referendums last week.

Labour achieves landslide in Liverpool

Joe Anderson becomes city’s first elected mayor with almost 60% as Lib Dems lose all but one of previously held seats

Labour has made sweeping gains in Liverpool’s local elections after the party’s candidate also became the city’s first elected mayor.

Joe Anderson, former leader of the council, won the mayoral poll convincingly, taking almost 60% of the vote. The city’s Liberal Democrats did not escape their party’s UK-wide mauling by the electorate, losing nine of their 10 seats up for grabs in Friday’s election, including the seat of the party’s leader in the city.

Just after 4am on Friday there were loud cheers from the Labour party faithful at the Liverpool tennis centre in Wavertree as it was announced that Anderson had won 57.7% of the poll, gaining 58,448 votes.

The Lib Dem candidate, Richard Kemp, who was first elected to Liverpool council in 1975 and was confident of gaining at least the second spot in the contest, was relegated to third place while Conservative Tony Caldeira came 7th.

Independent Liam Fogarty came second in the mayoral contest with 8,292 votes, with Kemp next on 6,238. With a turnout of just 31.7%, 101,301 Liverpool residents voted in all in the mayoral election.

On Friday, there was a near rout of local Lib Dem candidates, who lost all but one of the seats they previously held that were up for re-election.

In the council poll, the Lib Dem leader in Liverpool, Paula Keaveney, narrowly lost her seat in the Cressington area with 2,168 votes to the 2,295 of Labour’s Mary Aspinall. Erica Kemp was the only Lib Dem to hold her seat on the council, in Church.

The other Lib Dem seats lost to Labour in Thursday’s vote were Allerton and Hunts Cross, Childwall, County, Greenbank, Knotty Ash, Picton, West Derby, Woolton and Wavertree.

Labour held Anfield, Belle Vale, Central, Clubmoor, Croxteth, Everton, Fazakerley, Kensington and Fairfield, Kirkdale, Mossley Hill, Norris Green, Old Swan, Princes Park, Riverside, Speke-Garston and Yew Tree.

The Greens held St Michaels, while a Liberal candidate held Tuebrook and Stoneycroft.

Keaveney said she was disappointed for Lib Dem colleagues whose lost their seats but added: “When you’re in politics you have to take the good stuff with the bad stuff. I can see lots of opportunity and potential to take back seats, so in fact there is somewhere to go from here.”

She said the Liberal Democrats had to listen and move on, adding: “Adversity makes you stronger and more creative.”

Anderson is now one of the most important political figures outside London after negotiating a deal with the government to switch to a mayoral system as one of the conditions for Liverpool receiving an additional £130m in central funding.

Against a backdrop of jeers and protest at the count from around six far-right National Front supporters – who had caused disturbances throughout the night – Anderson promised that he would stick to his pledges to create 20,000 new jobs, 5,000 new homes and 12 new schools during his four-year term.

“The people of Liverpool have spoken democratically,” he said. “They have rejected the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, they have given their trust to the Labour party.”

Addressing far-right supporters, he added: “The future of this city is a bright one, it is not represented by fascists … The people of this city have told them at the ballot box to get stuffed.”

The result marks a clear political shift in the political make up of the city, with Tony Mulhearn, who along with Derek Hatton led the city’s resistance to Margaret Thatcher, and stood under the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition banner, getting less than 5% of the vote. In an interview with the Guardian, Anderson stressed how he aimed to bring more private investment into Liverpool.

“It is quite clear that government funding is never going to be the same again,” he said. “Liverpool is taking charge of its own destiny.”

The mayor’s salary is yet to be decided and will be determined by an independent panel and voted on by Liverpool council later in the month. A byelection for his Riverside ward seat, which he has to vacate on becoming mayor, will now be held in the summer.

The city council will now be dominated by Labour, who hold 73 of 90 seats. Luciana Berger, Labour MP for Liverpool Wavertree, said the city had decisively put its trust in the party: “If you look at the size of the margins it’s overwhelming, and now with a robust and fantastic mayor and a strong Labour group I am totally confident that Liverpool will now go from strength to strength.”

The strong Labour showing followed a trend across the region. The party wiped out the Lib Dems in Knowsley, making it an all-Labour council, while also taking control of Sefton and Wirral councils. The Tories held on to West Lancs, while Labour also made gains in St Helens.

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Penguin p-p-p-picks off Lib Dems

Professor Pongoo, or independent candidate Mike Ferrigan, marches to 5.6% of first-preference votes in Edinburgh

If there was a symbol of the Liberal Democrats’ discomfiture as their vote plummeted across Scotland and the rest of the UK, it came in the shape of a penguin.

In the Pentland Hills ward for Edinburgh city council, the Lib Dem candidate won fewer votes than Professor Pongoo, or independent candidate Mike Ferrigan, who ran his campaign in a full penguin suit.

Professor Pongoo, who stood to raise awareness of social and environmental issues, took 5.6% of first-preference votes to the Lib Dems’ 4.7%.

Lib Dem officials were left having to explain why they were pipped at the poll by a man dressed as a flightless bird.

“It wasn’t a target ward for us,” said one official. “We didn’t put out any paper in that ward; it’s never been a strong area for us.”

Despite not winning the seat, but with his achievement going viral, the penguin has not ruled out running for higher office. A line of T-shirts was said to be in the offing.

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London and local elections polling day – live

Rolling coverage as voters in England, Scotland and Wales go to the polls – and Boris Johnson and Ken Livingstone prepare to find out who will be London’s next mayor

5.09pm: Our community coordinator Hannah Waldram has this update from readers helping to cover the local election campaigns.

Our #Mayor2012 map allowed readers to help us track the London mayoral candidates – and the map shows Jenny Jones was quite active, according to users to tracked her progress.

Here it is.

