UK local by-elections 2011

[ObserverIE]

Brown seems somehow appropriate for the BNP.

Just please don't use teal like the BBC do.

In Ireland, we have three different political parties all of whom use green as their colour - I've allocated teal to the Greens.

[minionofmidas]

Some more info on Brig's affluence level and social makeup would be welcome, thanks!

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

Some more info on Brig's affluence level and social makeup would be welcome, thanks!

doktorb will be have a better answer if he's still here, but probably best described as 'middle of the road'; neither particularly deprived nor particularly well-off.

[ObserverIE]

Barnsley, St. Helen's

Lab 75.8 (-3.5)
BNP 10.5 (-1.6)
Eng Dem 8.8 (+8.8.)
Con 3.7 (-4.9)
Ind 1.3 (+1.3)

Gravesham, Meopham North

Con 47.3 (-23.8.)
UKIP 33.7 (+33.7)
Lib Dem 10.8 (+10.8.)
Lab 8.2 (-20.7)

Lincolnshire, Sleaford West and Leasingham

Con 43.0 (-14.0)
Ind 31.8 (+13.5)
Lab 22.1 (+11.3)
Lib Dem 3.2 (-10.7)

(via BritainVotes)

South Ribble, Bamber Bridge East

Lab 55.0 (-2.4)
Con 45.0 (+2.4)

(via Vote 2007)

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I think the one result counts as 'lolbarnsley', actually. Weird result in Kent; UKIP as a tactical choice for Labour voters? Some local issue?

[ObserverIE]

I think the one result counts as 'lolbarnsley', actually. Weird result in Kent; UKIP as a tactical choice for Labour voters? Some local issue?

Green belt/planning, I think; there was also a poll which showed them as main rivals to the Conservatives.

[Leftbehind]

Not only that, but isn't it Labour who are in control of the Gravesham council - could it be Labour supporters who disapprove of it giving them a kicking by voting for the party seen to be spearheading the opposition?

I usually agree with your colouring (so sick of coming across bizarrely coloured parties when trawling through the councils' results), but I disagree with your BNP and Soc colours.

If there was a deeper pink available I'd use it for the SP. Brown seems somehow appropriate for the BNP.

lol I dunno - I tend to think of darker blues and purples for right-wingers, and darker (maroon!) and bold reds for lefties. Pink just makes me think social democrats and the whole 'People's Flag Is Palest Pink' song.

The independent in Barnsley's reportedly a lefty, so technically only 2.2% has gone rightwards.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Green belt/planning, I think

That might explain it yeah. Kent County Council has a (huge) Tory majority, Gravesham District has a Labour majority (centered entirely on Gravesend and Northfleet, naturally).

Of course, the ward in question was a two-party fight in May anyway; I missed that when looking earlier.

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

By-elections in the week commencing 16 October.  There is one unusual Tuesday poll on 18 October:

COKEHAM, Adur, West Sussex: caused by the death of a Conservative councillor.  This is one of two wards covering the south coast village of Sompting, hard up against the South Downs three miles north-east of Worthing, and now effectively a suburb of Lancing, which is the next town east after Worthing.  Sompting has some quite run-down council housing areas and this ward, which takes in built-up areas either side of the main A27 south coast road, with the unpopulated areas now being part of the South Downs National Park, has its fair share of them.  It was the last Adur ward to elect a Labour councillor, doing so in 2004, but the Conservatives have won consistently since then.  The 2010 result was C 42.2 LD 27.1 Ind 20.4 UKIP 10.3, but the Independent candidate was actually the regular Labour candidate for the ward who appears to have had problems with his nomination papers that time.  Candidates for the by-election are the three main parties plus UKIP and the Greens.

and lots of by-elections on Thursday 20 October:

BOOKHAM SOUTH, Mole Valley, Surrey; caused by the death of a Liberal Democrat councillor.  This ward covers Great Bookham, a suburb of Leatherhead on the road to Guildford, and also includes a little countryside to the south including the National Trust regency stately home of Polesden Lacey.  The two Bookhams (Great and Little) are on the southern edge of the London Travel to Work Area, and Bookham railway station (which is located outside this ward in Little Bookham) has trains every half hour to Waterloo via Worcester Park, taking about 50 minutes, plus occasional rush-hour trains to London Bridge via West Croydon, taking about an hour.  As that might suggest, the ward is uniformly well-off, with all four of its census areas in the 20% least deprived in England.  In Mole Valley district this doesn't translate into a safe Tory ward, as the district is closely fought between the Lib Dems and Conservatives; the Conservatives won this ward in May by 60 votes (C 46.9 LD 44.6 UKIP 8.4) but this was their first win since 2006, the Lib Dems have won the three elections in between by majorities of 150-300.  Candidates in this marginal ward are again Lib Dem, Tory and UKIP.

BRADWELL SOUTH AND HOPTON, Great Yarmouth, Norfolk; caused by the death of a Conservative councillor.  Part of the area that was transferred from Suffolk to Norfolk in 1974, this is one of those badly-drawn wards that has no transport link from end to end.  It contains the southern part of the Great Yarmouth suburb of Bradwell, and curves around the built-up area of Gorleston to take in the seaside resort village of Hopton-on-Sea, home to the World Indoor Bowls Championship.  Hopton-on-Sea is a fairly comfortable area while Bradwell is more socially mixed.  The ward was safe Conservative during the Noughties, but Labour performed well in Great Yarmouth in May to almost bring the ward into marginal territory; shares of the vote were C 46.2 Lab 35.9 UKIP 12.7 Grn 5.1.  Candidates for the by-election are just Conservative, Labour and UKIP.

BRIDGE, Nottingham; caused by the death of a Labour councillor.  This ward covers Nottingham's city centre, but most of the population is located south of the centre in the Meadows, a 1970s council estate whose redevelopment grant fell victim to coalition cuts last year.  Also here is Meadow Lane, home of the world's oldest professional football [soccer] team, Notts County.  Bridge ward's two seats split Lib Dem/Labour in 2007 but Labour decisively gained the second seat in May, the shares of the vote being Lab 52.0 LD 36.2 C 11.8.  Candidates for the by-election are the three main parties plus UKIP and the Church of the Militant Elvis.

ECCLES, Salford; caused by the death of a Labour councillor.  Swallowed up by Salford in 1974, Eccles is an ex-textile town on the north bank of the Manchester Ship Canal and on the Liverpool and Manchester railway.  The ward runs north from the town centre across the M602 arterial motorway to include the Ellesmere Park and Monton areas to the north and north-west.  Socially it runs the gamut from some very deprived areas in the town centre and Ellesmere Park to Monton, which is quite a nice area.  Monton and Ellesmere Road is presumably where the Tory vote comes from, and this was a Labour/Tory marginal during the Blair and Brown years, the Conservatives winning in 2007 and 2008, but Labour decisively gained one of the Conservative seats in May (Lab 55.1 C 27.9 UKIP 10.8 LD 6.3).  Candidates for the by-election are the three main parties plus the BNP and an independent.

ELLESMERE PORT TOWN, Cheshire West and Chester; caused by the death of the leader of the Labour group.  This industrial town (the local football team is still called Vauxhall Motors) was founded in the nineteenth century on the south bank of the Mersey, and is named after the Ellesmere Canal which reaches the sea here.  This ward runs from Ellesmere Port railway station (two trains an hour on the Wirral Line to Liverpool, plus four trains a day to Helsby) south through the town centre and the Wolverham area to Cheshire Oaks, the UK's largest designer outlet and a major local employer.  On the opposite side of the M53 motorway is part of the enormous chemical works.  The ward was created in May and the only previous result is Lab 79.8 C 13.5 LD 6.8; predecessor wards on the former Ellesmere Port and Neston council are part of safe Labour Stanlow and Wolverham ward and the whole of normally safe Labour Central ward (although the Tories did get within 6 points of Labour in 2007).  Candidates for the by-election are the three main parties plus UKIP and Socialist Labour.

