Labour Could Finish Fourth.

Well I've voted and hopefully you will go and vote too, if only to stop the BNP. It took me 20 mins to walk to the polling station (which actually wasn't that easy to find - I have only lived in this ward a few months and the polling station signs were not visible until you got right outside).

I left the house at 8am and got back about 8.40am - so its not exactly a five minute jobby to vote round here. Apparently Goldsmid in Hove is the biggest ward in terms of population in the whole of Brighton and Hove.

The ballot paper was just over a foot long with 15 candidates on it - just to confuse matters there was a 'UK First Party' before a 'UK Independence Party and a 'Socialist Labour Party' before the 'Labour Party.

Of course the BNP were there - right at the very top. Why we can't randomise these things I don't know - it has got to be an advantage to the BNP to always be there at the top of the ballot paper.

Anyway, I voted to save the Labour party from Gordon Brown, so you can read into that what you like. The Greens are going to be very close to getting 2 MEPs in this region - lets hope they get them. Labour have only got one MEP round here and that won't change even if their vote collapses.

The latest opinion poll is from those scallywags at YouGov who now have got into a habit of releasing a poll on polling day (which I think is a bit naughty).

I think opinion polls are now being used as a tool to influence voters. Because a headline suggesting one party is advancing becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. There are becoming an increasing amount of dodgy polls out there. People like to back winners. Notice how none of the Tory press have mentioned the advance of the Greens in the polls?

No surprise that Murdoch's Times has followed the Sun in endorsing the Tories. Hopefully their readers will ignore the craftily written leader which pitched the Tories as the only party that backed a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty but wants to stay in the EU - actually the Greens also back this position.

So onto my predictions. The last poll by YouGov actually sounds pretty good to me as it has the BNP on just 5% - not enough for them to win any seats, here's hoping! And it also shows Tory support dropping. Here are the figures:- CON 26%, UKIP 18%, LAB 16%, LDEM 15%, GRN 10%, BNP 5%

This fieldwork was done a few days ago, so I think Labour might have tanked even more since then. I think that the Tories and BNP will do slightly better than these YouGov figures simply because their names are higher in the alphabet and therefore more prominent on the ballot paper.

So here is my prediction; CON 27%, UKIP 16%, LDEM 16%, LAB 15%, GRN 11%, BNP 6%. (the Tories really deserve to do worse than Labour's 15% considering Tory MP's expense claims, so shame on you Tory voters - the Telegraph has spun it well by releasing mostly Labour claims before the awful Tory ones).

Hopefully this sort of result will mean the BNP fail to get any seats and that Labour finishing fourth will finally finish off Gordon Brown (even though the system to remove him is so daunting).

So, Get out there today and vote in these proportional elections! Sitting on your arse helps no-one but the BNP. Also remember that the whole host of other parties and independents are almost certain not to make the threshold, so voting NO2EU, Libertas, Christian, UKFIrst, Socialist Labour might inadvertently helo the BNP - vote Green or UKIP instead.