We also tracked Joris Luyendijk’s local election journey from John O’Groats to Cheltenham via the Google map below – we’ve plotted some of our readers’ thoughts and comments on the local elections in their area alongside Joris’s notes.

You can add yours to the map too here.

4.48pm: The big question in Wales is whether Labour will sweep back into power in heartland seats such as some of the valley councils and traditionally left-leaning cities in the south like as Newport and Swansea, writes Steven Morris. It lost power in many such places at the time of Gordon Brown’s unpopular premiership.

This time it has run a two-pronged campaign asking the electorate to use the election as a referendum on the Tory-Lib Dem coalition. But it has also tried to put control in the hands of activists, asking local parties to produce individual manifestos tailored to the needs of their own communities.

It is expected to be a tough night for the Liberal Democrats, who have had power – in various partnerships – in councils including Newport, Swansea and Wrexham. A key test will be whether they can retain control of their jewel-in-the-crown council, Cardiff.

There are elections in 21 of the 22 unitary local authorities. Anglesey misses out this time following a critical report on how the island was being run by the auditor general for Wales.

Another interesting element to look out for is how the nationalists, Plaid Cymru, fare having just elected a new leader, Leanne Wood, whose radical and republican views have attracted UK-wide headlines.

Labour strategists were disappointed by the weather. There was heavy rain – and flooding in some parts. The fear was that the waverers might be tempted to stay in and stay dry.

4.45pm: My colleague Simon Jeffery reckons his polling station is better looking than mine (see 9.26am).

He’s sent me this picture.

4.41pm: For anyone who missed it, and because it will be out of date tomorrow, here is my animated version of the London mayoral race.

4.39pm: In Liverpool, Alexandra Topping interviews Joe Anderson, the Labour candidate and favourite for elected mayor.

Anderson tells her:

I think having a mayor for the city is good because it engages and involves everybody right across the city in making the decision on who should run the city on their behalf … If the mayor doesn’t deliver on the promises that they’ve made, then they can vote them out and it’s not somebody that is actually there at the behest of a group of supporters from their same party. It will be up to the people of Liverpool to decide when and if to get that person out because they haven’t delivered.

4.16pm: Hamza Yousaf, the SNP’s Glasgow MSP, has made a bold prediction, writes Severin Carrell: he thinks the SNP will beat Labour by two to three seats in Glasgow – taking the city after decades of Labour dominance.

Yousaf, out campaigning in the constituency held by Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont, said: “We’re getting a good reaction. My prediction is we will be two to three seats ahead of Labour. A majority is going to be tough but I think we will get the mandate we need to form an administration.

“I’m getting great news from the west end [of Glasgow]. I’m hearing that the SNP are getting a lot of people on the ground.”

One SNP voter in Corkerhill, Lamont’s Holyrood seat, is Ishtiaq Ahmad. He used to vote Labour. No longer. “I feel bitterly betrayed by Labour because of the way they’ve conducted themselves at Westminster. They took us into an unnecessary war in Iraq and they’ve demonised the Muslim community: everyone thinks every Muslim is a terrorist, and that’s something which really pissed me off.”

4.12pm: Over at the Northerner blog, political experts and politicians are debating how the Tories can win voters’ trust in the north of England again. To my mind Geoff Lawler of Leeds-based political consultancy the Public Affairs Company, former Conservative MP for Bradford North, gets closest to the truth:

For the electorate in [northern suburbia], the Tories did not quite de-toxify enough by the last election, despite what the likes of Tim Montgomerie assert. The problem is that given that many of these constituencies have large numbers of the more comfortably-off, public sector electors, in the current climate they are hardly likely to be enthused about voting Tory. Coupled with a completely and unnecessarily politically misjudged budget, the Conservatives have gone two steps back.

There is no silver bullet solution but certainly some astute advisers at No.10 and the Treasury who either know, or genuinely understand, what it is like to consider that 20p on a pasty actually is a lot, would help. A large rebalancing of the amount spent on infrastructure away from the south and towards the north, so creating jobs both in the short-term and in the long-term through making the region more attractive for investment, would also help.

4.05pm: Gordon Matheson struck lucky twice as he geed up voters in Townhead, writes Severin Carrell from Glasgow: firstly he found lifelong Labour voter Catherine Corson, who celebrated her 90th birthday today and is a beneficiary of £100 Glasgow council funded winter fuel payment, and secondly engineering graduate Alasdair Smith, from Ness on Lewis, who was on his way to vote, and as a Glasgow-based graduategets city-funded work grants.

Corson was succinct. Is she voting Labour? “Yes. Of course.” Smith had never heard of Glasgow’s Commonwealth fund for graduates, but Matheson’s speil had worked: he would get Smith’s second vote. But he had this to say about Matheson: “I found him very good: he wasn’t too forward. He did sound a little bit too me, me, me. I thought he would’ve said ‘me and my team’.”

3.56pm: Salford council has been Labour-controlled for decades and the party’s candidate Ian Stewart is the bookmakers’ favourite to win today’s race for elected mayor, reports Helen Carter.

Stewart wants to develop a co-operative city with local food co-ops. But the Liberal Democrat candidate Norman Owen and Conservative Karen Garrido are equally keen to win the post of mayor. Garrido says she wants to deliver lower council tax without harming services, and declared the city open for business.

Owen said he would ensure every child’s education counted and would fight poverty and deprivation.

The self-styled “Mr Big” of Salford, ex-con turned businessman Paul Massey, could also grab votes with his promise to be the voice of Salford. English Democrat candidate Michael Felse has campaigned on slashing council tax by half and recalling a £730m regeneration programme to assess whether it represents value for money.

Ukip candidate Bernard Gill describes himself as a pensioner concerned about the decline of the city. Michael Moulding, of the Community Action Partyn said 2011 was Salford’s annus horribilis due to the riots and the murder of student Anuj Bidve. John O’Neill, of the Green party, wants to reduce the poverty gap as well as protecting the environment and public services. Independent candidate Pat Ward’s policies are “zero tolerance, helping our children and elderly.” The BNP is also fielding a candidate, Edward O’Sullivan.