PARK HALL, Mansfield, Nottinghamshire; a long-delayed by-election caused by the death of a Labour councillor the day after she was re-elected in May's local election.  The ward is located in the northern Mansfield suburb of Mansfield Woodhouse along Park Hall Road; generally one of the district's more deprived areas.  Mansfield had new wards created in May and the only previous result is Lab 57.8 Mansfield Independent Forum (who are associated with the borough's elected Mayor) 35.3 LD 7.0.  The Tories and UKIP will also enter the fray at the by-election.

SHORTLANDS, Bromley, South London; caused by the resignation of a Conservative councillor.  Despite having a Bromley postal address, this ward is part of the affluent south-east London suburb of Beckenham, which boomed in the late nineteenth century after the coming of the railway; at the junction of the Chatham Main Line and the Catford Loop, Shortlands station is 10 miles from Victoria and has four trains per hour to there via Herne Hill and a further two to Blackfriars via Catford.  This creates an affluent commuter ward, five of whose six census areas are in the 20% least deprived in England; the result of this in Bromley borough is a very safe Conservative ward, the 2010 result being C 57.9 Grn 14.5 Lab 14.2 LD 13.3.  The Green strength was probably due to a protest vote more than anything; they didn't stand here in 2006 and polled just 6% in the 2008 GLA elections (C 60.8 Lab 11.0 LD 9.6 Grn 6.1 BNP 4.1 Christian 2.7; Boris polled 68.6%).  Candidates for the by-election are the three main parties, the Greens, UKIP and the BNP.

WALTON, Stafford; caused by the death of a long-serving Conservative councillor.  This ward is a suburb of the market town of Stone, located to the south of the town centre on the opposite side of the River Trent.  The ward is bisected by the dual-carriageway A34, the main road to Stafford seven miles to the south.  Walton ward has some of Stone's most desirable areas, but the politics in 2007 didn't reflect that, the three seats splitting Conservative/Labour/Independent; the Tories did however clean up this May when the shares of the vote were C 35.1 Ind 25.7 Lab 22.8 second Ind 9.6.  Candidates for the by-elecion are Conservative, Labour and Independent.

[doktorb]

From their website :

http://ymlp.com/z0ZaSm

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[ObserverIE]

Adur, Cokeham

Con 39.6 (-1.9)
Lab 38.8 (+18.7)
UKIP 12.5 (+0.7)
Green 4.8 (+4.8 )
Lib Dem 4.3 (-22.4)

Great Yarmouth, Bradwell South and Hopton

Con 49.6 (+3.4)
Lab 36.2 (+0.3)
UKIP 14.2 (+1.5)

Cheshire West and Chester, Ellesmere Port Town

Lab 71.6 (-8.2)
Con 10.6 (-2.7)
Soc Lab 6.8 (+6.8 )
UKIP 6.7 (+6.7)
Lib Dem 4.3 (-2.5)

Bromley, Shortlands

Con 59.5 (+1.6)
Lib Dem 19.7 (+6.4)
Lab 10.3 (-3.9)
UKIP 6.1 (+6.1)
Green 3.0 (-11.5)
BNP 1.4 (+1.4)

Stafford, Walton

Ind 45.6 (+3.4)
Con 29.8 (-5.3)
Lab 24.5 (+1.7)

Nottingham, Bridge

Lab 50.2 (-1.8 )
Lib Dem 38.9 (+2.7)
Con 7.5 (-4.3)
UKIP 2.2 (+2.2)
Elvis 1.2 (+1.2)
Mansfield, Park Hall

Lab 53.2 (-4.6)
Mansfield Ind 21.0 (-14.3)
Lib Dem 20.1 (+13.1)
UKIP 3.2 (+3.2)
Con 2.6 (+2.6)

Salford, Eccles

Lab 54.5 (-0.6)
Con 31.1 (+3.2)
BNP 6.5 (+6.5)
Lib Dem 5.5 (-0.8 )
Ind 2.4 (+2.4)

Mole Valley, Bookham South

Lib Dem 47.2 (+2.6)
Con 42.5 (-4.4)
UKIP 10.3 (+1.9)

(via Britain Votes)

[doktorb]

Some more info on Brig's affluence level and social makeup would be welcome, thanks!

