UK local by-elections 2011

[minionofmidas]

According to their own website, the council has 23 Conservatives, 21 Labour, 3 independents and 1 vacancy... so unless exactly one of the independents is allied with the Tories, I don't see how having the seat declared vacant ended the Conservative majority.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Might have held a majority on the Chairman's casting vote.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Worksop North East: Labour 74.0, Con 19.6, Ind 4.6, LDem 1.7
Romney Marsh: Con 54.1, Labour 18.2, LDem 11.7, UKIP 10.2, Ind 5.8

And, surprisingly, Lydd on Shepway DC (see above for the general area) which everyone assumed wouldn't be held due to proximity to the main elections in May: Con 49.3, Labour 20.6, LDem 15.3, Ind 14.8

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

By-elections on 17th February 2011 see the Conservatives defending three marginal wards.

BOURN, South Cambridgeshire; caused by the resignation of a Conservative councillor who is taking up a new job.  This ward consists of a series of villages on the A428 and A1198 west of Cambridge, the largest of which is Cambourne.  While the ward has a full slate of Conservative councillors, it's a marginal ward and there is normally a strong Lib Dem challenge here; at the last election in 2010 the Tories won by 45-39 with Labour polling 11%.  Candidates for the by-election are the three main parties plus the Greens and an Independent.

KENTON, Brent, North London; caused by the death of a Conservative councillor.  Served by the Underground stations of Kenton (on the Bakerloo line) and Kingsbury (on the Jubilee line), this ward has a diverse population; at the 2001 census this ward was 57% non-white with almost 30% giving their religion as Hindu.  At the 2006 elections this was a safe Conservative ward and was also strongly Conservative in the 2008 GLA polls, but it's part of the safe Labour Brent North seat and last May a big swing to Labour turned the ward into a marginal, with the top Labour candidate just 115 votes away from the third Conservative.

QUARRY AND COTON HILL, Shropshire; caused by the resignation of a Conservative councillor who is going back to live in Australia.  This bizarrely-shaped ward covers the centre of the town of Shrewsbury, located in a loop of the River Severn, together with the residential area of Coton Hill to the north-west and a north-eastern prong along St Michael's Street which is presumably there to make up the numbers.  The only previous result in 2009 saw the Conservatives defeat the Lib Dems by 44-36, with the Greens polling 14% and an outfit called the Albion Party getting 6%.  Surprisingly there was no Labour candidate, but that omission will be rectified in the by-election.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Quarry & Coton Hill is certainly bizarrely shaped, but it's better than pairing Quarry with Castlefields (as was done for the old district council from 2002 onwards) and has been done before at various different levels.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Results...

Kenton: Con 44.1, Labour 37.7, Ind 7.7, LDem 7.4, Green 3.1
Bourn: Con 56.3, LDem 22.2, Labour 21.5
Quarry & Coton Hill: LDem 41.8, Con 31.6, Labour 23.1, Ind 3.5

Comment on the last of those; that's an unusually high Labour vote in that part of the town, to say the least. Boundary issues mean direct comparison isn't possible, but I'd guess probably around level with the 2005 County Council elections, not sure about 'normal' local election rounds. Bad result for the Tories; the unpopularity of the council might be a factor. Wonder whether this defeat will kick off another round of factional infighting?

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

After a fallow week, by-elections on 3 March:

BARNSLEY CENTRAL, caused by the resignation of a Labour MP following conviction: see separate thread.

KILPATRICK, West Dunbartonshire; caused by the resignation of a Labour councillor.  This ward is named after the Kilpatrick Hills but confusingly does not include the village of Old Kilpatrick; instead it is based on the village of Duntocher, an old Roman settlement on the Antonine Wall which boomed after the Second World War with the building of an estate by Clydebank town council.  Duntocher was once the north-western terminus of Glasgow's municipal tram network.  Unsurprisingly it's a strong Labour ward: in 2007 Labour ran two candidates in this three-seat ward and both of them got a quota of first preferences, the lead SNP candidate taking the final seat; vote shares were Lab 55.9 SNP 32.8 C 8.3 SSP 3.0.  Just three candidates are standing in the by-election, Labour, SNP and Conservative.

MARCH NORTH, Cambridgeshire County Council; caused by the death of a Conservative councillor.  Once the county town of the Isle of Ely, the market town of March started off as a minor port on the River Nene, then became a railway centre (there is still a large marshalling yard in this ward).  Today the main employer in the ward is the top-security Whitemoor Prison.  In 2005 this was quite close between Conservative and Lib Dem, the Tories prevailing by just 99 votes in a straight fight, but the Lib Dems fell back sharply in 2009 when the shares were C 55.8 LD 30.5 Lab 13.7.  The by-election is between the three main parties; the Labour candidate is an 18-year-old who works in the local Tesco.