The count for Salford’s first directly elected mayor begins tomorrow at 11am and the result is expected between 3 and 5pm.

3.30pm: Correction: my colleague Helen Carter has just phoned to say that the count for the Salford mayoral race won’t begin until 11am tomorrow and the result is due in between 3pm and 5pm.

3.27pm: More views from readers post-voting:

From Primaballerina:

Big turnout in Camden – was rather moved to vote straight after three generations of Muslim women.

From Belgy67:

I am now back from voting in East Kilbride – Wonderfully sunny up here today with temp around 18 celsius.

Looking at the names crossed off in my ward, the turnout so far is extremely low; hopefully it will increase later on.

From thespecmeister:

just got back from voting (in Birmingham). only the big three parties and the Greens are standing, I was surprised that Respect didn’t stand anyone but I should have guessed since we weren’t getting leaflets.

3.16pm: Here is some more information about when we might get some results in.

The polls close everywhere at 10pm.

About two thirds of councils are counting overnight in the traditional manner, with results expected to start coming in at around midnight and be complete by about 5am.

The Liverpool mayoral result is due around 5am, but the count for the Salford mayoral race won’t begin until 11am tomorrow and the result is due in between 3pm and 5pm tomorrow.

The London mayoral election and about a third of councils are counting votes during the day tomorrow. Results should start coming in around 11am tomorrow and continue until about 7.30pm.

The London mayoral result is expected between 6pm and midnight.

The updates on the London mayoral count mentioned earlier will be for the first round only – before the second preferences of the losing candidates are redistributed. So it’s possible they may be misleading.

(My feeling is that Ken Livingstone will gain fewer first-preference votes, and more second-preference votes, than expected, as many leftwingers express their dissatisfaction with him by voting for someone else in the first round.)

3.04pm: Guardian photograph Christopher Thomond has just phoned to report from Bradford, where George Galloway’s Respect party is hoping to unseat council leader Ian Greenwood in his Little Horton ward.

Thomond spoke to Greenwood at the Shree Hindu temple polling station in Little Horton, and the council leader told him Galloway was not going to show his face tonight because he knew he would face defeat. Galloway was in London, Greenwood said.

Right that minute a green Respect party double-decker battlebus came round the corner with Galloway at the front shouting through a megaphone. “That kind of thing just pisses everyone off,” said Greenwood, making no reference whatsoever to his earlier comments.

Helen Pidd sends this video report from Little Horton.

2.37pm: Alexandra Topping has just arrived in “the marvellous Victorian glory” of Liverpool city centre, where she has already heard some opposing views about the city’s first vote for an elected mayor today.

These are the candidates:

• Joe Anderson (Lab).
• Jeff Berman (Liverpool independent party).
• Tony Caldeira (Con).
• John Coyne (Green).
• Liam Fogarty (independent).
• Adam Heatherington (Ukip).
• Richard Kemp (Lib Dem).
• Tony Mulhearn (Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition).
• Steve Radford (Liberal).
• Paul Rimmer (English Democrats).
• Peter Quiggins (National Front).
• Mike Whitby (BNP).

Lexy writes:

Gary Baker, 47, a taxi driver in the city said having a elected mayor had to be a good thing for the city. His first argument in favour was in keeping with many Liverpudlians’ belief that they live in the People’s Republic of Liverpool. “It takes a lot of the budget from Whitehall and I would rather Liverpool distributes its own money, rather than having those decisions taken in London,” he said.

Having a mayor would have other benefits too, he thought. “It cuts out a load of the bureaucracy, and it’s good for business because there is only one bloke in charge; if he says it’s going to get done then it will get done.”

He was supporting Joe Anderson, current Labour leader of Liverpool city council and the clear favourite to win today’s election. “I like Joe; he’s local, he’s charismatic and he talks a lot of sense,” he said.

Another taxi driver (they’re cheap here – honest, ed) said he wasn’t going to bother voting because “it doesn’t matter who gets in power, nothing ever changes”. He felt that there should have been a referendum on the decision to have an elected mayor.

“It’s been pushed on us, it would have been better to have had a choice. They talk about the extra money, but we won’t see it. And we don’t know how much this new mayor will be paid yet,” he said.

2.05pm: Gus O’Donnell, the former head of the civil service who is supporting independent Siobhan Benita in the London mayoral race, has complained about broadcasting rules that prevented her from getting equal coverage to other candidates.

I’m afraid to say my experience of this London mayoral election is that … would I stand as an independent under these rules as interpreted by the broadcasters? Absolutely not. Basically, there is a massive bias towards the status quo in the system. The current rules can’t pick up on new candidates who haven’t stood before and new candidates who haven’t gained in strength. They haven’t worked out how to manage these circumstances. In the absence of previous electoral support, how do you determine whether someone’s got support or not?

I was having a discussion with a member of the BBC the other day; in the absence of solid evidence about support, there’s very much a chicken and egg situation here, a whole Catch-22 as well. I was saying the betting odds were one thing you might want to look at. They said “you can’t possibly do that”. Or the polls even.

We’ve now got a situation where there are people polling in the London mayoral election who’ve been involved in all the debates, and got party election broadcasts, and some others who are polling virtually the same who didn’t get any of those things. That can’t be a sensible electoral system.

Either the interpretation of the rules is wrong or the rules themselves need to change. It could be a lasting legacy of this campaign that we could actually think very carefully about whether these rules are fit for purpose for the 21st century.

Lib Dem Brian Paddick and Green Jenny Jones were invited to take part in many of the mayoral debates that have taken place over the last few weeks, such as this ITV one. Yet their polling figures in today’s YouGov poll are not much better, or actually worse, than candidates such as Benita and Lawrence Webb (Ukip), who were not invited to take part.

