UK local by-elections 2011

[Filuwaúrdjan]

No surprise that the Inverness seat was lost (circumstances, plus winning a seat on a low vote in the first place), but the party the seat was lost to is a bit of a surprise. Decent result for us in Leicestershire, I suppose.

[YL]

Decent result for us in Leicestershire, I suppose.

... but still a disturbingly high BNP vote, even if it's a bit lower than in 2009.  Is it a "white flight" sort of area?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Decent result for us in Leicestershire, I suppose.

... but still a disturbingly high BNP vote, even if it's a bit lower than in 2009.  Is it a "white flight" sort of area?

All of Leicester suburbia is white flight. But this area more than most, yes. The BNP candidate is the District Councillor for East Goscote (just outside the division) and was actually re-elected in May, while another BNP candidate polled about 19% in the Syston East ward at the same time.

[minionofmidas]

That LD win is a surprise, yeah.

[minionofmidas]

"The total number of votes cast was …2449.…........... and ………19…… were rejected.
With the number of valid votes being ………2468……………… the Quota (the number of
votes required to win the by-election) is ……1225"

The Lorn declaration. Is that transposition grounds enough to challenge it?

Also, of course, the last transfer is silly. The SNP hadn't achieved the original quota yet, but had more votes than the two other non-eliminated candidates combined. But I guess that's what the law says you're supposed to do.

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

Four by-elections on 10th November, all in marginal wards in urban England.

ALDBOROUGH, Redbridge, North London; caused by the resignation of a Labour councillor.  One of the few wards in Greater London that contains any kind of rural area, this is the largest ward in Redbridge, running along the north side of the A12 Eastern Avenue up to the Barking/Dagenham border, and including the Fairlop Waters Country Park.  The population of the ward is almost entirely squeezed into the south-west corner in the Aldborough Hatch area and the eastern part of Barkingside.  It is served by Newbury Park and Barkingside underground stations on the Hainault Loop of the Central Line. 

The ward's census areas are mostly in the middle or slightly below the middle of the deprivation indices; an interesting indicator from the 2001 census is a high Jewish population (12.6%).

In 2010 this was a split ward with Labour gaining one seat from the Conservatives who held the other two; shares of the vote were C 43.5 Lab 41.3 LD 15.2.  At the 2008 GLA elections the Conservatives led Labour 38.5-31.9 in the list vote and Boris led Ken by 45.3-37.6.  With this ward being in the traditionally marginal constituency of Ilford North, and the Coalition currently running the hung Redbridge council, this by-election could be an interesting pointer.  Candidates for the by-election are the three main parties plus the Greens, the BNP and UKIP.

ST MARGARET'S, Ipswich; caused by the resignation of a Conservative councillor.  This ward covers the north of the town, running from the edge of the town centre around Christchurch Park to the northern edge of the town.  Mostly it is a well-off area with the exception of the area around Christchurch Park which is much more working-class.

The ward consistently voted Lib Dem from 2002 to 2010 but was normally marginal, and there were some very close battles with the Conservatives, particularly in 2007 (majority 43) and 2008 (majority 45).  After years of trying, the Conservatives finally made a gain in May by just 60 votes (C 37.0 LD 35.1 Lab 21.3 Grn 6.7), but the Conservative councillor has now resigned after just four months in office.  The Lib Dems will be looking to gain the seat back.  Candidates for the by-election are just the three main parties.

ST MARY'S, Islington; caused by the disqualification of a dissident Labour councillor who failed to attend any meetings of the council or its committees in six months.  The heart of Islington, this ward stretches north along the A1 Upper Street from the Angel to the Highbury Corner roundabout and then north-west along the southern edge of the Holloway Road.  It is served by Highbury and Islington station, a major interchange for the North London Line, the newly-extended East London Line, the Victoria Line and the Moorgate branch of the mainline rail network; the Moorgate branch's Essex Road station is also in the ward.

Islington has a trendy reputation (Boris Johnson lives in this ward), but this is not yet reflected in the census figures; four of the ward's seven census areas are in the 20% most deprived in England, and the other three aren't much better off.

This ward elected three Lib Dem councillors when it was created in 2002, but one of the Lib Dem councillors defected to Labour in 2005 (the one whose disqualification caused this by-election).  She held her seat in her new colours in 2006 and Labour gained a second seat in the ward in 2010, when the Lib Dems generally performed poorly in a parliamentary constituency they were targeting.  It will be interesting to see whether any Labour gain from not being in national government any longer is offset by them now running Islington council.  Shares of the vote in 2010 were Lab 32.9 LD 32.0 C 20.1 Grn 11.9 Ind 3.2; in 2008 Ken beat Boris 42.7-37.0.  Candidates for the by-election are the three main parties plus the Greens and the BNP.