If you still need this (sorry for the late reply!).....Bamber Bridge (or as you are quite rightly directed to call it, Brig) is a fairly suburban little town/large village.  Good mix of the "hard working families" working locally in below average pay offices and shops and the like, and commuter country working in Preston or Blackburn, maybe even further away,  and then there's a good slice of new build estates springing up with the young professionals that flock to such places.  There's no obvious pockets of poverty, it's very much "comfortable".

The ward with a byelection is an odd one - a good slice of it is an industrial estate (where I worked for nearly 2 years).

Here are some streets within Bamber Bridge East :

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=mounsey+road,+bamber+bridge&hl=en&ll=53.725738,-2.659496&spn=0.000013,0.017585&sll=53.385022,-3.02817&sspn=0.008946,0.026994&vpsrc=6&hnear=Mounsey+Rd,+Bamber+Bridge,+Preston+PR5,+United+Kingdom&t=h&z=17&layer=c&cbll=53.72574,-2.656091&panoid=nddZHi0mKpE5gt_TwacaCg&cbp=12,119.03,,0,3.95


http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=poplar+avenue,+bamber+bridge&hl=en&ll=53.731889,-2.660215&spn=0.000013,0.017585&sll=53.72574,-2.656091&sspn=0.004462,0.017585&vpsrc=6&hnear=Poplar+Ave,+Bamber+Bridge,+Preston+PR5,+United+Kingdom&t=h&z=17&layer=c&cbll=53.731891,-2.656819&panoid=eEJCLA11DdJ8kA9Ex1z_jw&cbp=12,343.57,,0,-3.41

[minionofmidas]

Adur, Cokeham

Con 39.6 (-1.9)
Lab 38.8 (+18.7)
UKIP 12.5 (+0.7)
Green 4.8 (+4.8 )
Lib Dem 4.3 (-22.4)

Aw. A Labour gain here would have been cute.

[Dr. Cynic]

Adur, Cokeham

Con 39.6 (-1.9)
Lab 38.8 (+18.7)
UKIP 12.5 (+0.7)
Green 4.8 (+4.8 )
Lib Dem 4.3 (-22.4)

Aw. A Labour gain here would have been cute.

Looks like Labour and Green gained nearly the entirety of the abandoned LibDem vote.

Btw, forgive me if that sounds redundant. I'm still learning British politics.

[minionofmidas]

Some more info on Brig's affluence level and social makeup would be welcome, thanks!

If you still need this (sorry for the late reply!)

Oh, I never needed it. But thanks!

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

Six by-elections on 27th October:

BLOXWICH EAST, Walsall, West Midlands; caused by the death of a Conservative councillor.  Arguably the northernmost town of the Black Country, Bloxwich became famous in the nineteenth century as the UK's foremost manufacturer of awl blades, as well as for other light metalworking.  The town was swallowed up into Walsall county borough relatively early, and Walsall Corporation built council houses on much of the land now in this ward, which is entirely on the eastern side of the A34 Walsall-Stafford road; as a result most of the census areas rank highly in the indices of multiple deprivation.  In Walsall this doesn't translate into a safe Labour ward because of Walsall Labour's wacky reputation (perhaps the Boardbashi could enlighten us...?); the three seats split 2C/1Lab when the ward was created in 2004 and stayed that way until this May; Labour held on by just thirteen votes in 2006, the Conservatives held in the following two years with increasing majorities (296 in 2007, 745 in 2008), and Labour held rather more comfortably in 2010 by 248 votes.  The change finally came in May with a Labour gain by just 6 votes (Lab 42.8 C 42.3 UKIP 8.1 Democratic Labour 3.8 LD 2.9), and Labour now have a chance to gain the final Conservative seat in this by-election.  Candidates are Conservative, Labour, UKIP, Greens and English Democrats.

