U.K Local By-Elections Thread

[Rural Radical]

I think he meant, including lower-level councils inside Surrey.

I'd guessed that; 19 is still far more than I'd thought there'd be... I thought maybe 8 or so at the most.

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*tries to get head round this*

*head explodes*

To be fair their is a liklihood that Labour can have"safe" seats in a county like Surrey. They are probably base areas like council estates etc.

In Durham (County Council) there are 2 pretty safe Conservative Divisions (The rural areas in and around Barnard Castle) in the safest Labour County Council (ironically the only Labour County Council in 1977). The polar opposite is Buckinghamshire (the only Conservative County Council in 1993).

The 2 labour members in Surrey, and the 4 in Bucks(High Wycombe area) equate to the 2 Conservatives in Co. Durham.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

They are probably base areas like council estates etc.

Very probably; still seems odd though

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True; although big parts of both (or is it just one?) of the two Tory divisions in Co. Durham used to be in Yorkshire (NR). Romaldkirk and all that.

[Rural Radical]

They are probably base areas like council estates etc.

Very probably; still seems odd though

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True; although big parts of both (or is it just one?) of the two Tory divisions in Co. Durham used to be in Yorkshire (NR). Romaldkirk and all that.

Quite true. Though Barnard Castle is a marginally Labour Town out voted by the rural areas. The town is split between the two divisions.

[Peter]

The two remaining Labour County Council seats are in Stanwell and Chertsey, neither are particularly safe, and Stanwell is approaching super-marginal status.

Here is a really cool map for the County council seats: map.

Unfortunately, the bastards have taken the election results off that website, so you have to go to the individual district/borough councils to retrieve the election results for the County wards.

[minionofmidas]

That's the map I remember.
The Northern one was ultra-marginal IIRC, but I'd remembered Chertsey as Labour close to 50% against a divided opposition. Maybe I'm remembering wrongly. Maybe the fact that there was a not really marginal Labour seat on that council impressed me so much that his majority got further inflated in my memory. Happens.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Some interesting by-elections last week; Labour had good swing in an ultra-safe ward in Gateshead and picked up a seat from the Tories, on a large swing, in Thurrock while easily holding another in the same UA.
LibDems gained a seat in Hereford off the Indies.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Apparently Labour have gained a seat off the LibDems in Oxford; Jericho & Osney, on a big swing. Greenies almost took 2nd place.

More details soon hopefully. There were probably some other results last night; will post when found. I reckon we'll see a notable Cameron bounce as Tory voters turn out slightly higher than normal.

[Rural Radical]

Yes labour have gained a seat of the Lib Dems in Oxford (Jerico & Osney)
Labour held a seat in Lancaster BC  WITH AN INCREASED MAJORITY.

Held a seat in North Lincolnshire with a swing from the Cons. They also held a seat by 52 votes (coming within 52 votes from losing control of the council. Composition is now Cons 22 Labour 21)

Also Cons gained a seat of the Lib Dems in Howden (ironically David Davis's Constituency.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

More results: Tories hold a largely white collar (for Derbyshire) seat in Amber Valley. Good swing for Labour and a collapse in the LibDem vote.

Huge swing to the Tories in a Torbay by-election; LibDem vote falls by over 30pts and the Tories come close to taking 80%.

Plaid gain a rural seat in Conwy previously held by an Indie; only Plaid, the LibDems and the Tories stood, so you can guess how lopsided this one was...

Tories easily hold another Devon ward (in South Hams).

---
Overall a good night for both Labour and the Tories and a terrible one for the LibDems.

The North Lincs results fit in with other Lincs results post-election. Ridge is usually a safe Tory ward (based around Kirton-in-Lindsey). The result in Lancaster saw a collapse in the LibDem vote in a CC Division with a lot of students in it. Significantly the Greenies (who didn't run a candidate there in May) took 22% and were a mere 40 votes from claiming second place.

Could someone who knows anything about Oxford say what the Jericho & Osney ward is like?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Oh this is classic; apparently Howden was held by the guy that Davis beat in the General Election!

[Rural Radical]

Oh this is classic; apparently Howden was held by the guy that Davis beat in the General Election!

Why did he step down. To parachuted into a safe Lib Dem seat ?

[Peter]

Apparently Labour have gained a seat off the LibDems in Oxford; Jericho & Osney, on a big swing. Greenies almost took 2nd place.

More details soon hopefully. There were probably some other results last night; will post when found. I reckon we'll see a notable Cameron bounce as Tory voters turn out slightly higher than normal.

Yes, this is the 2004 seat, which was a LD gain off Labour. In 2002, both seats had been strongly Labour, and indeed the Greens did come in ahead of the LDs in 2002. Jericho & Osney was a part of the sysmic shift of 2004 that took the Council off Labour. Jericho has pretty good links into City Centre, and the disaster that the City Centre "refurbishment" was at the time had annoyed many of the residents.

2004 results:
LD - 848
Lab - 721
G - 332
C - 266

By-election result:
Lab - 713
LD - 437
G - 355
C - 115

The new Labour councillor is Colin Cook, who had been councillor for the ward before he was kicked out in 04.

I must confess that I don't know much about the Osney end of the ward. Jericho is often populated by a lot of students, and is notoriously the most expensive of all the student areas in terms of rent. There is a lot of social housing mixed in with this as many of the student houses used to be social, but a lot of residents took up right to buy in the 80s and 90s.

Those living in social housing tend to be in the service sector as opposed to manufacturing (which is the other end of town). Politically active students tend to break for the Greens at the local level for various complicated reasons.