SPARKBROOK, Birmingham; caused by the resignation due to ill-health of high-profile Respect councillor and party leader Salma Yaqoob.

Where do I start when describing Sparkbrook?  It's an extremely depressed inner-city ward in southern Birmingham, including the Sparkbrook and Balsall Heath areas just outside the middle ring road.  It is one of the largest wards in England by electorate, with 19,661 people eligible to vote in May's election.  It has about twenty census areas, every single one of which is in the most deprived 20% in England.  It is the home of the Balti Triangle, Birmingham's equivalent of Manchester's Curry Mile or London's Brick Lane.  But there's one thing above all that defines its politics: the 59% of the population who (on slightly different boundaries) gave their religion in the 2001 census as Muslim.

That fact has made Sparkbrook the only stronghold of the Respect party outside London, starting in 2006 when Yaqoob gained a seat from Labour on an enormous swing from the Lib Dems, who topped the poll here in 2004 and won two out of three seats.  Respect gained the two Lib Dem seats in 2007 and 2008 and held a by-election in September 2009 after one of their councillors went bankrupt.  Yaqoob was re-elected in 2010, polling more than 5,000 votes, and on the same day came a creditable second in the general election in Birmingham Hall Green, polling 25.1% to 32.9% for Labour; she could have cause to curse the boundary changes which abolished the much more strongly Muslim seat of Birmingham Sparkbrook and Small Heath.  However, a change came in May when Labour gained a seat (shares of the vote were Lab 49.8 Respect 38.8 LD 6.5 C 2.8 Grn 2.2). 

Labour now have a chance to gain a second seat, and have selected a high-profile candidate in the shape of Victoria Quinn, partner of the veteran Labour group leader Sir Albert Bore, while Respect have selected their former councillor who lost his seat in May.  The support of the local mosques could be crucial in deciding the result.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Sparkbrook is a very interesting ward. I'll post more later, but I'll just note for now that back in the 1980s it was where Dick Knowles had his seat.

[minionofmidas]

Yaqoob in ill health?

[Leftbehind]

That'll surely be the end of Respect once she's gone? Shame, as I'd much rather the "Muslim vote" be converged around authoritarian socialists than its likely successor.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

If, as I suspect, Godsiff was about as popular as the Black Death in Moseley in 2010, then Sparkbrook ward would have to have been pretty close; significantly closer than the council election there on the same day.

[YL]

That'll surely be the end of Respect once she's gone?

I've been assuming that it will be, at least as an election-winning force in Brum, but we'll see.  Don't they also still have a presence in Tower Hamlets?

Round here (Sheffield) they disappeared after the Galloway/SWP split; they'd had some decent results before that but never really looked like winning a ward.  Their Burngreave candidate has continued to have some decent results by the standards of non-Labour candidates in Burngreave, but under different labels.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The support of the local mosques could be crucial in deciding the result.

Unlikely; remember most of the Muslim families there are from Azad Kashmir. So, for them, religion is mostly a family thing and the imam about as influential as a vicar. The biradaris are a different matter.

[Andrea]

Islington has a trendy reputation (Boris Johnson lives in this ward), b

Doesn't he live in St Peter's? I recall it being mentioned when there was a by-election in St Peter's last month (to replace the daughter of the Councillor who caused this by-election). Or has he moved home in search for the next local by-election?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Islington has a trendy reputation (Boris Johnson lives in this ward), b

Doesn't he live in St Peter's? I recall it being mentioned when there was a by-election in St Peter's last month (to replace the daughter of the Councillor who caused this by-election). Or has he moved home in search for the next local by-election?

Maybe he has two houses in Islington?

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

Islington has a trendy reputation (Boris Johnson lives in this ward), b

Doesn't he live in St Peter's? I recall it being mentioned when there was a by-election in St Peter's last month (to replace the daughter of the Councillor who caused this by-election). Or has he moved home in search for the next local by-election?

He may well have moved since 2008.  The Statement of Persons Nominated for the last mayoral election gave an address for Boris which is definitely in this ward.

Al - thanks for the correction.

[doktorb]

"Where do I start when describing Sparkbrook?"

[minionofmidas]

Islington has a trendy reputation (Boris Johnson lives in this ward), b

Doesn't he live in St Peter's? I recall it being mentioned when there was a by-election in St Peter's last month (to replace the daughter of the Councillor who caused this by-election). Or has he moved home in search for the next local by-election?

Maybe he has two houses in Islington?

I believe he has a flat in every remotely trendy ward in London.