RIVERSIDE, Cardiff; caused by the resignation of a Plaid Cymru councillor for personal reasons.  This is a residential area located on the west bank of the Taff opposite Cardiff Castle.  The main local landmark is the Sophia Gardens cricket ground, home of Glamorgan cricket club and a Test match venue in 2009.  In 2004 the three seats in the ward split 2 PC 1 Lab, with Plaid gaining the Labour seat in 2008 when the shares were PC 43.9 Lab 32.4 C 12.2 LD 11.5.  The by-election is between the four main parties plus the Greens; bizarrely the Plaid candidate is the boss of the Lib Dem candidate, who has had some success on TV quizzes.

WALKDEN NORTH, Salford; caused by the death of a Labour councillor.  Salford may be the roughest city in the known universe(TM) but Walkden isn't like that; located outside the M60 on the road to Preston, as well as the usual cotton mills it was a centre for coal-mining, with navigable tunnels linking the mines here directly to the Bridgewater Canal at Worsley.  Some bits of Walkden are quite posh, but this is the more working-class half and also includes some of the sink council estate of Little Hulton.  The ward consistently returns Labour councillors by comfortable margins and the 2010 result was Lab 50.9 C 21.9 LD 17.4 English Democrats 9.7.  The same four parties are fighting the by-election together with a BNPer.

WIGAN CENTRAL, Wigan; caused by the resignation of a Conservative councillor for health reasons.  Everyone has heard of Wigan because of the efforts of George Orwell at documenting the town as it was in the 1930s.  Everyone should know Wigan for coal-mining and textiles which is what made the pie-eating town rich (and such a hellish place to live).  Today the largest employers in the town are the Tote bookmakers, the near-bankrupt sports clothing chain JJB Sports and Heinz which allegedly has Europe's largest food processing factory here; other food exports from Wigan include Uncle Joe's Mint Balls and the World Pie-Eating Championships, while the town was also the home of George Formby, Britain's very own war crime.  Hopefully I've put you off the place by now as is my solemn duty as a Boltoner but having said all that Wigan Central ward (which covers the town centre and points north) is actually surprisingly middle class and usually a fairly safe Tory ward.  However, the Tory group on the council suffered a Stoke-style split a few years ago with four councillors wandering off to form the Wigan Independent Conservative Party; one of them stood for re-election in 2010 and split the Tory vote down the middle, allowing Labour to win easily; shares were Lab 42.2 C 25.9 WIC 18.6 UKIP 8.1 BNP 5.2.  The by-election is fought by Conservative, Labour, Wigan Independent Conservative and UKIP, so there is every chance of a similar right-wing vote split.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Hard to believe that Riverside was reliable Tory ward until about twenty years ago and would have been one of the reasons for the improbable Commons tenure of Stefan Terlezki. Though large parts of the ward have changed a lot and certain other things have changed elsewhere. It's quite a strange ward, as you can tell from glancing at it's nomis profile. Basically it's a ward of two halves; Riverside itself is a fairly run-down inner city district these days and is one of the least white places in Wales (which isn't saying a lot, I suppose) with sizeable Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Indian communities (so not actually the minorities associated with Cardiff at all). Employment is dominated by low-paid jobs in the service sector and unemployment is high. The other half of the ward, Pontcanna, is crachach central. It is one of the poshest parts of Cardiff (even more so than neighbouring Llandaff) and is home to seemingly the entire Welsh media. The percentage of people who claim to be Welsh speakers is much higher than the Cardiff average in Pontcanna, but you could probably work that out for yourselves. Riverside and Pontcanna have two things in common; both have an unusually low percentage of people in born in Wales and both are good territory for Plaid in local elections. The latter might come as a surprise, but the Welsh Labour Party has always struggled to appeal to ethnic minority voters (perhaps made worse in Cardiff by the continuing strength of a pro-business right-wing faction within the Party; this is the city of Julian Hodge, after all) and Plaid have someone managed to fill part of the gap, at least at local level. No idea what'll happen in the by-election.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Oh, yeah. I forgot to mention Russell Goodway. You can't write about the right-wing of Cardiff Labour and not mention that remarkable man. Who I note is now on twitter.

