Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Local Election 2026
Final list of candidates now published (scroll down a bit for the links to each ward)
https://haringey.gov.uk/council-elections/elections-voting/local-el...
Tags for Forum Posts: 2026, Local, candidates, election
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Eric Easter on
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It's a sign of a fragmented multi-cultural Borough/city. People from elsewhere will start to vote once they feel they have a stake in the community and want to shape it to suit their interests. Integration takes a couple of generations. That can go wrong though as witnessed by the increasing propensity for some immigrants to vote along ethnic or religious lines.
Other than education about local democracy in schools, I'm not sure what can be done to boost turnout. There might be lessons to be learned from the efforts to educate the 'hard to reach' sections of the 'community' dueing the Covid vaccination rollout. That would be worth looking at.
But, while I do think it's a shame that turnout is low, I wonder if it is a problem. If people self-select out of the process either through ignorance or apathy, it's their problem. It simply means that those who do vote enjoy an outsize level of influence over the result (ie. One vote in 500 has more influence than one in 1500).
Otherwise, we could reduce the franchise (that would boost the turnout percentage). Insert smiley face here.
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton
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Eric, what a peculiar set of stereotypes, snd class-ridden prejudices, you display.
How long since your surgeon partner met Mellors the Far East To'en'am 'igh Road gamekee'er?
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter
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Alan, back to the topic of the local election:
A recent election poll endorses the earlier prediction of Prof Travers: i.e. there may be no overall control.
Pollcheck suggests that the Green Party will—by a small margin—be the biggest single Party, with the Liberal Democrats holding the balance of power. If that is the result after the Count, then it will be interesting.
Before you ask, not I don't know who Pole Czech is and no, I don't know how big was their sample size.
- Although I hope a few individual Labour Councillors retain their seats, I much hope the current stale, tired and wasteful Administration is rejected
- Governance needs an overhaul and the waste and the mistakes need to end
- And the dominance of the elected by their employees (AKA "officers")
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Not peculiar at all. Those are quite standard and accurate stereotypes.
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"Quite standard and accurate stereotypes."
Eric, I enjoyed that joke.
Are you an occasional scriptwriter for Stewart Lee? It reminded me one of my favourites of his comedy conversations with an uber driver. One where Lee compares the reactions of two of his imaginary wives. One Black and one Irish.
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Alan — Stereotypes apart, the cliche that people “get the government they deserve” has a basis in truth: if you don’t vote you can’t blame the government for not reflecting your views or looking after you. The bigger question is why people don’t vote, and I’m sure many would say that it’s because Haringey has an arrogant council, dominated by one party, that visibly ignores local people’s views and runs “consultations” it then ignores. Maybe a new bunch of councillors will change perceptions — even if elected by a minority, of course.
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Hello Don thanks for this interesting puzzle.
But how can we truly keep stereotypes apart when we're looking at a string of stereotypes from one side of HoL page to the other from Eric. (Who may even have the same name in real life as he goes by on HoL.
As for cliches, "having a basis in truth", how does that weird double negative work about deserving an outcome if you don't vote for it??Is it saying that on the 7th May Election in you nor I deserve to get the party winning which we don't want by not bothering to vote for them?
How exactly do we do this non-voting manoeuvre?
I live towards the West end of my street not far from the ward boundary.
But to get to the polling station (held in a church hall but not in a mosque). I have to turn left twice.
So how about having an electoral pact with some neighbours in my street so we agree NOT to vote for the candidates who I favour? And I will promise NOT to vote for their candidates in the same way. Since I am likely to be with a family member, will I have to make a declaration that no family voting or non-voting is involved?As I was planning on splitting my three votes, things start to look very complicated.
Also with bearing Eric's electoral wisdom in mind, should I have long ago made plans to move to a better educated or more integrated neighbourhood?
On the education criteria I confess that I've forgotten most of the stuff I once got University certificates for. At what stage should l disqualify myself from voting? For the same reason I am aware of forgetting the rudimentaryforeign languages I used partly to know. when is this and other loss of up-to-date knowledge symptomatic of incapacity to vote?
You may have heard of the Author Ray Bradbury. He once said he sometimes knew a concept but had forgotten the word. I have the same problem when it comes to remembering the name of far right politicians. I was brought up not to be rude but it's hard to NOT vote for someone I loathe without knowing their name.
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Alan — I love your geographical meanderings and hope you find your way either to the polling station or to a pillar box if you have a postal vote! As I’m sure you realise, I was trying to leave musings on class and ethnicity aside and just suggest that failure to vote at all, though conceivably seen by some as a positive protest (“none of the above”), in practice means abdication of any say, no matter how small, in the outcome. Non-voters could then be said to “deserve” the fate of having to put up with whoever those who do vote actually choose, even if they’re not to their liking. But you knew that.
In the current FPTP system, it’s hard to see not voting for candidate (a) as a strategic manoeuvre unless one votes for (b) or (c) instead, because completely abstaining lowers the bar to success for all other candidates — each one needs one fewer vote to ensure election. To make abstention a positive move, people would have to be offered “none of the above” as a ballot paper option or the abstentions totted up and the election voided if the votes actually cast for candidates were from less than 50% of the electorate. Either option is obviously impracticable, as few local elections would ever be decided on current turnouts. Hence the invention of PR….
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Don, I recognise the background of what you say.
The bigger question is why people don’t vote …
I recently met a sometime voter who was intensely of the view that voting made no difference.
By dividing Wards or Electorates ino Safe or Marginal seats: and Target or Paper-candidate seats, our corrupt electoral system of first-past-the-post tends to make this true.
Despite the unequal power of votes in different areas, it is still worth voting.
In my view, many vote not out of enthusiasm for their chosen Party. In local elections, its often a token of support for the Party the'd prefer to see in (national) government, but In large measure it is to get or to keep the other lot out of power. The other lot are tend to be seen as representatives of Satan.
By not voting, by not participating and by walking off the field of play as it were, that other side wins by default.
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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson
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I wondered who people have been door knocked by so far? I’ve had Labour, LibDems and Greens and a flyer from TUSC. Nothing yet, either in person or an election flyer, from the Conservatives or Reform.
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