[ObserverIE]

Islington, St Mary's

Lab 47.0 (+14.1)
Lib Dem 26.9 (-5.1)
Green 13.3 (+1.4)
Con 11.8 (-8.3)
BNP 0.9 (+0.9)

Birmingham, Sparkbrook

Lab 56.7 (+6.9)
Respect 33.2 (-5.6)
Lib Dem 5.7 (-0.8 )
Green 2.6 (+0.4)
Con 1.9 (-0.9)

Redbridge, Aldborough

Lab 51.7 (+10.4)
Con 38.6 (-4.9)
Lib Dem 3.1 (-12.1)
UKIP 3.0 (+3.0)
Green 2.3 (+2.3)
BNP 1.2 (+1.2)

Ipswich, St Margaret's

Lib Dem 41.8 (+6.7)
Con 38.7 (+1.7)
Lab 19.5 (-1.8 )

via Britain Votes

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Hilarious Sparkbrook result is hilarious.

[YL]

So do we think that's basically the end of Respect as a force in Brum, then?  Their leader has gone and that was quite a heavy defeat in what was their stronghold.  Oh, and it's always good to see the Tories come fifth.

It generally looks a good set of results for Labour.

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

Six by-elections on 17th November, including an unusual double by-election.

HILLHEAD, Glasgow; caused by the death of an SNP councillor.

In the days when Glasgow parliamentary seats had district names rather than compass points, Hillhead was one of the most famous names, with famous MPs to match.  Its two last MPs before its abolition in 1997 were George Galloway and Roy Jenkins, and it's hard to think of a more diverse pair of famous names than that.  Jenkins won the 1982 by-election for the SDP after the death of Glasgow's last Conservative MP, Sir Tam Galbraith (father of Lord Strathclyde, the Leader of the House of Lords). 

That this was the last Conservative seat in Glasgow indicates that Hillhead is rather different from the rest of the city.  The current ward stretches out from the edge of the city centre along the Great Western Road and is served by the Hillhead, Kelvingrove and St Georges Cross subway stations.  In the middle of the ward is the Glasgow University complex, which fills the area with students, while the west end of the ward includes some of the most desirable parts of Glasgow.

The student vote makes this if not the strongest Green ward in the whole of Scotland, probably one of the strongest.  First preferences in 2007 were Lab 25.3 SNP 21.1 Grn 18.6 LD 18.3 C 10.2 Solidarity 3.8 SSP 2.0 9% Growth Party 0.6, with the top four parties all winning one seat each.  With the vote that fragmented, transfers will be crucial.  Candidates are the four main parties, the Greens, UKIP (whose candidate was the 9% Growth Party candidate last time) and an outfit called Britannica.

POULTON NORTH, Warrington, Cheshire; caused by the death of a Lib Dem councillor.  To quote my preview of the previous by-election here on 28th July:

This is an area of new town development in the north-east of Warrington, just south of the huge M6-M62 junction at Croft.  The deprivation indices show that the ward is quite starkly divided, with the Blackbrook area (the south-west corner of the ward) being one of the most deprived areas in England and the Fearnhead area next it one of the least deprived.  This social division produced a safe Lib Dem ward in 2007 and 2008 (the Lib Dems polled 59.9% in 2008) but Labour gained by 31 votes in 2010 and gained a second seat in May by 238 votes (Lab 46.9 LD 39.2 C 13.9).  Candidates for the by-election are the three main parties plus UKIP.

The July by-election resulted in a Lib Dem hold; shares of the vote were LD 48.3 Lab 39.1 C 8.3 UKIP 4.2.  However, the new Lib Dem councillor (who had previously lost his seat in May) suddenly died less than two months into his term of office, so this ward is now going to the polls for the third time in just over six months.  Candidates for this by-election are, again, the three main parties plus UKIP.

RUABON, Wrexham; caused by the death of a Plaid Cymru councillor.

The village of Ruabon can be found six miles south-west of Wrexham on the main road to Llangollen and Oswestry, and is a stop on the Shrewsbury-Chester railway line.  It was once known for mining and brick-making.  Confusingly, the Ruabon ward only consists of the northern half of the village, the southern half being in the Penycae and Ruabon South ward.

The ward was a very narrow Labour win in 2004, just two votes ahead of an independent, but the Labour councillor lost his seat in 2008 to Plaid Cymru, coming in a poor third behind an independent candidate.  Shares of the vote in 2008 were PC 43.8 Ind 32.2 Lab 23.9.

The by-election is being contested by the same independent candidate from 2008 along with new Plaid, Labour and Conservative candidates.

SALTHILL, Ribble Valley, Lancashire; caused by the resignation of a Lib Dem councillor.

