Former Labour deputy prime minister Lord Prescott has lost out in his bid to return to a senior public role, after missing out on election as a police commissioner in England.
He led first round of votes but when second preference votes were totted up in Bridlington on Humberside, the 74-year-old was overtaken by Tory local businessman and councillor Matthew Grove. Another former minister, Tory Michael Mates, failed to garner enough votes to win in Hampshire and Isle of Wight.
Elections for police commissioners across England ended mired in controversy amid the lowest turnout on record. The results were a victory for independents.
The elections watchdog has announced it will mount an investigation into why so few voters turned out. One ballot box, in Newport, was opened to discover that not one person in the area had cast a vote.
Downing Street blamed the London media, which it said had not given the elections enough publicity. But Labour and the Electoral Commissions accused the Government of ignoring warnings of a low turnout.
Political observers last night questioned the impact the figures will have on calls by some Tory politicising for a 50% threshold in strike ballots.
In the West Midlands, Merseyside, Thames Valley and Essex only around 12% of the electorate voted.
Jenny Watson, who chairs the Electoral Commission, said: "The low turnout at the police and crime commissioner elections is a concern for everyone who cares about democracy."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article