BUDE NORTH AND STRATTON, Cornwall; caused by the resignation of a Lib Dem councillor.  Cornwall's northernmost town, Bude is a Victorian seaside resort with good surfing conditions, while its twin town Stratton, about a mile inland, is a more ancient market town which was once the centre of one of Cornwall's ten hundreds.  Created in 2009 for the unitary Cornwall council, the ward is one of two-and-a-half wards within the area covered by Bude-Stratton town council; it contains the northern half of Bude, all of Stratton and the village of Flexbury just to the north of Bude.  In 2009 it was a straight fight between Conservative and Lib Dem, the Lib Dems winning a landslide by 72.4-27.6; the Lib Dem councillor had previously represented Poughill and Stratton ward on North Cornwall district council.  Poughill and Stratton ward normally split LD/Ind, while Bude ward was safe Lib Dem in 2007 but the two seats split in 2003 between Lib Dem and Mebyon Kernow, the Cornish nationalist movement, who were not far behind the two Lib Dem candidates in 2005 in the former Bude-Stratton county division.  Candidates for the by-election are the three main parties (and it's been a long time since there was a Labour candidate here, if there ever has been one here) plus an independent amusingly named Louise Emo.  It'll be interesting to see if there's an Emo vote here.

COATBRIDGE NORTH AND GLENBOIG, North Lanarkshire; caused by the resignation of a Labour councillor.  Winner of the 2007 Carbuncle award for being most the dismal town in Scotland, Coatbridge's roots go back to the nineteenth century when it became a major centre for ironworking and coalmining; this attracted a huge number of Irish immigrants to the town.  The industrial bust came rather earlier here than it did in many other places, with the coal exhausted by 1920 and only one of the ironworks surviving the Great Depression.  The town's low-lying nature and industrial past has given it good transport links, and there are three railway stations in the ward; Coatbridge Central (one train per hour to Motherwell and Cumbernauld, plus a few peak-hour trains on the Argyle Line to Motherwell, Glasgow Central and beyond) and Coatbridge Sunnyside and Blairhill (four trains an hour on the North Clyde line to Edinburgh Waverley, Glasgow Queen Street and beyond); this, together with the proximity of the A8 motorway to the south means that distribution is now a major local employer.  The Irish immigration still has its effects today, with around half of the population giving their religion as Roman Catholic in the last census, and led to a political scandal in 1994 when the town was part of Monklands district council; Monklandsgate, as it was known, alleged that there were sectarian spending discrepancies in favour of Coatbridge over Airdrie (a mainly Protestant town to the east) on the grounds that the entire ruling Labour group were Roman Catholic.  This turned out to be false but related allegations of nepotism were upheld; the issue dominated the Monklands East by-election after John Smith died.  This ward, as the name suggests, covers the north of the town together with countryside to the north as far as the edge of Cumbernauld, including the village of Glenboig.  When PR came in for Scottish local government in 2007 Labour won two seats in this ward, the SNP won one and the remaining seat went to an independent, who overtook the Conservatives on SSP and Labour transfers; first preferences were Lab 47.8 SNP 29.4 C 10.6 Ind 9.0 SSP 3.2.  There was a previous by-election in June 2009 after the SNP councillor decided to concentrate on being an MSP, at which Labour gained the SNP seat; first preferences then were Lab 37.2 SNP 30.5 Ind 13.5 C 8.8 Ind 5.3 Grn 2.9 SSP 2.0, the Green candidate being BritainVotes contributor Kristofer Keane; Labour only narrowly won the 2-party preferred, 50.9-49.1.  Coatbridge and Chryston was one of the Labour seats which resisted the SNP tide in May, so this could be an interesting battle to watch.  Candidates this time are just the four main parties.

