U.K Local By-Elections Thread

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Late again (apologies...)

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The LibDems easily held a safe ward in Cambridge and their safe ward in Reading, in Slough the Tories gained a seat off the Residents Association (and Labour wasn't that far behind), in Stroud Labour held onto a marginal ward by a decent-ish on a comedy turnout (probably helped by the lack of a Green candidate), while Labour held a ward near Barnsley... also on a comedy turnout.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I thought I'd already posted this, but seems not.

Labour had some tough wards to defend (one in Newcastle, one in Tewkesbury and one in Maidstone) and lost all three (although the Newcastle loss actually represented a small swing to Labour from May), but held onto a seat in Skegness (at least I think it was in Skegness).

In Shropshire, the Tories held their Oswestry SCC division and turnout was a ghastly 15%.
The Tories gained Whittington ward, while the LibDems gained Whittington SCC division (both held by a deceased Indie).

I think that's it.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Quite a few potentially vulnerable Labour wards up tonight. When it rains it pours doesn't it?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Labour actually managed to hold onto a seat in a Scottish by-election last night (in Renfrewshire).
Last local election in Scotland under the old electoral system apparently.

Labour lost a seat in the Dawley Magna ward (Telford & Wrekin UA) to an Indie. There seem to be two reasons for this; first is that there was a bit of a row about how the by-election was caused (ie; a resignation), but (sadly) a bigger factor was probably the fact that the Labour candidate's name was Santokho Sekham (shades of Wrockwardine Wood & Trench in 2003, where Jhalman Uppal (who finished last out of four candidates) ran almost 400 votes behind the other Labour candidate, who finished first out of four).

Not a suprise, but not nice to see. Sigh.

There was also a close LibDem/Green/Labour seat in a Camden ward which had gone 2/1 to the LibDems in May (the seat up was the Labour one), which resulted in a narrow LibDem gain. The Tories came an extremely poor fourth.

There were also some safe Tory holds in safe Tory wards in Gravesend, Southend and so on.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I don't think the SNP winning any local by-election would have counted as a suprise

What's strange about this one, is that the overall pattern is the same as in those earlier in the year; except that this time the SNP fell just short, rather than just over.

Bearing in mind the atrocious record of Scottish Labour in local by-elections, I'm putting this down as a fluke.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I was speaking with a Hamilton based SNP activist. He says (though I take this with a bucket of salt) that the canvass returns from Hamilton South are looking very good for the SNP- some switchers and many stay at home voters but overall a movement to the SNP in the first vote from Conservative voters. I also get the impression the SNP seem to be targeting Hamilton South intensly. I had originally thought there would be some effort, but resources would be concentrated on East Kilbride.

Well, activists do always tend to find that cavassing is good for them

Seriously though, parties looking for a breakthrough don't always target the seat everyone expects them to; before the last General Election, most observers thought the LibDems would go after either Newcastle "Central" or Blaydon.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Three interesting results... in Coleraine, the Alliance sprung an upset and took the seat of a disgraced (and now jailed for electoral fraud) former DUP Mayor. The APNI polled 28%, the DUP 28% and the UUP 25%.
In Lancaster, Labour easily held the safe Skerton West ward with the BNP (who had put a lot of effort into it and who had made sure a by-election was called to fill the vacancy was called in the first place; this close to an election there has to be a request to hold a by-election) polling just 93 votes.
But in Epping Forest, the BNP polled about a fifth of the vote in the Grange Hill ward (which they didn't even bother to contest earlier this year) and in doing so nearly helped the LibDems beat off a Tory challenge to the seat; but not quite.