U.K Local By-Elections Thread

[Democratic Hawk]

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.

I calculated a swing the Labour of 6.95% . Labour up 4.8%; Lib Dems down 9.1% and Tories up 4.2%. Turnout was just over 34%. Lab maj. 273 (up from 97 in 2005)

We had a stellar candidate in Mac Williams

Dave

[Rural Radical]

Al

You beat my posting.

However a good result for a`Labour in the Home Counties

Rushmoor BC, North Town
Lab 649 (57.7%, + 4.1%)
Con 286 (25.4%, - 3.3%)
Lib Dem (16.8%, +5.7%)
Lab Hold

With regard to the Durham contest. The Lib Dem star is falling fast in working Class areas. This in a seat they should have won last May if they were gaoing to do anything.

[Democratic Hawk]

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.

I calculated a swing the Labour of 6.95% . Labour up 4.8%; Lib Dems down 9.1% and Tories up 4.2%. Turnout was just over 34%. Lab maj. 273 (up from 97 in 2005)

We had a stellar candidate in Mac Williams

Dave

Correction. I've since been advised that the swing from LD to Lab was 13.9%

I agree, Al. Furthermore, I think with Mac Williams now Councillor bang go any future hopes of them taking the seat . He is very well respected and much liked gentleman

Dave

[minionofmidas]

You should advise whoever advised you that while his definition of swing is sometimes used in the US, it is mathematically incorrect and not commonly used in the UK. The swing was 6.9%.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I agree, Al. Furthermore, I think with Mac Williams now Councillor bang go any future hopes of them taking the seat . He is very well respected and much liked gentleman

First black member of County Durham CC apparently

You should advise whoever advised you that while his definition of swing is sometimes used in the US, it is mathematically incorrect and not commonly used in the UK.

Yes; that's because swing used over here was popularized by David Butler in '50's and institutionalised by the swingometer on TV election night coverage from the '60's onward.

[Democratic Hawk]

You should advise whoever advised you that while his definition of swing is sometimes used in the US, it is mathematically incorrect and not commonly used in the UK. The swing was 6.9%.

Are you saying that I was originally correct ?

Dave

[minionofmidas]

You should advise whoever advised you that while his definition of swing is sometimes used in the US, it is mathematically incorrect and not commonly used in the UK. The swing was 6.9%.

Are you saying that I was originally correct ?

Dave

Absolutely.

[Harry Hayfield]

The techical definition of swing is:

The change in support between either a) the top two parties (Butler) or b) between the Labour Party and Conservative (Craig), therefore the swing in this election can be expressed as:

6.95% from Lib Dem to Lab (Butler)
0.3% from Con to Lab

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Some odd results last night... in Derbyshire Labour held marginal Heanor & Loscoe with a slightly increased majority (up to about 10%) but this time over the *BNP* rather than the Tories. It looks like a classic case of Labour vote down due to turnout + BNP grab bulk of Tory vote, seen in more than just a few local by-elections over the years. Luckily turnout wasn't down by all that much... in South Ayrshire an Independent took the North Carrick & Maybole East ward off Labour and held off the Tories by just one vote (and bearing in mind the weird goings on on South Ayrshire council recently, this confuses's things even more...)... other than that, not much of interest. There was a weird county council by-election in Suffolk where there was a *very* sharp drop in turnout (Con hold) and a couple of by-elections in safe Tory wards here and there.

[Democratic Hawk]

Do you think an increase in the BNP vote and a fall in the Tory vote in Heanor and Loscoe tells you anything? Are Conservatives staying at home or switching?

Dave

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Do you think an increase in the BNP vote and a fall in the Tory vote in Heanor and Loscoe tells you anything? Are Conservatives staying at home or switching?

Switching to the BNP (it's a very well observed pattern. Despite what the media seem to think, BNP *voters* aren't usually working class, they have a tendency to be white middle class in working class areas with large minority populations. One of their best wards in Burnley is the most affluent in the borough and is historically a Tory stronghold). Now IIRC the BNP polled the same sort of vote (obviously with a much smaller %) in some Derbyshire divisions in the 2005 County Council elections. I think that this ward was in one of them; I'll have to check o/c.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Turns out that Heanor actually counts as a *disappointment* for the BNP; they threw just about everything they have at the ward... including the usual bogus gang-rape allegations

[Rural Radical]

Maybe the Right of the Tory party (voters that is ) voted BNP in Derbyshire. The Norman Tebbit wing of the party are clearly pissed off with Cameron (a la the Tony Benn wing of the Labour party wass with Blair ten years ago).