NEWCHAPEL, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire; caused by the resignation of a Conservative councillor.  The north-eastern corner of Newcastle-under-Lyme district, this ward covers a surprisingly hilly area between the towns of Kidsgrove and Biddulph which was once part of Kidsgrove Urban District, running from Newchapel itself at the southern end, through Harriseahead to the hilltop village of Mow Cop, which straddles the Staffordshire/Cheshire border along the hill of the same name, which rises to a summit of 335 metres (1100 feet).  (Incidentally, Mow Cop is visible from higher parts of Bolton on a good day and can be easily identified by the TV mast at the summit: )

The ward's two census areas are both in the middle of the deprivation indices.  The politics of the ward are quite interesting; when it was created in 2002 the Lib Dems won both seats, but promptly lost them in 2003 (to the Conservatives) and 2004 (to Labour; there was no Conservative candidate that year, presumably they messed up their nomination papers).  The Conservatives decisively gained the Labour seat in 2008 but performed relatively poorly in a February 2010 by-election which saw a close three-way race for second place won by UKIP, who are very well organised in this borough (C 33.5 UKIP 23.8 Lab 22.2 LD 20.5).  Labour gained the ward in May by 50 votes (Lab 32.7 C 27.3 Ind 18.1 UKIP 15.4 LD 6.5) and will now be looking to gain the other seat.  Candidates for the by-election are the three main parties plus UKIP.

THORNTON DALE AND THE WOLDS, North Yorkshire County Council; caused by the resignation of a Conservative councillor in order to care for his wife.  This is an enormously-sized division covering a swathe of countryside between Norton, Pickering and Scarborough; from the northern end it runs along the Whitby-Pickering road past the Hole of Horcum, down to the beautiful village of Thornton-le-Dale on the Pickering-Scarborough road (Thornton Dale ward), then across the low-lying Vale of Derwent to take in some small villages up on the Yorkshire Wolds (Rillington, Sherburn and Wolds wards).  With the exception of Thornton-le-Dale, which is more upmarket, most of the census areas are in the middle of the deprivation indices.  The 2009 result (C 61.5 LD 29.7 Lab 8.8 ) suggests that this should be an easy Conservative hold.  The by-election is a straight C/LD fight.

WYRESIDE, Lancashire County Council; caused by the death of a Conservative councillor.  This county division is basically the rural northern half of the Fylde peninsula, covering the area between Garstang and the Wyre estuary together with a few villages on the south side of the Wyre, the largest of which is Great Eccleston.  The main settlements in the ward are Pilling, Preesall, Hambleton and Knott End-on-Sea, from which the ferry to Fleetwood departs that is the only link between Fleetwood and the rest of the Lancaster and Fleetwood parliamentary constituency.  It's an agricultural and surprisingly low-lying area, with the main road from Pilling to Lancaster once regularly flooded by high tides.  All of the division's census areas are within the 40% least deprived in England with the exception of Knott End, which has a significant retiree population.  The division is safe Tory and wasn't seriously contested in 2009, the shares of the vote then being C 65.9 Grn 21.1 Lab 13.1; in 2005 it was a straight fight between Tory and Labour, the Conservatives winning by 64.2-35.8.  I'm not sure of the reason for the Green strength as the Greens only stood in one of the constituent district wards in May (Pilling, polling 21%), but this division does border the Green-held county division of Lancaster Central.  The same Green candidate is contesting the by-election along with candidates from the Conservatives, Labour and UKIP.

[MaxQue]

Funny than Withby, Scarborough and Pickering are cities which are near one each other.

[minionofmidas]

Funny than Withby, Scarborough and Pickering are cities which are near one each other.

