UK local by-elections 2012

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

There were two by-elections scheduled for 12th January to start off the year.  However...

BRADWELL, Derbyshire Dales DC; caused by the death of Conservative councillor Janet Goodison.

Bradwell ward covers a very beautiful stretch of the White Peak, running up from the Hope Valley onto the high limestone plateau to the south.  Bradwell itself is at the north end, and the ward runs south along the B6049 to Tideswell to include the parishes of Hazlebadge, Little Hucklow, Great Hucklow (where I once stayed on a Cub Scout camp), Grindlow and Foolow.  Just outside Bradwell is the Bagshawe Cavern cave system, where potholers can cut their teeth.  Apart from tourism, the main local employer is probably the cement factory at Hope, just outside the ward, which dominates the Hope Valley.

This is one of those wards which is so rural and parochial it rarely gets a contested election: Janet Goodison was elected unopposed in 2003 and 2007 but did face a contest last year, defeating Independent candidate Christopher Furness by 430 votes to 364.  Furness has managed to get the Conservative nomination for the by-election, and with nobody else having submitted nomination papers he has won the by-election unopposed.

CINDERFORD WEST, Forest of Dean DC, Gloucestershire; caused by the death of Labour councillor Frank Beard.

One of England's largest surviving natural forests, the Forest of Dean has a unique industrial history, as an ancient royal hunting ground located on deposits of iron ore and coal measures.  Miners from the Forest helped Edward I to gain Berwick-upon-Tweed from the Scots by undermining the town's defences; the result was that Edward I granted free mining rights within the district to locals.  Even today, under the Dean Forest (Mines) Act 1838 men over 21 who were born within the Hundred of St Briavels and have worked a mine for a year and a day can register to be freeminers.  (In 2010 Elaine Horman became the first woman freeminer.)

The Dean Forest (Mines) Act also allowed freeminers to sell their rights; this allowed the necessary investment to build and operate deep mines.  The result was that the industry rapidly expanded, and to serve it the planned town of Cinderford was born.

Deep coal mining in the Forest ended in 1965, although the freeminers still work some private mines, and today light industry predominates as the main employer, with some tourism.

The mining legacy still has its effect on politics in the area (although not as much as on polling day in 1874 when rioters ransacked the Conservative HQ in Cinderford) with the town of Cinderford being safe for Labour even during their recent nadir.  The Forest was a Labour seat from 1997 to 2005; even in 2007 Cinderford's two wards returned a full slate of five Labour councillors with comfortable majorities; and Labour held the Cinderford county division in 2009 with a majority of almost 10%.  The late councillor Frank Beard had only been elected to the district council in 2011 (Lab 50.1 C 18.9 Ind 18.1 LD 13.0) but had previously served on the town council for many years including a term as Mayor of Cinderford.  Like his ZZ Top namesake, he didn't have a beard.

The by-election has attracted candidates from the three main parties plus UKIP, who are standing here for the first time.  The Lib Dem candidate is the same as last year.

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

Two urban Lib Dem seats are being defended in the by-elections on 19th January, one safe and one marginal.  Later, it's the big race at Redcar, but first it's off to St Albans.

BATCHWOOD, St Albans DC, Hertfordshire; caused by the resignation of Liberal Democrat councillor Amanda Archer, who has taken a politically restricted post in the Civil Service.

Twenty miles north of London can be found the city of St Albans.  Originally a Roman city and the first stop out of London on Watling Street, it is named after St Alban, the first British Christian martyr, who was beheaded here by the Romans.  The Benedictines built a major abbey dedicated to St Alban, and from Saxon times the town became a place of pilgrimage; the abbey church became the parish church after the dissolution of the monasteries, and was made a cathedral in 1887. 

Real development of the city didn't get going until the twentieth century, but particularly after the Second World War the city boomed with London overspill.  One of the areas that was developed in response was Batchwood ward, which lies on the north-western edge of the city between the Redbourn Road and the Harpenden Road.  St Albans' excellent rail link to London (six trains per hour to St Pancras station) has made the city very sought-after by commuters, but Batchwood ward has been rather left behind in this process and contains some of the most deprived parts of the city, particularly along the Redbourn Road.