The Tories easily held a seat in Fenland DC. A local authority that was Labour controlled from 1995 to 1999.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

While most attention was on a certain Scottish Westminster seat, there were a couple of by-elections last night; and they show some distinctly mixed messages.

The LibDems picked up a seat off Labour in Northampton (where the LibDems are much, much stronger locally than nationally) but the result was quite strange; the LibDems moved from third to first and in terms of raw votes Labour actually did fairly well, while the Tories collapsed.
There was a good result for Labour in Cheshire; holding a seat in a three-way marginal ward in Vale Royal where they'd been behind on the average vote (it's a three member ward) last election. Once again, the Tories did badly, falling from first (sort of) to third.
Meanwhile the Tories *easily* held a safe ward on Stockton BC, with both Labour and the LibDems doing badly.

Feel free to draw your own conclusions

[minionofmidas]

The Tories seem not to be doing anything as well as we were made to believe they are. Perhaps a class thing, too.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

More results... and all with comedy turnouts! (mind you that's the case for about 99% of local by-elections...)

Labour held a seat on Dover Town Council, while the Tories gained two seats off the Liberals on Oswestry Town Council (interestingly the LibDems have been in almost total freefall in Oswestry over the past year. First sign of trouble was when they were beaten by the Tories for the 2nd County Council seat in the Oswestry division (Labour easily won the 1st but couldn't find a candidate for the 2nd) and since then they've been losing Town and Borough seats to the Tories at quite a rate... in one of the wards up last night (both two-horse races) the Tory topped 70%...)

[Rural Radical]

The Lib dems did badly in Whitchurch (North Shropshire) too. In 2003 they put up District candidates who did nothing.

[Ben.]

Maybe the Right of the Tory party (voters that is ) voted BNP in Derbyshire. The Norman Tebbit wing of the party are clearly pissed off with Cameron (a la the Tony Benn wing of the Labour party wass with Blair ten years ago).

As a rule the BNP mostly draws its votes from Labour voters, a mix of the disaffected and frustrated white working class voters (who Labour have struggled to get to the polls with the decline of traditional industries) along with a fair slice of aspirant lower middle class and blue-collar Tories. 

It’s hard to imagine hard right Tories voting for the BNP. Generally the BNP are pretty much old fashionedly socialist on most economic issues, which won’t sit well with your average Tory, no matter how disaffected – though I don’t doubt that what’s left of the old blue collar Tory vote could be won over by a BNP campaign.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

As a rule the BNP mostly draws its votes from Labour voters, a mix of the disaffected and frustrated white working class voters (who Labour have struggled to get to the polls with the decline of traditional industries) along with a fair slice of aspirant lower middle class and blue-collar Tories.

That's the media stereotype; and it's wrong. Most BNP voters (at least in the Pennines) tend to be middle class and live in areas that are largely working class and with a large ethnic minority (usually Kashmiri) population living nearby. The main motivation to vote BNP isn't *hate* as such, but *fear*; whether that's fear of a Kashmiri moving next door, fear of losing your aitches or fear of asylum seeks/etc. raping your daughter (false rape allegations have become a hallmark of BNP campaign tactics, btw).
In addition to that you have the fringe racist skinhead etc. element, but there aren't many of that sort of person anywhere (although in a close local election a few votes is enough...). They can sometimes (but not very often) do well on a run down estate if there's just been a riot or something like that.
It's significant that the BNP very rarely get anyone elected when it's not a by-election or an all-out (ie; all seats in the ward) election. The can often sneak a few councillers in via all-out elections and there's already a classic pattern in BNP by-election gains; turnout falls and the Labour vote falls with the turnout. The Tory vote collapses. The BNP suck up the ex-Tory vote and win an upset due to the low turnout. Been seen everywhere from Blackburn to Heanor (although it didn't work in that case), but especially in Burnley.
Just to add to this, but in Bradford MBC one of the best BNP wards is Worth Valley (just south of Keighley and based around Haworth; this is not exactly a working class ward) and another good ward is socially mixed Queensbury (where they made the mistake of running two candidates rather than one; as a result neither got in), while over the moors in Burnley their best wards tend to be suburban wards added to the Borough in 1974 (in fact the ones to the east of the town were Tory strongholds until the BNP came along; as was Worth Valley come to think of it).
It's certainly true that most BNP activists are little more than skinheaded thugs, but it's wrong (and actually quite dangerous; the BNP is trying to inflitrate certain local Tory associations) to assume that the same is true of their voters. A lot of people up North learned that the hard way.

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It might be hard to imagine, but it's certainly happening.