Well yeah, Ontario is a funny England-themed theme park.

[minionofmidas]

Candidates this time are just the four main parties.

This! Is! SCOTLAND!
There are only two main parties.
Especially as the LDs seem not even to have stood here in recent history.

[ObserverIE]

Newcastle-under-Lyme, Newchapel

Lab 45.7 (+13.0)
Con 29.5 (+2.2)
UKIP 21.7 (+6.3)
Lib Dem 3.1 (-3.4)

North Lanarkshire, Coatbridge North and Glenboig (changes from 2009 by-election in italics)

Lab 52.4 (+4.6) (+15.2)
SNP 39.0 (+9.6) (+8.5)
Con 6.0 (-4.6) (-2.8 )
Lib Dem 2.7 (+2.7) (+2.7)

Cornwall, Bude North and Stratton

Lib Dem 61.2 (-11.2)
Con 25.2 (-2.4)
Lab 7.7 (+7.7)
Ind 5.9 (+5.9)

Lancashire, Wyreside

Con 58.0 (-7.9)
Lab 23.4 (+10.3)
UKIP 9.6 (+9.6)
Green 9.0 (-12.1)

Walsall, Bloxwich East

Lab 48.0 (+6.2)
Con 43.5 (+1.2)
UKIP 5.1 (-3.0)
Eng Dem 2.6 (+2.6)
Green 0.8 (+0.8 )

(via BritainVotes)

North Yorkshire, Thornton Dale and The Wolds

Con 66.2 (+4.7)
Lib Dem 33.8 (+4.1)

(via Vote 2007)

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

By-elections on 3rd November, two in the Scottish Highlands and two in the English Midlands.

INVERNESS SOUTH, Highland Council; caused by a Labour councillor being found guilty of a £43,000 benefit fraud.  This is one of five multi-member wards named after the city of Inverness, capital and main administrative centre of the Highlands.  Unlike the other four wards, it contains very little of the actual city itself, the main population centres being Inverness suburbs such as Westhill, Inshes and Milton of Leys.  The ward also includes a large rural area to the south east, including the Culloden battlefield and following the A9 and the Highland railway line to Slochd Summit.  In 2007 the shares of the vote were SNP 27.0 LD 23.0 Ind 22.4 Lab 17.1 C 10.5, with the four seats being shared SNP/LD/Lab/Ind; all four councillors were brand new, with the Labour candidate the only one with previous electoral experience having unsuccessfully fought Inshes as an independent in 2003.  Inshes would appear to be rather less well-off than the rest of the ward and is presumably the source of the Labour vote.  The by-election has attracted a large field of candidates, with the four main parties being joined by the Greens, the Christian Party and an Independent.

OBAN NORTH AND LORN, Argyll and Bute; caused by the death of an SNP councillor.  This is a very large ward in the Scottish Highlands covering the northern end of the old county of Argyll, an area which was once the district of Lorne (which, through various aristocratic connections, is the source of all those Lorne place-names in Canada), together with the northern part of the port of Oban.  The ward also includes some islands in Loch Linnhe, the largest of which is Lismore.  The largest settlement wholly in the ward is probably Dalmally, on the road and railway line east towards Crianlarich and birthplace of the late Labour leader John Smith.  Much of the local economy is based on tourism, with a year-round employer being the Cruachan Dam hydroelectric power station (a fact which once won me a bottle of beer in a quiz for being the only person to correctly answer the relevant question ).  First preferences in 2007 were Ind 54.6 SNP 22.4 LD 14.6 C 8.5, with the first two seats going to two incumbent independent councillors and the SNP and Lib Dems sharing the other two.  The by-election sees two independent candidates (one of whom stood unsuccessfully in 2007) along with candidates from the SNP, Lib Dems and Conservatives.