Politically, Batchwood is an oddball as well.  St Albans council (which also covers Harpenden and villages to the north) is closely fought between the Lib Dems and Tories and can often produce wrong-winner results, in which the Conservatives poll most votes but the Lib Dems win most seats.  Batchwood, however, was a Labour stronghold during the Blair years mostly thanks to an evenly-split opposition, although strong Lib Dem campaigning slowly turned the ward into a marginal with Labour majorities of 34 in 2004 and 92 in 2007. 

The Lib Dems finally gained the ward in 2008, and on general election day in 2010 unseated the leader of the council's Labour group, Roma Mills, by just one vote with the Conservatives not far behind; not a good day for Mills who was also the unsuccessful Labour candidate for the St Albans constituency that year.  The formation of the Coalition appears to have hit the Lib Dem vote here hard, as last May they fell to third place for the first time since 2003, with Labour increasing their majority to the point where the ward looks safe again.

There is some pressure for the Lib Dems here in terms of control of the council; they lost several seats in 2011 and Amanda Archer's resignation gave the Conservatives a majority on the council.  While the Conservative candidate Tim Smith is unlikely to win the by-election to preserve that majority, the Lib Dems need a good performance in this by-election to have any hope of stopping the Tories from taking overall control at the next election in May. 

The Lib Dems will try and hold their seat with David Partridge, who lives in the New Greens area at the north end of the ward, while Labour have selected Roma Mills.  Mills' strong result in 2006 (when this was the district's only Labour ward) would appear to indicate that she has a personal vote, and this by-election provides her with a good chance to get back on the council.  Completing the ballot paper is Naomi Love from the Green Party, who stood here last year.

Naomi Love (Grn)
Roma Mills (Lab)
David Partridge (LD)
Tim Smith (C)

May 2011 result Lab 1128 C 743 LD 675 Ind 168 Grn 47
May 2010 result LD 1269 Lab 1268 C 1188 Grn 179
May 2008 result LD 864 Lab 702 C 454 Grn 174
May 2007 result Lab 695 LD 603 C 515 Grn 193
May 2006 result Lab 827 LD 587 C 524 Grn 204
June 2004 result Lab 732 LD 698 C 545
May 2003 result Lab 873 C 492 LD 488
May 2002 result (double vacancy) Lab 993/871 C 343/339 LD 323/267


NEWCOMEN, Redcar and Cleveland council; caused by the death of Liberal Democrat councillor Glynis Abbott.

Here's your form guide to the big race at Redcar on Thursday: the Newcomen Stakes.

Redcar is a town on the coast east of Middlesbrough with the unusual combination of seaside resort, flat racecourse and steelworks.  The beach lies at the north-eastern edge of the town, the racecourse is rather incongruously located in the middle of the town, built up on all sides, while the steelworks and chemical works to the west completely fill the gap between Redcar and Middlesbrough.

Newcomen ward is located in the middle of the town, running south from Redcar Central station (two trains an hour to Middlesbrough, Darlington and Saltburn) alongside the western edge of the racecourse.  The deprivation indices get worse the further south you go in the ward, with the south end of the ward merging into the very working-class area of Kirkleatham ward.

The steelworks has been unquestionably the major political issue in the town in recent years, with the closure of the works in February 2010 followed by a sensational Liberal Democrat gain at the general election three months later.  Following the announcement that the steelworks were to reopen under new ownership, the Lib Dems followed up in the 2011 council elections by topping the poll in five of the town's six wards, including Newcomen, and comfortably held a double by-election in the seafront Zetland ward in November last year following a row over whether the Lib Dem councillors had politically restricted posts.

This bodes well for the Lib Dems in this ward over the other side of the racecourse, where the yellow horse will start off as a short-priced favourite according to the formbooks.  Glynis Abbott, in tandem with her husband Chris, had won the previous four races for this ward, the last three by distances, and Chris has been a councillor even longer than that.

Of course, all the good horse races are handicaps, and the new Lib Dem candidate Dave Stones, a local Scout group leader, has certainly made a rod for his own back: the Labour campaign has dug up some (at best) very dubious Facebook remarks Stones made back in 2010 which you can read at http://politicalscrapbook.net/2012/01/lib-dem-anti-islam-candidate/, and Labour is playing the race card for all it's worth with a local Labour MP asking Nick Clegg to disown Stones.  The Lib Dems are standing by their runner, although it remains to be seen whether the resultant heavy going will cost him significant ground in the race.