To recap, Brian Paddick (Lib Dem) is on 7%, Lawrence Webb (Ukip) on 4%, Siobhan Benita (independent) on 4%, Jenny Jones (Green) on 3%, and Carlos Cortiglia (BNP) on 1%.

O’Donnell raises some interesting points about how the media generally deals with smaller parties and candidates, and how it decides who is and isn’t worthy of full coverage.

It’s an issue that will soon raise its head at a national level, too, if YouGov’s poll numbers for Ukip are more than just a blip. YouGov had Ukip polling at 8%, the same level as the Lib Dems. If the Lib Dems fail to regain the ground they have lost since the general election and Ukip holds its ground, it will be hard for the media to justify concentrating on the so-called “three main parties” in the conventional way.

2.01pm: The Scotsman’s report this morning appears to have captured the theme about the parties working hard to bring out their voters amid fears of a low turnout, Severin Carrell reports.

It helpfully points out that the turnout in 1995, the last time there were stand-alone council elections in Scotland, was 44.9%, a figure few parties expect to hit today.

The paper reports: “Party campaigners will stage a near 17-hour marathon today in a bid to bring disinterested voters to polling stations.”

The Scotsman’s website has a story on each party leader’s arrival at polling stations this morning, with Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont voting in Pollock, deputy first minister Nicola Sturgeon in Uddingston, Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson in west Glasgow and Willie Rennie, the Scottish Lib Dem leader casting his in Pitreavie, Fife.

First minister Alex Salmond is at a family funeral today: we can assume he voted by post, if not in person.

Helpfully for all the parties pushing out their voters in Glasgow, the sun is shining brightly; forecasters anticipate temperatures hitting 18 or 19C this afternoon.

2.00pm: A number of readers have asked why David Cameron and Ed Miliband voted in London – surely they are registered to vote in their own constituencies (Witney and Doncaster North respectively)?

The answer, according to the Electoral Commission, is that you can be registered to vote in more than one place if the electoral registration officer deems you spend a good deal of time – “a considerable degree of permanence” is the phrase used – in both locations.

This means that in a general election people such as Cameron and Miliband will get polling cards delivered to two addresses, and must choose which one to use and where to vote. But they are only allowed to vote in one place.

1.32pm: Does the weather affect voter turnout, asks Polly Curtis on her Reality check blog. Oxford academic and election specialist John Curtice says it doesn’t:

We’ve had one or two general elections when it’s been raining in some parts of the country and not in another and there has been no significant variation in turnout. Nobody has ever really done the analysis for local elections. It’s one of the most common theories of turnout but nobody has ever found the evidence to back it up. We tend to avoid elections in December and January because snow can make a difference. Just because there’s a little bit of rain in the south east people think it’s relevant.

In the comments below this blog, meljomur asked:

I wonder why it is, when turnout is high it is more likely that the vote goes to the more left leaning candidates? I know in the USA, that the Republicans love to put barriers in the way of voting for people, because when voter turnout is high, the Democrats tend to win the elections.

Curtice can answer that one too:

It’s certainly true that turnout tends to be lower in places where the Labour party is stronger. There is a correlation between social deprivation and turnout. However as long as that turnout differential is between wards rather than within wards it doesn’t make a difference. If people in Labour areas are less likely to vote whether they are Labour or Tory it’s not relevant.

1.15pm: My colleague Laura Oliver has put together this Storify showing the London mayoral candidates getting out the vote today.

She’ll be updating it throughout the day.

1.13pm: Boris Johnson has put up another short low-budget video exhorting Londoners to vote for him.

He urges them not to “lurch back to the waste and arrogance and divisiveness of the Ken Livingstone years”.

In a message on Facebook, Ukip leader Nigel Farage asks his party’s supporters in London to give their second preference votes to Mr Johnson. In a post which starts off in a deceptively mild tone and then goes straight off the deep end, Farage writes:

Londoners – please vote Ukip first and Boris second to keep the Socialists out of City Hall – that includes all the others. Let’s get Ayatollah Livingstone out of London politics once and for all.

12.59pm: Here are some pictures from polling stations around the country.

12.45pm: Adam1d asks:

Paul, you wrote that “in London, the count for the mayor and the assembly will not start until tomorrow morning”.

Does that mean that we will have to wait till tomorrow to get even partial results??

Or will there be some EXIT POLL results tonight so that we can go to sleep with a rough idea on who’s going to rule the city??

I have just spoken to the Electoral Commission, the BBC, and Sky News and none of them are aware of or are commissioning any exit polls tonight – so I’m afraid you will have to go to sleep with the results still up in the air. We won’t know for sure who is the next London mayor until between 7pm and midnight on Friday evening.

12.28pm: In the comments, some of our readers have been telling us about their experience of voting this morning:

From Sparebulb:

My local council elections in Newport (that south Wales place, you know, near Ireland) is of interest since it is a traditionally strong Labour area but the council is at the moment run under Conservative/Liberal coalition- in a sense the local politics reflects the national (as in UK) politics.

The comparisons are tenuous but are still there. Labour have been relatively low key in their canvassing while the Conservatives have barely bothered in my ward. Driving around I’ve seen more Liberal electioneering – this makes sense since Wales in general has been traditionally quite Liberal although in recent years Plaid have eaten into that support.

While I won’t be waiting up all night it will be interesting to see the results. For Newport I predict a shoe-in for Labour but on a wider scale I’m pondering the results for independents in many parts of Wales, I think there might be a few surprises. Equally one might speculate that Plaid should make gains from the Liberals in predominantly Welsh speaking regions.

From JamesCracknell:

I have already voted “Dems vote early” and all that. Did not take a picture unfortunately but a quite nice polling station in Hammersmith.

