on this point i was wondering whether there's a danger of over emphasising the parties in this election although it makes sense for other elections it's clear that independent candidates are going to do unusually well although i don't know if any will win because of the specific nature of the posts being elected i wonder if there is a way to highlight the independent vote which will likely outstrip lib dem and ukip's vote nationally obviously one problem is that they are all different but i think to write them out of the picture will give an unfairly distorted picture not sure what the best way to do that is though november utc