Hoping to come up on the rails and be first past the winning post for Labour is ex-Lib Dem councillor John Hannon, whose previous election results appear on your racecard as "314" - third in 2007 (in Zetland ward), winner in 2008, fourth in 2011.  Hannon spectacularly gained Kirkleatham ward for the Lib Dems in an October 2008 by-election but appears to have fallen out with the party after that, running for re-election in Kirkleatham as an independent in May and being just edged out on the line by Labour; he finished fourth in the race for three seats, 39 votes short of third place.

Completing the list of runners and riders is the rank outsider in this race: Matthew Bennett of the Conservatives, a 19-year-old from a steelworking family, who is hoping to become Redcar's youngest-ever councillor.  The minor parties are non-runners this time.

Matthew Bennett (C)
John Hannon (Lab)
Dave Stones (LD)

May 2011 result LD 781/733 Lab 442/393 C 100
May 2007 result LD 725/637 Ind 346/249 Lab 204 C 111
May 2003 result LD 1423/1301 Lab 418 C 197/123

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

Just one by-election this week, in the smallest English shire.

UPPINGHAM, Rutland County Council; caused by the death of Independent councillor Colin Forsyth, a former dentist and Mayor of Uppingham who was awarded an OBE in 2001 for services to dental care for prisoners.

The market town of Uppingham is the second town of Rutland, by far England's smallest county.  Located on the Leicester-Peterborough road, the town is most famous for its public school, which is now in its fifth century and has educated four current MPs (Conservatives Robert Adley, Stephen Dorrell and Edward Timpson together with Jenny Willott of the Lib Dems) as well as many other members of the British great and good, including recent Strictly Come Dancing winner Harry Judd.  The town, together with the tiny parish of Beaumont Chase to the south-west, forms Rutland County Council's only three-member ward.

Uppingham's political representation has been stable since the current ward boundaries came in in 2003.  Marc Oxley of the Lib Dems is the town's longest-serving councillor, having been returned at all three elections since 2003 (when he topped the poll).  There has been one Conservative councillor, Kenneth Bool standing down last year and being replaced by Lucy Stephenson, who topped the poll.  Finally, there has been one independent councillor, Peter Ind serving until 2011 when he lost his seat to Colin Forsyth (who had won a previous by-election in 2002, gaining the seat from Labour, before losing to Mr Ind in 2003).

Previous election results have been marked by undernomination: May 2011 saw two candidates each from the Conservatives and Lib Dems and two independent candidates, and in 2003 and 2007 the main parties never stood more than one candidate.  Labour last fought the ward in 2003, although their candidate from that year stood as an independent in 2007 and came last in a field of five candidates.

The by-election will result in a change to Uppingham's political balance as there is no independent candidate in the by-election.  However, the previous undernomination and personal votes make the by-election tricky to call.  Leading the charge for the Tories is retired council planning officer Carolyn Cartwright, while the Lib Dem candidate Peter Golden is a veteran councillor who is hoping to get back on the county council after losing his seat last year in Normanton ward.  The ballot paper is completed by Labour candidate Julie Park.

Carolyn Cartwright (C)
Peter Golden (LD)
Julie Park (Lab)

May 2011 result C 645/562 LD 626/434 Ind 600/531
May 2007 result C 611 LD 552 Ind 536/314 UKIP 355
May 2003 result LD 486 C 419 Ind 402/391 Lab 367 UKIP 233

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

There cannot have been a by-election here, as I didn't see an Andrew Teale writeup on it. Or else that by-election's validity should be challenged on the grounds that it was held without Andrew's written approval.

The result is hereby legitimised.  Sorry for any delay.

----

Again just one by-election this week, and we're off to rural Staffordshire.

MADELEY, Newcastle under Lyme, Staffordshire; caused by the death of Labour councillor Bill Sinnott.

Madeley ward is a place which many people pass through but few stop at.  It can be found 5 miles west of Newcastle-under-Lyme town centre on the A525 Newcastle-Whitchurch road; the main village of Madeley lies on the West Coast Main Line, although there has not been a station here for many years, while to the east of the village the M6 motorway makes a 120-degree curve from west to north-east as it bypasses the Potteries conurbation.  The ward also includes the villages of Little Madeley and Madeley Heath either side of the motorway.  Famous residents in the ward, according to Wikipedia, are Gordon Banks and Lemmy from Motörhead.