Not much to report. Other than in the run up absolutely not a peep from the Lib Dems (my area is usually a contest between Labour and Lib Dems) but Tories eventually popped a leaflet through last night. Not that you could tell it was the Tories until you got to the very minute print. A lot of red and orange in the leaflet too. Anyway no picture of Boris, just all stuff about Ken’s taxes and Alan Sugar quotes.

12.18pm: Tony Blair is keen to “re-engage” with UK politics, according to the Independent. He has apparently hired a spin doctor as part of an attempt to raise his domestic profile. Comment is free is running a poll isking if you would welcome his return to British politics.

12.11pm: Severin Carrell sends more from Scotland. He says that with the stakes so high for both the SNP and Labour in today’s council elections, one key question troubling the parties is turnout.

There are fears, shared somewhat by the Tories too, that the turnout could be low. Some predict it may fall even as far as 25%; the SNP and Labour are predicting somewhere around the 33% mark while Tory sources point to 40%. So across Scotland, with Glasgow in particular, the parties are working their core vote very hard: all the party leaders are “getting the vote out”.

Labour is putting particular stress on the high number of postal ballots: there are about 550,000 issued this year, for an electorate of 4m, and postal voters do so early and often. The postal voting rate hit 77% in 2011. Many are pensioners, a key audience for Labour in Glasgow.

The key issue here is that for the first time since 1995, this is the first stand-alone Scottish council vote. There was some chaos in 2007 when voters struggled with two different proportional voting systems for Holyrood and councils; 140,000 ballot papers were spoilt. So council and Holyrood polls were “decoupled” to avoid confusion.

Even for Holyrood in 2011, when voters were faced with arguably the most successful and charismatic Scottish leader in a generation, Alex Salmond, the turnout was just over 50%.

Even so, the weather today is unlikely to influence matters and John Curtice, the elections expert at Strathclyde university, is extremely dismissive of predictions of a low turnout.

With council voting levels in England and Wales now back up around 45%, he cannot see any reason why Scotland should be different, particularly given Salmond’s push on independence. “Given the degree to which there has been political excitement in Scotland in the last few months, it’s not obvious me why this [low turnout] should be,” he said.

If it does drop to 30% or less that will be a failure by Scotland’s parties: “there would have to be questions collectively to the Scottish political classes to persuade voters of the importance of what they’re doing … It would constitute a significant snub to Scottish political classes.”

Curtice is deeply sceptical too about the notion that high postal votes makes any difference to turnout, or any particular party’s performance: “It’s true that those who vote by post are more likely to vote, however, it’s also true that those who vote by post are also more likely to vote anyway. There’s very little evidence that the growth of postal voting has actually increased overall turnout.”

12.10pm: A possibly premature inquest is already under way among supporters of city mayors over the lacklustre campaign run by central government and its refusal to set out mayoral powers, reports Patrick Wintour.

Referendums are being held in 10 cities in England, and Birmingham, once seen as a certainty to follow London and back its own mayor, is said to be a much closer contest than expected despite strong yes champions, including business leaders, Labour and Tory parties, and the local media. There has been a patchy no campaign, and Labour has said little at national level.

Those who support the idea of city mayors are upset with a lack of clarity over the role’s powers and a general anti-politics mood.

11.52am: Senior politicians had their wives at the ready for the traditional polling station photo-opportunities this morning.

Here are Mr and Mrs Cameron (great outfit – not you Dave).

Here is Ed Miliband and his wife Justine.

Here is Ken Livingstone and his wife Emma Beal.

And here is Boris Johnson and his wife Marina.

Ignoring all convention and precedent, Nick Clegg failed to bring his wife along to vote with him this morning – but he did have some photos taken in front of this lovely tree.

11.29am: Ken Livingstone has responded to today’s YouGov poll, which gives Boris Johnson a health six-point lead in the London mayoral race. Livingstone said:

Today, Londoners can vote Labour to cut their fares and save themselves on average £1,000, and in doing so ensure that the Conservative party is not rewarded. Every Labour voter must turn out today or the Tories will get away with it – they will carry on with policies that have led to recession, fare rises and police cuts.

The £1,000 figure is a reference to his plans to cut the capital’s transport fares by 7%, which he says will save the average Londoner £1,000.

He has also written a blogpost on the LabourList website. He writes:

Of course, we are the underdogs. The Tories were always going to benefit financially, in terms of media backing, and in terms of support from the most powerful. Though it doesn’t carry the imprint of the Tory party, London’s only daily paper [the Evening Standard] has now become a true blue freesheet.

The piece returns by returning to the theme of financial self-interest:

By spending just a few minutes at the polling station the average fare-payer can make themselves £1,000 better off. There are not many ways you can make £1,000 in less than half an hour. But that is what the average London fare-payer can do from 7am to 10pm today … Polling day poses the clearest possible choice – four years of Tory fare rises, or a Labour fares cut that will save the average fare-payer £1,000.

11.24am: There is lots of good coverage of the elections in today’s Guardian.

• Hélène Mulholland looks back at the London mayoral race, quoting this analysis of Ken Livingstone’s campaign from Tony Travers, director of the Greater London group at the London School of Economics:

It looks as if the Labour party has asserted some authority over what has been a below-par Livingstone campaign. It is a powerful traditional political intervention and it was the right thing to do because it was clear it was Livingstone who has been badly underperforming under a resurgent Labour party, while Boris was outperforming a seriously wounded Conservative party, so they had to turn it into a straight Labour versus Conservative fight.

• Michael White looks at the English cities where voters are taking part in referendums today on whether or not to have elected mayors. He finds that in city after city “the yes campaign seems to have failed to generate enough momentum to overthrow scepticism, apathy and the status quo”. Meanwhile, voters in Doncaster are being asked today to abandon their mayoral experiment: there is a deadlock between councillors and their elected English Democrat mayor.

