This time of the recent federal election in Germany.

Leading Party by Constituency - Direct Vote

Percentage vote (list) for the CDU and FDP

Percentage vote (list) for the SPD, Left and Greens

Neil Kinnock in 1983:

“If Margaret Thatcher wins on Thursday, I warn you not to be ordinary. I warn you not to be young. I warn you not to fall ill. I warn you not to get old.”

Seems that some things don’t change.

I guess that this counts as the end of an era. His dreadful jokes and bad hair will be missed more than words can say. I do hope that whoever is elected as the next leader of Welsh Labour develops some similar idiosyncratic tendencies. Politics needs more eccentrics.

Also… it’s interesting to note that the story had dropped off the frontpage of the BBC News site by the end of the day – if the Mayor of London had announced his retirement this would not have happend. Typical geographic bias by the media once again.

Constituency results coming in at the moment. While the overall pattern is much as expected, some of the details are strange.

Exit polls show a majority (that is – of seats) for the CDU/CSU-FDP, the worst SPD result since 1932* and the worst CDU/CSU result since 1949.

*Or 1933. Depends if you count that election as legit – I don’t.

David Cesarani is angry. And rightly so – it’s difficult to think of anything more crass, tasteless and offensive than the plans to build a hotel at Babi Yar (other than, say, “Treblinka – the Theme Park”… and such a thing is, thankfully, impossible). The really sad part is the way that it fits in with the general issue of minimising and ignoring what happend there. A certain poem and a certain symphony remain relevant:

What a massive surprise.

The final results weren’t greatly different from the provisionals posted earlier – though Labour polled over 35% and SV overtook Centre (though not in terms of seats). Anyway. Some maps.

Norway

Counting hasn’t finished yet, but the current estimate of results (or just results so far wi’ seat projections for those – I’m not entirely sure) seems to be:

Labour: 34.9% (+2.2), 64 seats (+3)

“Progress” Party: 22.8% (+0.7), 41 seats (+3)

Conservatives: 16.8% (+2.7), 30 seats (+7)

Centre Party: 6.7% (+0.2), 11 seats (-)

Socialist Left: 6.3% (-2.5), 11 seats (-4)

Christian Peoples Party: 5.8 (-1.0), 10 seats (-1)

“Left” Party: 4% (-1.9), 2 seats (-8)

Red Party: 1.4% (+0.2), 0 seats (0)

It is uncertain whether the liberal “Left” (Venstre) party will cross the thresehold or not.  If these results hold, then the incumbent coalition (Labour, Centre, Socialist Left) will be re-elected. About a third of votes left to count.

Just because maps are pretty and elections are interesting:

Saarland State Election

Thuringia State Election

Saxony State Election

NRW Local Elections

Cologne City Council Election