Although the ward looks fairly prosperous according to the deprivation indices, it has a coal-mining history, with collieries once upon a time at Madeley and Leycett; nearby was Silverdale Colliery which remained open until 1998.  It's probably this, rather than Keele University being in the next ward, which accounts for the fact that the ward was fairly safe Labour when the current ward boundaries came in in 2002.

The Labour majority dwindled during the later Blair years, and in 2006 Labour won by 29 votes over the Conservatives with the Lib Dems 46 votes further behind.  The Tories gained the ward from Bill Sinnott in 2007 by a margin of 92 over both the Lib Dems and Labour, who tied for second place.  Strangely, the Tories did not follow up with a gain of the other seat on general election day in 2010; even though this ward is part of the safe Conservative parliamentary seat of Stone, the Lib Dems inexplicably made the gain from Labour by 131 votes over the Conservatives, Labour finishing a poor third.  Last year Bill Sinnott gained his seat back from the Conservatives with a majority of 38, the Lib Dems being back in third place.

These wild swings - in the last three elections the ward has voted for all three main parties - make the by-election rather tricky to call.  Much will depend on the campaign, in which all three main parties have selected local candidates.  Defending the seat for the Labour is John Smart, about whom I have no information, while the other two main candidates both have some recent entertainment experience; the Lib Dem candidate, guest-house owner Simon White, appeared last year on the Channel 4 show "Four in a Bed", in which guest-house owners take turns to stay with each other; while the Conservatives' standard-bearer, computer engineer Howard Goodall, is a member of the Stoke Repertory Players, whose production last week was 'Fur Coat and No Knickers'.  Insert your own joke here.  Completing the ballot paper is Elaine Blake of UKIP; UKIP have a very active and successful branch in Newcastle-under-Lyme but in this ward have always been also-rans.

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

The result is hereby legitimised.

You cannot do that postfact. I do not recognize the existence of this so-called "by-election".

mumble mumble florida 2000 mumble mumble

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

It's taken me over a year to do it, but I've finally written a by-election preview which is too big for one post to hold.  So, part I of the eight by-elections on Thursday:

KESGRAVE AND RUSHMERE ST ANDREW, Suffolk County Council, and KESGRAVE EAST, Suffolk Coastal DC; both caused by the death of Conservative councillor John Klaschka, a former engineer and IT worker, at the age of 71.

Kesgrave is a middle-class satellite town of Ipswich, located four miles east of Ipswich on the A1214 Ipswich-Woodbridge road.  It may seem obscure, and even the town's Wikipedia entry doesn't have much to say, but it is by population the second largest town in Suffolk Coastal district after Felixstowe, and bigger than Woodbridge where the district council is based.

Kesgrave's politics are even less interesting than the town - at every election since 2005 the town has returned a full slate of Conservative district and county councillors.  John Klaschka had served on the district council since 2003 and on the county council since 2005.  Kesgrave East is the less monothically Tory end of town, with the Conservatives running unopposed in 2003 but polling 44% in both 2007 and 2011 against evenly-split opposition.  The two-member county division of Kesgrave and Rushmere St Andrew, which also includes the Kesgrave West and Rushmere St Andrew wards, is safe Conservative with the Liberal Democrats in a rather distant second place.

Both by-elections are being contested by just the three main parties.  Defending for the Conservatives are Kesgrave town councillor Geoff Lynch for the district seat, and Christopher Hudson (district councillor for Framlingham ward) for the county seat; the Lib Dems have selected Kesgrave town coucillor Derrick Fairbrother, who fought the district ward last year, for both by-elections; while Labour are standing last year's runner-up David Isaacs in the district by-election and Kevin Archer in the county by-election.

Kesgrave and Rushmere St Andrew (County division)
June 2009 result C 2821/2799 LD 1426/1378 Lab 689/546
May 2005 result C 3567/3547 LD 2731/2055 Lab 2343/1936

Kesgrave East (District ward)
May 2011 result C 1405/1390/1343 Lab 704/606/561 LD 561/443 Grn 542
May 2007 result C 995/738/629 LD 461 Lab 432/294/201 Ind 374
May 2003 result 3C unop


LEEK NORTH, Staffordshire Moorlands DC, and LEEK SOUTH, Staffordshire County Council; both caused by the death of UKIP councillor Steve Povey, from lung cancer at the age of 53.  As well as being a community campaigner, Povey ran an oatcake business in Biddulph and had served as Mayor of Leek.