• Dutch journalist Joris Luyendijk has been travelling around the UK asking people what they think about politics.

With one or two exceptions people seemed to look at politics as a talent show with really boring contestants. You could follow it, or you could ignore it – a lifestyle choice. Either way, it would make no difference to your life. “Without wanting to sound ageist,” a girl in Newcastle told me, “I suggest you go find some older people if you want to talk about the elections. That generation still cares about these things.”

• Helen Pidd returns to Bradford, the scene of George Galloway’s recent byelection triumph, and finds a political race dominated by the firebrand leftwinger – even though he isn’t standing. He might run for mayor if Bradford votes yes in its referendum, though, Pidd reports.

• Andrew Sparrow has been in Liverpool meeting Joe Anderson, the Labour candidate for elected mayor.

Voters … who were backing Anderson often cited his achievement in bringing a cruise liner facility to the Mersey as their reason for supporting him. But the terminal is just one item in an Anderson manifesto that is remarkably upbeat, given that he runs a council badly hit by the coalition’s cuts, and also pro-business to a degree that would make Peter Mandelson proud. It starts with the declaration: “This is an exciting time for Liverpool” and promises 20,000 new jobs, partly generated by a mayoral development corporation. Anderson refuses to be pigeon-holed as New Labour or Old Labour, but he’s passionate about investment, and quite happy to say he would like the private sector to account for a larger slice of the Liverpool economy.

• And Martin Kettle writes that England needs to decide whether it cares about the rest of the UK.

The London press must get out more. It needs to make a much more conscious and deliberate effort to report Scotland and Wales to England, as well to discharge a British responsibility to report to and for Scotland and Wales themselves.England needs to decide whether it cares. Watch the way the local election results are debated over the coming days. For the metropolitan political class, left and right, it will all be about two things: the London mayor and the overall impact on Westminster politics. But local elections are actually about local government everywhere. A better way to assess the 2012 local elections might be to measure what they say about the slow disintegration of British politics and political institutions.

10.51am: The Scottish council elections have far greater significance than usual this year, Severin Carrell, the Guardian’s Scotland correspondent, writes: with the Scottish National party pushing on towards the independence referendum due in 2014, its performance today will be a key test of public opinion and its wider vitality.

This is the first major test of popularity for Alex Salmond, the first minister, and the SNP since their landslide election victory in last May’s Holyrood elections. He is expected to launch his independence referendum campaign in a matter of weeks. Also, he is expected to win today too, on numbers of votes and councillors at least.

Winning control of Glasgow is the biggest single prize – and most expect a very tight race with Labour there, but Salmond insists the main goal is to be Scotland’s largest party by number of councillors and share of the vote.

Given Scotland’s use of the single transferable voting system in large multi-member wards for council elections, the SNP slogan has rhythm and simplicity: Vote SNP, 1, 2, 3.

The SNP is defending 368 seats against Labour’s 337, but was marginally behind Labour on first preference votes in 2007. This time – even the Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont predicts this – the SNP are expected to increase that number comfortably. If the opinion polls are reflected today, it will win most first preference votes too.

It is standing 612 candidates – well up on 2007, against 497 for Labour, 362 Tories and 247 Lib Dems. The Scottish Greens have 86 candidates while 691 independents and others, such as UKIP and Tommy Sheridan’s party Solidarity, are standing too.

The trick then is for the SNP to convert that lead into council control: it is in coalition or minority control of 13 of Scotland’s 32 councils, while Labour is control or coalition at 11. All Scottish votes are being counted on Friday, with the final results due during the afternoon and into the early evening for larger councils such as Glasgow. So the first thing to watch for on Friday is: could the SNP win enough to run Scottish cities on its own?

In Dundee, Edinburgh, Perth, Aberdeen or Stirling for instance? In Glasgow, most observers believe the SNP could just form a ruling coalition, unless Labour’s intense efforts there pull off the victory Lamont and Ed Miliband crave. In these cities, turnout is key.

10.33am: YouGov have published two new polls.

Their national voting intention figures are:

Lab: 43%
Con: 33%
Lib Dem: 8%
Ukip: 8%
SNP/Plaid Cymru: 3%
Green: 3%
BNP: 1%
Others: 1%

That’s a 10-point Labour lead, with a very strong showing for Ukip.

YouGov’s final London elections poll for the Evening Standard shows Boris Johnson on 53% and Ken Livingstone on 47% with the other candidates removed.

In the first-choice vote, Johnson is on 43%, Livingstone on 38%, Brian Paddick (Lib Dem) on 7%, Lawrence Webb (Ukip) on 4%, Siobhan Benita (independent) on 4%, Jenny Jones (Green) on 3%, and Carlos Cortiglia (BNP) on 1%.

In the 2008 London mayoral election, Johnson won 42.48% of first-preference votes to Livingstone’s 36.38%. In the second round, Johnson won 53.17% and Livingstone 46.73%. The results of today’s poll are strikingly similar.

The YouGov poll found that where Londoners were asked to vote for a party, rather than a person, their views were very different:

Lab: 47
Con: 34
Lib Dem: 7
Others: 12

That means Johnson’s personal popularity and Livingstone’s unpopularity have the effect of outweighing a 13-point Labour lead.

YouGov’s prediction for the 25-seat London assembly is:

Lab: 11 (up 3 from 2008)
Con: 8 (down 3)
Lib Dem: 2 (down 1)
Ukip: 2 (up 2)
Green: 2 (no change)
BNP: 0 (down 1)

10.18am: I just checked with the Electoral Commission when all the results are expected.

In London, the count for the mayor and the assembly will not start until tomorrow morning.

It will take place at three centres across London: Olympia, Alexandra Palace and the Excel centre in the Docklands.

We will gradually get a sense of who is winning over the course of the day. As soon as results from four constituencies are in, those results – including mayoral results for those areas – will be announced. When the next four are in, these will be announced, and the same with the next four, and then the final two. It could be quite an exciting process. The final result is expected at some point between 7pm and midnight on Friday night.