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

Results from 3rd March:

Kilpatrick: Lab 60.1 SNP 32.9 C 7.0.  Lab win on first prefs
March North: C 52.4 Lab 24.0 LD 23.6.  7% swing C to Lab since 2009
Riverside, Cardiff: Lab 46.8 PC 30.3 C 10.2 Grn 7.6 LD 5.1.  Lab gain from PC
Walkden North: Lab 72.6 C 11.7 EDP 7.0 BNP 5.2 LD 3.5.  16% swing C to Lab
Wigan Central: Lab 48.6 C 27.2 Wigan Ind C 16.4 UKIP 7.9.  Lab gain from C; 3% swing C to Lab since 2010

By-elections on 10th March:

BRUNSWICK PARK, Southwark; caused by the resignation of a Labour councillor after he was arrested by the Met's paedophile unit.  Not to be confused with the ward of the same name in Barnet, this ward covers territory either side of Peckham Road in Camberwell, around the eponymous park in the north and down to Maudsley (Psychiatric) Hospital and Denmark Hill railway station (on the South London Line and Catford Loop) in the south-west corner.  Also in the ward is Lakanal House, a tower block which caught fire in 2009 killing several people.  Southwark politics tends to be very geographical, with the Lib Dems winning in Southwark proper, Labour winning in Camberwell and Peckham and the Conservatives winning in Dulwich; this ward being in Camberwell makes it safe Labour.  In 2010 the vote shares were Lab 51.8 LD 22.7 Grn 14.5 C 10.9.  Candidates in the by-election are Lab, LD, Grn, C and Trade Union/Socialist Coalition.

ROSEGROVE WITH LOWERHOUSE, Burnley, Lancs; caused by the resignation of a Lib Dem councillor due to ill-health.  This ward is located at the west end of Burnley, straddling the M65 motorway at Rose Grove station.  It's one of the white areas of the town and very working-class.  The previous election results in this ward give a whole new meaning to the phrase 'all over the place': when it was created in 2002 Labour topped the poll but the BNP candidate and an independent (Marlene Disley) tied for the second seat.  Defending in 2003, the BNP failed to contest the ward (in the year they the topped the poll across the whole borough) and it was gained by an independent (Samuel Holgate, who had represented the predecessor ward before 2002).  In 2004 Marlene Disley who didn't stand for re-election and Labour won by 251 votes with the BNP second.  In 2006 the Lib Dems gained the ward from Lab with a majority of 54 votes over the BNP, Labour finishing third six votes behind the BNP.  In 2007 Holgate stood for re-election as a Lib Dem candidate but finished third, 37 votes behind the Labour and BNP candidates who tied for first place, Labour winning the drawing of lots.  In 2008 the Lib Dems gained from Labour by a majority of 146 votes over the BNP, Labour finishing a poor third.  A by-election on European election day in 2009 was held by the Lib Dems with a majority of 245 over the BNP.  Most recently in 2010 the Lib Dems held by 57 votes over Labour on the same day as they gained the Burnley parliamentary seat.  With that sort of history anything can happen and it's certain to be an interesting result.  Candidates are LD, Lab, BNP, C and Ind.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Has Cardiff Labour finally worked out how to appeal to minority voters?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Brunswick Park: Lab 65.1, LDem 20.7, Green 7.6, Con 4.2, TUSC 2.3

Full results for Rosegrove with Lowerhouse don't seem to be available, but it was a comfortable Labour gain with the LibDems apparently slipping into third behind the BNP.

[minionofmidas]

The Labour Party 521 (43.1%)
British National Party 288 (23.8%)
Liberal Democrat 261 (21.6%)
The Conservative Party 81 (6.7%)
Independent 58 (4.8%)

Found the result... on... Stormfront. Lol.

[Leftbehind]

lol With the BNP in meltdown I'm not surprised they're eager to tout this result. Percentages:

Rosegrove with Lowerhouse, Burnley
Lab   43.1%   +11.8%
BNP   23.8%    +5.4%
LibD   21.6%   -11.8%
Con     6.7%   -10.2%
Ind      4.8%    +4.8%

Brunswick Park, Southwark
Lab   65.1%  +13.3%
LibD  20.7%     -2.0%
Grn     7.6%     -6.9%
Con     4.2%    -6.7%
TUS      2.3%   +2.3%

[minionofmidas]

I find the Labour result in Burnley somewhat underwhelming, actually.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It sort of depends what you compare it to

[Leftbehind]

Indeed.


Rosegrove with Lowerhouse ward from 2002-onwards, measuring % of vote.

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

Two by-elections this week.

PAISLEY SOUTH, Renfrewshire; caused by the death of a long-serving SNP councillor.  This appears to be a mainly residential area along the Neilston Road, including the Glenburn area and Dykebar Hospital.  In 2007 first preferences were Lab 31.6 SNP 28.5 LD 12.6 Ind (Caroline Martin) 10.3 C 6.9 Ind 5.5 Grn 1.8 Sol 1.4 Ind 0.9 SSP 0.6, but the seats went SNP 2 Lab 1 LD 1 mainly as a result of terrible vote-balancing by Labour, whose lead candidate topped the poll but had almost no surplus to transfer to his running-mate, who then got overtaken by former SNP candidate Caroline Martin on Conservative transfers.  Martin was the runner-up.  Looking at the 2003 results, the SNP are strong in Glenburn and further into the town centre while the Lib Dem vote comes from the area around the hospital.  Candidates for the by-election are the four main parties plus the SSP and a new indie.