What will have hurt the LDs is that the by-election fell 5 days after the end of the Uni term. Thus many of the more apathetic students won't have voted, and certainly wouldn't have cared to get a postal vote - these voters are often key Lib Dem voters locally. The politically active Green voters on the other hand, seem to have gotten their postal votes or stayed up the extra week.

Labour have recovered somewhat from the 04 defeat because the "refurbishment" of the City Centre is now no longer at the forefront of people's minds, and therefore those who use it are no longer punishing them.

Apparently the LDs went negative as well, though thats only something I've heard from a friend of a friend of a friend ......

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Thanks Pete

[Filuwaúrdjan]

An interesting set of elections last night; all concerning the Tories and LibDems.

The LibDems were utterly slaughtered in a by-election in Bournemouth; the ward was LibDem held and the Tory polled over 67%... and more good news for the Tories came in Croydon where they easily held a ward and polled over 50%... however, in Barnet the Tories lost their High Barnet stronghold to the LibDems on a huge swing.
LibDems are rumoured to have taken a seat off the Tories in Suffolk, but I haven't found any confirmation off that yet.

Conclusions? Overall a Cameron bounce in white collar areas (as all the wards up for election were) is very clear, with a rather large exception in Barnet which the Tories now look set to lose control of in May.

[Rural Radical]

A few extra results.

Carrick DC, Kenwyn & Chacewater
Con 350 (71%, +25.2%)
LD 216 (29%, -4.6%)
Con GAIN from LD

Forest Heath DC, Red Lodge
LD 173 (55.3%, +55.3%)
Con 111 (35.5%, -20.3%)
UKIP 29 (9.3%, +9.3%)
LD GAIN from Con

Lewes DC, Peacehaven North
Con 406 (64.6%, 12.7%)
LD 113 (18%, -12%)
Lab 109 (17.4%, -0.8%)
Con HOLD

Lichfield DC, Chadsmead
Con 192 (39.2%, -5.9%)
Lab 181 (36.9%, -4.3%)
LD 117 (23.9%, +10.2%)
Con GAIN from Lab

[Filuwaúrdjan]

IIRC we now don't have any by-elections until the New Year. Assuming that this is the case the net changes for this year are:

Con +2, Lab +1, LD +12, SNP +4, PC +1, Ind -20

This is the first year for quite a while that Labour has had a net gain in; and in the past few years losses have been pretty heavy (-14 in 2004, -18 in 2003 etc, etc).
The LibDems had had a truely excellent year up until these past few months when they've suddenly lost a fair bit of ground. Reverse this comment for the Tories.

[Rural Radical]

IIRC we now don't have any by-elections until the New Year. Assuming that this is the case the net changes for this year are:

Con +2, Lab +1, LD +12, SNP +4, PC +1, Ind -20

This is the first year for quite a while that Labour has had a net gain in; and in the past few years losses have been pretty heavy (-14 in 2004, -18 in 2003 etc, etc).
The LibDems had had a truely excellent year up until these past few months when they've suddenly lost a fair bit of ground. Reverse this comment for the Tories.

Very interesting. IMO next year will see good amount of gains for Labour and the Conservativesand a bad one for the Lib Dems.

What was the Last year Labour ended up with More councillors than the year before ? 1996 or 1997 ? Also what was the last year a governing party won more council seats thatn the year before ? 1982 ?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I was wrong; seems there was a by-election after all. For a seat on a town council in North Wales. Which means it doesn't count for overall gain/loss figures.
The town was Pensarn and Labour gained the seat of the LibDems if anyone is interested.

[Peter]

Is there anyway we can calculate a net change in share of vote?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Is there anyway we can calculate a net change in share of vote?

Average swings is the usual trick (if you have the time...) Not a great fan of doing that though. PA used to do something about that on it's thursday night reports on local by-elections, but they seem to have stopped doing it now.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

There were some by-elections on Thursday. Nowt of interest to any of ye.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

New results...

Labour hold a seat in Sherwood unopposed, LibDems hold a seat in Ely on a big swing (local Tory-run council is unpopular apparently) and win a seat on Porthcawl Town Council from the Tories.

Not a lot can be drawn from any of that methinks

[minionofmidas]

New results...

Labour hold a seat in Sherwood unopposed, LibDems hold a seat in Ely on a big swing (local Tory-run council is unpopular apparently) and win a seat on Porthcawl Town Council from the Tories.

Not a lot can be drawn from any of that methinks

No, the LibDems have obviously turned a corner and are going to conquer all in the coming year! YEEHAW!

[Filuwaúrdjan]

No, the LibDems have obviously turned a corner and are going to conquer all in the coming year! YEEHAW!

First Porthcawl, then the World!

[Filuwaúrdjan]

A grim night for the LibDems; just for once there was an important local by-election... for the Durham South division on County Durham CC. Durham South covers most of the south of the City of Durham constituency (as of 2005 the only technical marginal in the county) and is a mix of white collar residential areas and old pit villages (guess how each vote...) and was one of the most marginal divisions in the district in the 2005 elections. The LibDems put a lot of work into it and had some high profile visits.

The result... Lab 51.4%, LibDem 34.6%, Con 13.4%... was a large swing to Labour.

Meanwhile the Tories took close to 90% in a by-election in Prestbury (extremely rich commuter "village" in Macclesfield BC. It's places like this that explain why a seat named for a large Labour-leaning town is so safely Tory...) where the LibDems were their only opposition... and who had almost won the ward when it was last up for election...