The London Elects website is going to produce live bar charts showing who is winning throughout the day.

Some councils across the country are beginning their counts straight after the polls close, in the traditional way, and those results will be in at some point in the early hours of tomorrow morning. Other councils are going to wait until tomorrow morning to begin counting, meaning those results will be in at some point tomorrow afternoon.

9.47am: The London voting system is different from that used at general elections, and seems to be causing a fair bit of confusion on Twitter.

Here is an article explaining it in full, but the key points in voting for the mayor are below.

For this contest, you can cast two votes: one vote in the first column for your first choice, the second vote in the second column for your second choice. Vote with a cross not a number.

If a candidate receives more than 50% of the first-choice votes, he or she is elected.

If not, the two candidates with the most first-choice votes – almost certainly Boris Johnson and Ken Livingstone – go to a run-off, with all the other candidates eliminated.

All the ballot papers where eliminated candidates are down as first choice are looked at again, and any second-preference votes for the top two candidates are added to the totals for those candidates.

The candidate with the most first- and second-choice votes combined wins.

Tactical tips

1. If you are voting for Livingstone or Johnson as your first preference, your second preference will almost certainly not count. Second preferences are only redistributed when a ballot paper has as its first preference someone who was eliminated in the first round – and neither Livingstone nor Johnson are likely to be eliminated in the first round.

2. If you are in favour of Lib Dem Brian Paddick, Green Jenny Jones, independent Siobhan Benita, Ukip’s Lawrence Webb, or the BNP’s Carlos Cortiglia, put them as your first preference rather than your second. This is the only way they stand a chance of making it into the second round. If you give them a second-preference vote, this will only count if they get enough first-preference votes from other people to get into the second round.

3. Because the second round is likely to be between Ken and Boris, if you have voted for any other candidate as your first choice, it might be a good idea to choose between Labour and the Conservatives for your second – as then you will still get some say in who will run London even if your real favourite is eliminated.

Some people have asked me (and I’m afraid this question may betray some anti-Boris bias) whether giving their first preference vote to Brian Paddick, Jenny Jones, or one of the other minor candidates, rather than to Livingstone, makes it more likely that Johnson will get above 50% of the vote in the first round, and thus win outright. The answer is no. Whoever you vote for, it does not make any difference to Johnson’s vote or his share of the vote (as long as you vote for someone).

To give a clear example, let’s say 8 people vote for Johnson, and there are 10 other voters.

If 5 of those others vote for Livingstone and 5 for Jones, there are still 8 votes for Johnson and 10 for other candidates, meaning Johnson does not get 50% of the vote.

If 7 of the non-Johnson votes go to Jones and 3 to Livingstone, there are still 8 votes for Johnson and 10 for other candidates, meaning Johnson does not get 50% of the vote.

Please post any other questions below the line and I’ll try to answer them too. They can even be about how to keep Ken Livingstone out.

9.26am: Hello and welcome to today’s election day live coverage. Andrew Sparrow and I will be live-blogging around the clock from today, when voters start going to the polls in local elections in England, Scotland and Wales, until late on Friday night, when we expect to find out whether Boris Johnson or Ken Livingstone will be the next mayor of London.

As well as the battle for London mayor and elections to the London assembly, which acts as a check on the mayor, there are also elections to 130 councils in England (of a total of 353), all 32 councils in Scotland, and 21 of 22 Welsh councils (elections to Anglesey Council postponed to next May).

Meanwhile two other cities are voting for an elected mayor: Salford and Liverpool.

And 10 cities will hold referendums to decide whether they should have an elected mayor: Birmingham, Bradford, Bristol, Coventry, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, Nottingham, Sheffield and Wakefield.

My colleagues on the Datablog have put together this map that shows which councils are voting and who controls them now.

And here are details of every candidate standing in the London assembly and London mayoral elections.

I cast my vote this morning at a polling station in the surprisingly pretty Laycock Centre, a conference venue, in Islington, London.

Lib Dem describes Tory cuts plans as ‘self-harm’

Lord Oakeshott speaks after Tory MP Liam Fox lauds George Osborne and calls for sacking of workers to be made easier

A growing rift between the coalition partners over how to respond to the recession became apparent on Friday when senior Liberal Democrats described plans for 5% spending cuts as “economic madness”.

They also ridiculed Conservative rightwinger Liam Fox’s call for employers to be given new rights to sack workers without fear of unfair dismissal claims.

In a Daily Telegraph column, seen in advance by the Treasury, Fox called for further labour market deregulation. The former defence secretary said: “Deficit reduction without labour market reform is like driving with the handbrake on.”

He reminded Lib Dems – who have 57 MPs to the Tories’ 306 – that their party represented only one sixth of the coalition.

As such, he said, they must expect Tory economic ideas to be dominant. He also said that if growth were not achieved by the next election, Lib Dems could expect an unhappy date with the electorate in 2015. Fox welcomed “the news that the chancellor is considering a further round of spending cuts as a sign that reason and responsibility are returning to the Treasury”.

He said that if cuts were made to security but the overseas aid budget left untouched, that would infuriate many Conservatives.

Fox also supported the decision to increase the UK commitment to the IMF by £10bn, a statement that will be especially welcomed by George Osborne.

But Lord Oakeshott, one of the most articulate exponents of Lib Dem economic thinking, hit back.

He said: “With growth invisible to the naked eye, it will simply be a form of self-harm to engage in another round of unplanned spending cuts such as the recent proposed cut of 5%. It would be a form of economic madness. Liberal Democrat ministers would not stand for it and nor would some Tories.”

He added: “The idea that simply making it easier to sack people will create growth is just foolish. What we need is fresh efforts to get the banks to lend, something that is under the chancellor’s control, and we must get capital spending rising through a massive housebuilding programme. That will create jobs.”