Staffordshire specialises in two types of town.  Down in the Trent Valley can be found market towns, some quite large, such as Stafford itself, Lichfield and Tamworth.  At the top of the Trent Valley is the Potteries conurbation, an industrial area built on coal-mining and pottery manufacture.  Leek, however, doesn't quite fall into either category: high up in the Peak District twelve miles north-east of Stoke-on-Trent, it is an ancient agricultural centre with a weekly cattle market, but it is also the southernmost of the Pennine textile towns, and from the Industrial Revolution onwards particularly specialised in silk-working.  The cattle market is still going strong, but the textile industry declined many years ago as it did in the rest of the Pennines, and the major employer now is the ex-building society Britannia, which is based in the town.  Judging from local newspaper reports, a major political issue in the town at the moment is changes to the road network in the town consequent upon the building of a new Sainsbury's store.

The district ward of Leek North is basically everything in the town north of the A523 and A53 plus the hamlet of Abbey Green, while the Leek South county division consists of the rest of the town plus the hamlets of Birchall, Leekbrook and Cheddleton Heath on the A520 road to the south.

Leek's politics is a bit different to the rest of the county as well.  The town lies at the centre of the Staffordshire Moorlands district, whose other major towns are Biddulph and Cheadle, and is also the main town in the Staffordshire Moorlands constituency, whose MP tends to flip between Conservative and Labour depending on whether the seat includes the Labour town of Kidsgrove or not; in the 2010 boundary changes Kidsgrove was removed from this seat and the Labour MP Charlotte Atkins (who was first elected in the 1997 landslde when Kidsgrove was moved into this seat) lost to the Conservatives.  The district council has a strong independent streak, electing 20 independents in 2003 to 18 Conservatives, 11 Liberal Democrats (mostly from Biddulph) and 7 Labour.  12 of the Independents were elected under the banner of "Ratepayers (Staffordshire Moorlands)", six of those in Leek town, including Steve Povey who took one of the three seats in Leek North ward, the other two going to Labour.  At the same election Leek East returned a full slate of Ratepayers, Leek West a full slate of Lib Dems and Leek South split, electing two Ratepayers and one Conservative.

The Staffordshire county elections came around in 2005.  By this time Steve Povey had joined UKIP and stood under his new colours in the safe Tory division of Leek Rural, which despite the name includes his ward of Leek North.  He came fourth out of the four candidates with a creditable vote share of 13.2%, just 16 votes behind the Lib Dems.  The Leek South county division, which consists of the town's other three wards, elected a Conservative on a low share of the vote (33.0%, to 25.6% for Labour, 20.2% for the Lib Dems and 16.5% for the Ratepayers).  At the general election on the same day Povey was the UKIP candidate in Staffordshire Moorlands, saving his deposit with 7.9%.

Fast forward to 2007 and the Ratepayer vote collapsed, the Conservatives gaining 11 seats and control of the district council.  Only one Ratepayer councillor was re-elected, Keith Harrison in Leek South.  Steve Povey topped the poll in Leek North for UKIP.  The Conservatives gained Leek East from the Ratepayers, one of the Ratepayer seats in Leek South and two of the Lib Dem seats in Leek West.

Then in the 2009 Staffordshire county elections came a real shock.  The Labour vote in Staffordshire epically collapsed, and Labour went from majority control of the council to being the fourth largest group with just 3 seats, behind the Tories (who won 49 of the 62 seats), the Lib Dems and UKIP.  Despite the blue landslide, the Conservatives lost two seats in Staffordshire Moodlands district; one of them was Leek South, which elected Steve Povey for UKIP with a majority of 411 over the Conservatives.

As stated, in the 2010 general election Labour lost the Staffordshire Moorlands seat to the Conservatives on a 5.7% swing.  Steve Povey was again the UKIP candidate and again saved his deposit, increasing his share of the vote to 8.2%.