SYSTON RIDGEWAY, Leicestershire County Council; caused by the death of a Conservative councillor.  Located six miles north-east of Leicester on the Fosse Way and the road to Melton is the town of Syston.  These days it's a commuter town for the city of Leicester, with Syston station having hourly trains to Leicester and Nottingham on the so-called Ivanhoe Line, and its politics basically reflects that.  This county division combines the eastern half of the town with the even richer villages of Queniborough and Rearsby to the north and a rural area to the east as far as South Croxton.  Only one of the division's six-and-a-half census areas (in central Syston) is within England's most deprived 40%, while two-and-a-half are in the least deprived 20%.  Shares of the vote in 2009 were C 52.6 BNP 19.4 LD 17.4 Lab 10.6; the BNP have performed well in this part of Leicestershire over the last few years and in May they held their seat in East Goscote ward of Charnwood council (one of only two seats the BNP won in May).  East Goscote ward borders this division and the BNP councillor is standing in this by-election against the three main parties.

YOXALL, East Staffordshire; caused by the resignation of a Conservative councillor who "wants to spend more time on his farm" - he was elected for the first time in May so perhaps decided that being a local councillor wasn't for him.  East Staffordshire is a starkly divided local government district, with the brewing town of Burton upon Trent normally outvoted by the Tory town of Uttoxeter and the rural area, of which this ward is a part: it consists of several villages on or just off the A515 Lichfield-Ashbourne road, with Yoxall itself at the south end, Newborough at the north end and Hoar Cross in between.  May's result was C 79.3 Lab 20.7, which from Labour's point of view is an improvement on the 87-13 drubbing they got in 2007.  The by-election is another straight C/Lab fight.

[ObserverIE]

Leicestershire, Syston Ridgeway

Con 52.1 (-0.5)
Lab 26.0 (+15.4)
BNP 14.8 (-4.6)
Lib Dem 7.0 (-10.4)

East Staffordshire, Yoxall

Con 84.3 (+5.0)
Lab 15.7 (-5.0)

(via Britain Votes)

Highland, Inverness South

SNP 33.9 (+6.9)
Lib Dem 28.7 (+5.7)
Lab 11.8 (-5.3)
Con 11.1 (+0.6)
Green 6.0 (+6.0)
Christian 4.8 (+4.8 )
Ind 3.6 (-18.8 )

Lib Dem	747	761	777	830	971	1091
SNP	885	903	922	967	1005	1084
Lab	308	319	327	357	379
Con	290	300	336	339
Green	157	172	189
Christian	126	130
Ind	94

Argyll and Bute, Oban North and Lorn

SNP 44.1 (+21.7)
Con 20.6 (+12.1)
Ind (Neal) 17.9 (+17.9)
Lib Dem 10.6 (-4.0)
Ind (Doyle) 6.7 (+2.8 )

SNP	1081	1117	1179	1374
Con	505	523	591	758
Ind (Neal)	438	496	561
Lib Dem	260	273
Ind (Doyle)	165

[doktorb]

Yoxall

Conservative 478 (84%)
Labour 89 (16%)

(Via the lovely Nicola at East Staffs electoral office)

[doktorb]

LibDems win Inverness South by 4 votes at the Final Count

[YL]

Full count details for Inverness South from Highland Council's website.

I always find transfers interesting, particularly weird ones like the 16 from the "Scottish Christian Party" to the Lib Dems.  Generally the Lib Dem seems to have done very well from the transfers, particularly from the elimination of the Tory (not surprising) but also from the elimination of the Labour candidate.

As for Oban North and Lorn, Argyll and Bute, first preferences were (from the Council website)
SNP 1081 (44.1%)
Con 505 (20.6%)
Ind (Neal) 438 (17.9%)
Lib Dem 260 (10.6%)
Ind (Doyle) 165 (6.7%)
Details of later counts don't seem to be on the site but unsurprisingly the SNP won.
 
Edit: now found the full result for Oban North & Lorn, via VoteUK.  Lib Dem transfers were fairly even between SNP/Con/Ind; Ind transfers favoured the other Ind then the SNP.