Osborne has already signalled that spending cuts will have to continue into the next parliament to meet the government’s fiscal targets, and suggested on current plans there will have to be another £10bn in welfare cuts.

That suggestion has not been welcomed by the Department for Work and Pensions, which believes it has already delivered on cuts and should not be asked to bear the burden of a second round of cuts in a spending review that is likely to take place next year.

Leveson: Jeremy Hunt’s BSkyB behaviour is not my problem

Rebuff raises pressure on Cameron to instigate inquiry into whether culture secretary breached ministerial code over BSkyB

Lord Justice Leveson has rebuffed the government by making clear it was not his inquiry’s role to rule if the culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has breached the ministerial code by his handling of the News Corp bid for BSkyB.

The firm refusal from the Leveson inquiry is embarrassing to David Cameron, who claimed on Wednesday that the inquiry was the best forum to determine whether Hunt, as well as his special adviser Adam Smith, had handled the bid in a partisan manner. Instead, Hunt may now have to face a separate, and potentially more painful, investigation by an independent watchdog set up to police the behaviour of ministers.

Leveson’s spokesman also denied claims by the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, that he was going to bring forward the date of Hunt’s appearance at the inquiry so his case could be fast-tracked. Clegg said: “I think we’ve already got an agreement Jeremy Hunt will go to the Leveson pretty quick.” Leveson’s spokesman said that Hunt’s request to bring his evidence session forward had been turned down “in the interests of fairness to all”.

Leveson’s stance underlines that Cameron has not ordered an inquiry by the independent watchdog into the breaches of the code, but may now come under irresistible pressure to do so.

Ed Miliband had earlier accused Cameron of a cover-up. The Labour leader said the proper course would be to refer Hunt’s case to Sir Alex Allan, the prime minister’s independent adviser on the ministerial code. Sir Alex, who is paid £30,000 a year, has so far been excluded from the process on Cameron’s instructions. His office was also bypassed by the prime minister over the conduct of Liam Fox, the former defence secretary.

Both the Lib Dem deputy leader, Simon Hughes, and Lorely Burt, who chairs the Lib Dem parliamentary party, called for Hunt to be referred immediately to Allan.

But Clegg, their party leader, said: “Unless anyone has got a better idea I think having a judge where a cabinet minister needs to give evidence under oath is about the best context to really get down to find out what happened or what didn’t happen.”

He added that after Hunt had given his evidence it might be possible to look at breaches of the code. Clegg, who denied that the coalition was sleazy, claimed there was a danger of crossed wires if Allan also looked at breaches of the code, such as ministerial responsibility for the conduct of a special adviser.

Leveson himself said on Wednesday after a telephone discussion with Sir Jeremy Heywood, the cabinet secretary: “Although I have seen requests for other inquiries and other investigations, it seems to me that the better course is to allow this inquiry to proceed.”

But it is understood the Leveson inquiry is now concerned that it is being asked to examine issues of ministerial conduct in relation to the code well beyond its original terms of reference.

The inquiry believes that Lord Justice Leveson is not the arbiter of the ministerial code, because that falls to Allen.

Leveson sources were clearly anxious not to get locked into a row with Downing Street, but felt it necessary to assert their role.

Hunt said he would be handing to the Leveson inquiry all the texts and emails between himself and his special adviser over the bid, adding he was confident that they would show he had behaved with total integrity.

Cameron’s plans to rely on Leveson’s cross-examination of Hunt came under question from Sir Christopher Kelly, the chairman of the committee on standards in publiclLife. He said Allan was the obvious person to conduct an inquiry. If the issue were to be left to Leveson, Downing Street must make clear that the judge had the power to look into ministerial conduct – something that Cameron’s official spokesman has repeatedly confirmed is a matter for the prime minister.

There was “no doubt” that the allegations needed to be properly investigated, said Kelly. “It is important for public confidence in the integrity of government and also in fairness to the individuals concerned that this is done – and done reasonably quickly. One obvious way to do it is by asking the independent adviser on ministerial interests to look at them. If it is to be done instead by Lord Justice Leveson as part of his inquiry then it needs to be clear that all the standards issues, including those relating to the ministerial code, are regarded as being within his remit and will indeed be looked at. It would be helpful to have that put beyond doubt.”

A poll published on Friday night revealed that the public believes by a margin of five to one that Hunt should resign.

The ComRes poll for the Independent found that 63% of those polled believe Hunt should resign, 12% disagree and 24% don’t know. The poll also gives Labour a five-point lead on 39%, the Tories 34%; the Lib Dems 10% and others 17%.

By a 2-1 margin, people think the government is incompetent. Only 27 per cent agree that it is proving competent. By a margin of 67 to 21 per cent, the public believe that David Cameron and George Osborne are out of touch with ordinary people.

Miliband, criticised by some in Labour for focusing too much on News International, kept up the pressure. He said: “Every day, David Cameron looks more like a prime minister organising a cover-up rather than standing up for the public.

“First he refuses to sack Jeremy Hunt despite the weight of evidence against him. Now despite all-party calls to do so, he refuses even to ask the independent adviser on ministerial interests to examine whether Mr Hunt broke the ministerial code.

“As Downing Street admits, it is not Lord Justice Leveson’s job to adjudicate on whether Jeremy Hunt has broken the code.

“Just as last July, the prime minister dragged his feet on a judicial inquiry, defended Rebekah Brooks and clung to the BSkyB bid, so we see the same pattern again.”

Harriet Harman, the shadow culture secretary, also wrote to the former cabinet secretary Lord O’Donnell to ask whether he would have cleared Hunt to act as the cabinet minister ruling on the BSkyB bid, had he known what has now been revealed about the conduct of Hunt’s office.

Lord O’Donnell is expected to state his views when he appears in front of the inquiry himself.