The most recent electoral test in the town was the district council elections in 2011.  In his final contest, Povey again topped the poll in Leek North for UKIP with Labour winning the other two seats.  The Ratepayers had by now evolved into the Moorlands Democratic Alliance, apparently annoying their only Leek councillor Keith Harrison in the process; Harrison stood as an independent in Leek South and was re-elected.  The Moorlands Democratic Alliance did have some limited success, gaining two seats in Leek East from the Conservatives which cost the Tories their overall majority, although they remain the largest group on the council.

As can be seen, Leek is a rather idiosyncratic town with lots of minor party support and personal votes, and they don't come much larger than the personal vote for Steve Povey who effectively was UKIP in the town.  With Povey gone, it will be interesting to see where his vote goes to.  Given that Labour hold the other two seats in Leek North district ward they will fancy their chances of making it 3 out of 3, and they have selected a very strong candidate: the former Staffordshire Moorlands MP Charlotte Atkins.  Steve Povey's son Alex, who has taken over the family oatcake business, is hoping to succeed to his dad's old seat.  The Tories are standing Bob Bestwick, who fought this ward last year, the Liberal Democrats have selected former Leek West district councillor Roy Gregg, and the Moorlands Democratic Alliance candidate is Brian Pointon, bandmaster for a local Scout and Guide band.

Alex Povey is also standing for his father's county council seat.  Here he will face the toughest opposition from the Conservatives' Neal Podmore, who represents Leek South on the district council and lost his county council seat to Povey Sr in 2009.  The Lib Dems, Labour and the Moorlands Democratic Alliance are also standing local district councillors: John Fisher (Leek West), Margaret Lovatt (Leek North) and Pamela Wood (Leek East) respectively.  Bill Cawley, who was the Green candidate here at the last county council election, is standing this time as an independent.

Leek North (District ward)
May 2011 result UKIP 694/336 Lab 657/527 C 423/275/170 Ind 277
May 2007 result UKIP 676 Lab 608/592/508 C 498/369/247 Ind 252 LD 161
May 2003 result Lab 616/597/499 Ratepayers (Staffs Moorlands) 530/432/394 C 248/173/140 LD 91

Leek South (County division)
June 2009 result UKIP 1766 C 1355 LD 905 Lab 470 Grn 323
May 2005 result C 2589 Lab 2010 LD 1589 Ratepayers (Staffs Moorlands) 1295 Grn 369

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

(...cont)

TOWCESTER, Northamptonshire County Council, caused by the resignation of Conservative councillor Rosemary Bromwich, who now lives in Cornwall; and TOWCESTER BROOK, South Northamptonshire DC, caused by the death of Conservative councillor Diana Dallyn at the age of 68.

The Roman town of Lactodurum, Towcester is located on Watling Street (A5) at its junction with the A43 Northampton-Oxford road, eight miles south-west of Northampton.  Because of its location on Watling Street, Towcester became a stop on the stagecoach route from London to Holyhead, but lost this trade when the London to Birmingham railway opened, bypassing the town, in 1838.  Today Towcester is probably best known for its racecourse, and in recent decades the area has become known for a different kind of racing, with the Silverstone motor racing circuit just a few miles away to the south-west. 

The Towcester Brook district ward is the southern half of the town, while the Towcester county division is the entire town plus the tiny parish of Easton Neston to the east.

The Conservatives are under some pressure in the Towcester Brook district ward, where they lost two seats to the Lib Dems last year and are now defending their remaining seat.  The Tories won three out of three in 2007 when the current ward boundaries were introduced; in 2003 the previous Towcester Brook ward (which then had only two seats) was a very even C/LD split.  Hoping to hold the district seat for the Tories is John Gasking, who has apparently previously served two terms as a district councillor (I can find no evidence of this so presumably it was before 2003), while the Lib Dems have selected Lisa Samiotis, who is described as a young working mum.  Completing the ballot paper in the district by-election is Peter Conquest of UKIP, who stood in this ward last year.

On paper the county by-election will probably not be as interesting as the Tories won the division very easily in 2005 and 2009.  Both the Tories and Lib Dems have strong candidates; the Conservative candidate is district councillor (for Cosgrove and Grafton ward) and cabinet member Ian McCord, while the Lib Dems have gone for Chris Lofts, who is a district councillor in Towcester Brook ward and former Mayor of Towcester.  The UKIP county candidate is Barry Mahoney, who fought South Northamptonshire at the last general election, while Northampton-based Mark Plowman is standing for the BNP.