Salthill ward covers the east of the Norman market town of Clitheroe.  In the shadow of Pendle Hill, Clitheroe is a centre for tourism in the Ribble Valley and the Forest of Bowland, with an hourly train service to Blackburn and Manchester and a surprising amount of industry given that only one of the town's census areas is in the wrong half of the deprivation indices, and it's not in this ward.

Clitheroe is normally a stronghold for the Lib Dems in the very Tory district of Ribble Valley, with the Lib Dems having controlled the town council for many years, but Salthill ward is more marginal and its two seats have been split between the Lib Dems and Tories since 2003.  In May the Tories topped the poll and there was a surprisingly good performance from the UKIP candidate, who beat the Tory and Lib Dem running-mates to finish third just 43 votes behind the Lib Dem councillor; shares of the vote were C 29.4 LD 24.2 UKIP 20.3 Ind 16.2 Lab 9.9.

Candidates for the by-election are the three main parties plus UKIP.

WEST WIGHT, Isle of Wight; caused by the death of an Independent councillor.

The west of the Isle of Wight is generally sparsely populated, and this is the largest ward on the island by area.  The main settlement in the ward is the tiny town of Yarmouth, one of the three ports of entry to the island thanks to its ferry service over the Solent to the Hampshire town of Lymington.  The ward also includes much of the island's north-west coast, almost as far as the outskirts of Cowes, as well as some inland villages such as Shalcombe.

The island was re-warded in 2009 and the only previous result is from that year: Ind 53.5 C 46.5.  To confuse matters, the defeated Conservative candidate in 2009 had been elected in 2005 for the predecessor ward of Shalfleet and Yarmouth - as an Independent.  The Conservatives are standing again and are joined by the Lib Dems and UKIP, although the Lib Dems may now be wondering why they bothered to stand, having been forced to disown their candidate after allegations of financial impropriety involving him and a local Masonic lodge.

ZETLAND, Redcar and Cleveland; a double by-election caused by the resignations of two Liberal Democrat councillors over a dispute as to whether they were eligible to stand for election - they are (or in one case were) teachers at the foundation Eston Park School which is funded by the council. 

The only ward in England beginning with Z, it is named after the Marquess of Zetland, who was the lord of the manor, and the Zetland lifeboat, first stationed here in 1802 and now the world's oldest surviving lifeboat.  Appropriately, the Zetland ward is located on the seafront, next to the wide, long sandy beach for which Redcar (pronounced REDDker, for those who didn't know) should be famous; indeed the town took the part of Dunkirk in a recent film.  However, at the same time as the town was being developed as a seaside resort, it was also developing as a steelworking centre, and by the twentieth century there was a major steelworks and ICI chemical works completely filling the gap between Redcar and Middlesbrough. 

The steelworks was controversially closed in February 2010, and in the general election three months later Labour sensationally lost the Redcar parliamentary seat to the Liberal Democrats.  This wasn't entirely unexpected - the Lib Dems had had some huge gains in local by-elections in Redcar since 2007 - but still stunning considering the failure of the Lib Dems to break through in most urban areas at that election.

The local Liberal Democrats followed through in the 2011 council election by gaining seats in Redcar town where they topped the poll in five of the six wards, only working-class Kirkleatham holding out against the yellow tide.  Two of the Lib Dem gains came in this socially-mixed marginal ward, which had been split Lab/C in 2007 with the Lib Dems very close behind, and narrowly elected two Conservative councillors over Labour in 2003.  On May's figures (LD 50.0 Lab 35.4 C 14.6) the ward looks safe, but it remains to be seen how much of that Lib Dem lead was due to tactical voting by Conservatives.

The by-election sees two candidates each from the three main parties plus a single UKIP candidate.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Ruabon is basically a Labour place, but local politics in most of North Wales is (and has always been) odd and that area is no different. Very personality orientated, as a general rule. The previous councillor ran for us in Montgomery in 2010 and 2011.

Interestingly, while the LibDems did well in Redcar town in May, they failed to make much of an impact in the other end of the seat. That might not seem of interest at first (Grangetown and so on being the sort of places that they are), but they must have done pretty well there the previous year. Anyways, Zetland is a fairly averagey middle of the road sort of place.

[Leftbehind]

Have you been to Grangetown, like?

[doktorb]

To compliment Andrew's wonderful profiles (I didn't know that amazing fact about Redcar for one thing), these images might be useful.

        

[Andrea]

Glasgow Labour has been a bit in turmoil in the last few months. Something like 20 Cllrs have been deselected ahead of next year's elections. The Scottish Herald enjoyed the whole saga. It remains to be seen if it had any negative traction in the overall public (probably uninterested) and especially among activists.