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No, generally they are completely ignorant of economic issues and don't care about them (beyond a vauge belief in something similer to the economic structure of Fascist Italy and a deep seated hatred of Trade Unions. Oh and a belief that most corporations are run by Jews...). They certainly don't campaign on them... with the exception of...

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...at local level the BNP is almost always strongly opposed to new developments and growth; if the council wants to build a new industrial or trading estate, if a developer wants to build a new row of houses, if planners want to build a new road or if a retail giant wants to open a new supermarket, the BNP will almost always be strongly opposed.

[Ben.]

Any thoughts on the local elections in May?

For my own two cents worth - while I think modest improvements for Labour in some cities (Newcastle and Liverpool have some seats up this time around do they not?) are likely it still seems likely that in London and other areas the party is heading for a sizeable hammering (as happened in ’68), what will be most interesting is what effect Cameron will have and weather the Tories make good on the recent chatter that they will be able to make gains in cities outside of London such as Manchester where they are rumoured to feel quite buoyant at the prospect of winning over sufficient white collar voters in order to get back onto the council though the LibDems will no doubt be desperate to avoid this.

Thoughts?  Also does anyone have a list of all the Councils up for election and their current status?       

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Any thoughts on the local elections in May?

Quite a few
In general I think we'll see some very stark regional differences (and that's certainly what local by-elections are indicating) and some nice high profile gains for both Labour and the Tories (Labour has a chance of taking Birmingham, Liverpool and Newcastle, while the Tories have a chance to net some solid gains in London and maybe kill off the LibDem threat in the Southeast. Eastleigh may well be *the* District Council to watch ).

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All the MBC's have a third of their seats up; there's three seats to every ward (with a few exceptions, like the Craven ward in Bradford MBC) so that's an election for every Metro ward. It's like that every local election year, except for when there's a rewarding (in which case all wards are up; and that's how the BNP were able to squeak a few councillers in Bradford with support levels in the teens in some of the wards in question).

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I don't think anything on the level of 1968 is at all likely; that wasn't a hammering, it was a wipeout. No councillers in Birmingham. Lost the Scotswood ward in Newcastle (!!!!). And have you seen a summary of the Islington results (and this is back when Islington was still largely working class)?
1968 made the Tory wipeouts in the mid '90's look mild...
...but yes, Labour will do very badly in much of the Southeast and parts of London. There might be some exceptions (we *should* be able to retake Thurrock), but those exceptions are demographically, socially and politically very different to the rest of the area. In much of the Southeast Labour will poll like it did in local elections in the late '70's... I think that Herts will be especially bad.

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If they can get back onto Manchester City Council then the LibDems will be f***ed to put it bluntly... same goes for Newcastle (I think they will be targetting a Gosforth ward. Maybe one in Jesmond as well?). And o/c Labour will be *delighted*...

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I think so. Wait a sec...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I (finally) have got my hands on last night's results... and it was quite a bad night for the LibDems, who lost what had been a safe-ish ward in Monmouth (Dixton with Osbaston) and a ward in the Test Valley district in Hampshire (St Mary's) to the Tories. There was some consolation for them in Bodmin, where they gained a seat off the Independents.
Labour lost a Glasgow ward to the SNP (as you all already know), with the Tories and LibDems both polling comedy %'s (1.5% and 2.8%), but gained a ward off the Independent group in the Derwentside district of County Durham (taking over 75% of the vote).
The LibDems also lost a seat on Newquay Town Council to the Tories. Like anyone of you care

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Doesn't seem to have been much of interest last night. LibDems gained a seat off the Tories in North Wiltshire on a low turnout and that's about it. Oh and a by-election in Powys (Churchstoke) was contest by two candidates. Both were independents.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

A good night for Labour; we gained a seat in Sefton off the LibDems on a massive swing. Tories gained a seat of the Indies in Bucks. Other than that no changes... but some interesting swings; Labour came close to upsetting Plaid in what is normally one of the safest Nat wards in Caerphilly, the Ratepayers held a ward in Neath-Port Talbot (with what looks to be, I don't have % figures yet, a reasonable result for Labour), the Tories just about held off some sort of Indepedent in Craven and easily splatted a LibDem challenge in Honiton (in fact the LibDems came closer to finishing third than winning) and held onto two other marginals (over the LibDems) in Devon. Not all bad news for the LibDems though; they came close to upsetting the Tories in one of the most middle class wards in Darlington and did pretty well in a Kenilworth ward.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Not heard anything yet. I'm pretty sure that the Craven ward in Bradford MDC is up tonight (o/c it shouldn't be in the same authority as Bradford, it belongs with Skipton), not that they'll be anything of interest there. They weigh Tory votes in that ward...