UK local by-elections 2012

[YL]

I presume those last two posts were meant to go in the May elections thread?

[YL]

I'm not that surprised by the Redcar gain: it appears that the ward wasn't particularly natural Lib Dem territory and that they had a strong personal vote.  The Lib Dems can suffer in those situations when they have a new candidate, and I suspect that the publicity about their candidate's Facebook and Twitter outbursts didn't help.  OK, I'm not typical of the electorate in that ward, but given that "Lib" Dem and a generic Labour candidate, I'd have chosen Labour even in the post-Iraq Blair years.

[YL]

Today Towcester is probably best known for its racecourse

... and, of course, for being pronounced "Toaster".

[YL]

Poor results in Herts and Hunts, but much better elsewhere.

Odd difference in the Herts results, actually, with Labour doing well in the Dacorum district seat (13% swing since 2011) but badly in the county council seat (less than 6% swing since 2009).

As for Hunts, Earith is in the Fens, so I wouldn't expect it to vote like a normal place.

[YL]

Looks like Stoke's relatively normal election last year may have been a blip, then.  At least the BNP didn't make an impact.

[YL]

The Lincolnshire Lib Dem performances suggest the collapse of a personal vote for the councillor who died, but reading the Holy Word suggests the Lib Dem strength in the area wasn't just down to him; maybe the local organisation has collapsed as well.

[YL]

This week's Holy Word

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Dok, can you get those into constituency names?

[YL]

From the Holy Word I see that there was a large Independent vote in Spellowfields last year, which explains the weird looking vote share changes and makes it difficult to judge who this is actually a good result for.

Camden: Tory vote still holding up quite well in London (or at least its posh bits) relative to the rest of the country?

@Leftbehind: do you know that Middlesbrough ward well?

[YL]

So, any guesses on the turnout in a local by-election on a particularly horrible November day (well, maybe it's not as bad down there as it is here) a week after voters (um, well, some of them) went to the polls for something else?

[YL]

AIUI the UKIP candidate had been suspended by the party before polls opened.  How many of the voters were actually aware of that I have no idea, though.

Anyway, remind me not to move there.  Con+UKIP over 80% in four-way races...ugh.