PEMBURY, Tunbridge Wells, Kent; caused by the resignation of a Conservative councillor who fell out with his local party.  This is a large village three miles east of Tunbridge Wells on the road from London to Hastings.  At local level it has been Lib Dem in the past but the Tories have topped the poll each year since 2004, and last year's result (C 59.4 LD 40.6) was pretty safe.  Candidates are Tory, Lib Dem and UKIP.

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

Results...

Labour easily held gained Paisley South and only just fell short of a win on first preferences: Lab 49.4 SNP 32.4 C 9.2 Ind 3.9 LD 3.2 SSP 1.9.  The Labour candidate was their second candidate in 2007.

Pembury was a surprising Lib Dem gain: LD 43.6 C 34.0 UKIP 22.4.  A correction to my preview above: I am informed that the Lib Dems actually won this ward in a 2005 by-election.

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

By-elections on 24th March:

BELLINGHAM, Lewisham; caused by the death of a Labour councillor who had served for 40 years.  Served by Bellingham and Beckenham Park railway stations on the Catford Loop, this ward mainly consists of an inter-war council estate.  This is a safe Labour ward and the 2010 result was Lab 43.1 LD 26.7 C 19.0 Community Need Before Private Greed (part of Lewisham for People Not Profit) 5.8 Grn 5.4.  Should be an easy Labour hold.  Candidates for the by-election are three main parties, the Greens and the Socialist Alternative.

PONTYPOOL, Torfaen; caused by the resignation of an Independent councillor under a cloud.  This ward covers the centre of the depressed town of Pontypool.  Labour were unopposed here in 2004 but in 2008 lost the seat to an Independent, the result being Ind 52.0 Lab 30.6 Peoples Voice 17.3.  The by-election sees a very large field, with candidates from Labour, Plaid and the Tories and no fewer than five independents.

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

Results:

Bellingham: Lab 51.4 C 15.9 LD 15.6 Soc Alt 12.3 Grn 4.7.  Labour hold.  5% swing C to Lab.
Pontypool: Lab 31.2 Mike Harris 28.2 Williams 14.0 PC 8.8 Nigel Harris 8.1 Bousie 4.4 C 3.2 James 2.1.  Lab gain from Ind

Of the independent candidates, Ian Williams was the Torfaen People's Voice candidate for the Welsh Assembly in 2007.  Sarah Bousie polled half the number of votes that she received in the Miss Torfaen 2011 contest.

That's pretty much it for UK local by-elections until the main May local elections, with only one contest scheduled between now and then - Wick ward in the Highlands on 7th April.

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

Last local by-election before 5 May.

7 April: WICK, Highland; caused by the resignation of an Independent councillor.  The last town before John o' Groats, Wick sends its local councillors to Inverness, more than 100 miles away by road.  Historically the town's economy was built upon herring, with at one point one-fifth of Britain's herring being landed here.  Today the herring have gone and North Sea oil has filled the gap, with supplies departing from the harbour and Wick Airport.  Recent political controversy here includes the proposed closure of the town's library and swimming pool with replacements in the Wick High School premises (which was behind the resignation that caused this by-election) and a failed biomass heat/energy scheme into which Highland Council sunk more than £13 million of council taxpayers' money.  In the 2007 election independents won the first two seats, with the final seat going to the Lib Dem candidate who started fourth but overtook the SNP candidate on Labour transfers; the first preference shares were Ind 51.9 SNP 16.9 LD 15.5 Lab 14.0 C 1.8.  Candidates for the by-election are the four main parties plus three independents; confusingly two of the independents are the unsuccessful SNP and Labour candidates from 2007.

[afleitch]

SNP win in Wick. Not got first preferences yet, but working backwards their vote is up by something close to 30%. The SNP didn't return any councillors in Wick last time, and their 2007 candidate stood as an independent.

Might put money on the SNP winning Caithness, Sutherland and Ross then

[Filuwaúrdjan]

How did the LibDem do?

[Leftbehind]

Came 4th

SNP 1049 (45.5;+28.6)
Lab 463 (20.1; +6.1)
Ind 245 / 202 / 75 (22.7; -29.2)
LD 236 (10.2; -5.3)
Con 33 (1.4; -0.4)