And the winner is...

I'm more than two months late, I know, but I think I should put on record the results of the Holborn and St Pancras constituency in the general election. This is where I live and I wrote about the candidates in several blog posts (links to the various entries are here).

And the results are (with number of votes and percentage change, where applicable):

1. Sir Keir Starmer (Labour): 29,062 votes (+6.8%)
2. Will Blair (Conservative): 12,014 votes (+1.5%)
3. Natalie Bennett (Green): 7,013 votes (+10.1%)
4. Jill Fraser (Liberal Democrat): 3,555 votes (-21.4%)
5. Maxine Spencer (Ukip): 2,740 votes (+3.9%)
6. Shane O'Donnell (Cannabis Is Safer than Alcohol): 252 votes
7. Vanessa Hudson (Animal Welfare): 173 votes
8. David O'Sullivan (Socialist Equality): 108 votes

So no great surprises there, then. Except that I really expected Jill Fraser, who I still maintain was a very good candidate, to do a whole lot better. But she was crushed in the anti-Lib Dem landslide and - this being Camden - her votes were split mainly between Natalie Bennett and Sir Keir Starmer. This offset any loss that Sir Keir may have suffered as a result of being a new candidate; presumably our departing MP, Frank Dobson, had built a personal following over the years.

Whether Sir Keir will be a good constituency MP we shall see. I wrote to him ten days ago, asking for his help, and I haven't heard back from him. But maybe he's busy abstaining at the moment. I certainly expect him to be a prominent member of the new Labour front-bench once the leadership question has been sorted out.

Of the others, I'd hope that Jill Fraser will get back onto Camden Council in due course, because she ought to be there, and I hope that Natalie Bennett eventually does the decent thing and resigns as leader of the Green Party of England and Wales.

And I wish Will Blair well. I suggested before the election that this was just a trial run for him and that he'd end up with another constituency, one where he might stand a chance of winning. I hope he does, if only because I was told yesterday that he was given a copy of my book Rejoice! Rejoice! for Christmas, so he's clearly a man who's blessed with fine family and friends.

Who gets my vote: part 4

As I explore the outer reaches of the ballot paper that has been assembled for the Holborn & St Pancras constituency in which I live, I'm terribly excited to find that Natalie Bennett is not the only party leader standing. 

Because look, here's Vanessa Hudson of the Animal Welfare Party. She may not get invited onto the leaders' debates on television, but she's the big boss of the AWP. And she can call on the endorsement of 1960s model Celia Hammond. Unfortunately most of the policies that the party are putting forward relate to animals - apart from calling on the government to promote 'plant-based diets', there doesn't seem to be anything aimed at us humans.

The AWP is fielding candidates in a total of four constituencies, which is twice as many as the Socialist Equality Party. I'm not fully up to speed with developments in the world of Trotskyism, and the SEP is a new name to me. but - having checked - they turn out to be a rebranded version of the International Communist Party, who split from the Workers Revolutionary Party back in the 1980s.

They are also - as their leaflet boasts - the British section of the International Committee of the Fourth International. Not the actual Fourth International, of course (in which we are represented by Socialist Resistance), nor the Fourth International (ICR) nor the Fourth International Posadist. And certainly not the International Trotskyist Committee for the Political Renegeneration of the Fourth International, the Liaison Committee for the Reconstruction of the Fourth International or the Workers International to Rebuild the Fourth International. And, just while I'm clearing up these confusions, there is another rival International Committee of the Fourth International as well, but that's not the one that the SEP are part of. Don't be fooled by the name.

Despite all of which, their election leaflet insists: 'Only the SEP speaks for the working class.' But only in two constituencies, apparently. And one of them, happily, is mine, with a candidate named David O'Sullivan.

These are minor parties, though. Just six candidates between the two of them across the whole nation. Much more substantial is the list of 32 constituencies being contested by Cannabis Is Safer Than Alcohol. That's a statement of intent. Somewhat peculiarly, however, the central demand of CISTA is not the immediate legalisation of cannabis, but merely the setting up of a Royal Commission to look into drug laws. They want government drug policy to be 'evidence-based, cross-party, humane and non-partisan'.

I think they're underselling themselves. They're not even competing properly with the Green Party of England and Wales, whose manifesto promises 'Radical reform of our drug laws'. No mention there of a Royal Commission. And as Peter Lilley pointed out back in 2001: 'Royal Commissions are just a way of playing issues into the long grass.' He added: 'Perhaps appropriate for cannabis.'

Still, good luck to Shane O'Donnell of CISTA. If all the potheads in Camden could get themselves together to vote for him, he'd do alright.

And that's it. The English Democrats and the British National Party - both of whom fielded candidates last time - have abandoned us. And there are no independents like we had in 2010. Still, no doubt we'll survive somehow.