You'll notice that I've not mentioned a Labour candidate.  Labour did actually select Douglas Barry to fight both by-elections, but he failed to complete his nomination papers correctly and won't be on either ballot paper.

Towcester (County division)
June 2009 result C 1648 LD 760 Lab 293
May 2005 result C 2004 LD 1195 Lab 1115

Towcester Brook (District ward)
May 2011 result LD 857/811/645 C 831/785/753 UKIP 266/178
May 2007 result C 904/854/796 LD 701 Ind 536


WINCHESTER SOUTHERN PARISHES, Hampshire County Council; caused by the death of Conservative councillor Frederick Allgood at the age of 78.  A journalist for several newspapers all over the world (including the Sunday Express and the New York Times) who later became a PR man for IBM, Allgood had served on Winchester City Council for 27 years and was the 789th Mayor of Winchester; when he died he was vice-Chairman of the county council.

The name "Winchester Southern Parishes" is possibly a little misleading; while this county division is part of Winchester city council it's actually nowhere near Winchester itself.  Located just north of Fareham and Portsmouth and just west of Havant, this is one of those long thin electoral areas containing lots of villages that have little to do with one another.  The largest population centre is probably Wickham in the centre of the division, while the division stretches east to Denmead and west to Whiteley and Swanwick, home of National Air Traffic Services. 

As the proximity to Portsmouth and Southampton might suggest, this is a well-off commuter area.  "Well-off commuter area" is usually synonymous with "safe Conservative" and so it is here.  Allgood had a safe seat and at his last re-election in 2009 had a 30-point lead over the Lib Dems.  Winchester's thirds electoral cycle makes interpreting results in the four district wards covered by the division rather difficult, but Wickham would appear to be the strongest Lib Dem area and Denmead the strongest Conservative area.

The Conservatives have selected Patricia Stallard, who represents Denmead on the city council.  Her main opposition will come from the Lib Dem candidate Vivian Achwal, who represents Whiteley on the city council.  Labour are standing David Picton-Jones, who regularly stands as a paper candidate in an area where there is so little Labour support a derisory vote share would be a positive achievement (in 2008 Whiteley ward was was one of just ten wards in England and Wales where Labour polled less than 2%, and Wickham was one of the five wards where they polled less than 1.75%).  Stephen Harris is standing for UKIP after being the parliamentary candidate for the local seat (Meon Valley) two years ago, while the ballot paper is completed by John Vivian for the Green Party.

June 2009 result C 2625 LD 1232 UKIP 557 Lab 139
May 2005 result C 3981 LD 2795 Lab 825


WINDERMERE TOWN, South Lakeland DC; caused by the resignation of Liberal Democrat councillor Sandra Britton.

One of the previews above mentioned a town that lost trade as a result of the coming of the railways (Towcester).  Windermere town is the opposite, in that it was a town created by the coming of the railways; specifically, the Kendal and Windermere railway which opened in 1847 and made the Lake District easily accessible to tourists for the first time.  In order to accomodate them the town of Windermere (and its twin town, the inland resort of Bowness-on-Windermere) boomed.  Today, as well as the tourism, Windermere is also the home of the kitchenware chain Lakeland, whose flagship store can be found next to the railway station.

The Windermere Town ward itself runs south-east from the railway station as far as the hamlet of Heathwaite.

Politically, South Lakeland council has been comprehensively taken over by the Liberal Democrats with sometimes mind-boggling shares of the vote.  To understand this you need to go back to the Lib Dem decapitation strategy at the 2005 general election, in which the local parliamentary seat (Westmorland and Lonsdale) was the only decapitation to actually succeed, Tim Farron narrowly defeating the Tories' education spokesman Tim Collins.  Farron and the local Lib Dems did not rest there and five years later the seat became one of the safest Lib Dem constituencies in the land, thanks to an 11% swing from the Conservatives and a collapse in the Labour vote to just 2.2%.

Before then, South Lakeland got new ward boundaries in 2008 and so the whole council was up (the district has a strange electoral cycle combining thirds elections with predominantly single-member wards).  In 2008 there were just eleven wards in the whole of England and Wales where the Lib Dems broke 80%, and eight of them were in South Lakeland (six of them were in Kendal, a town which just six years previously had returned 6 Labour councillors out of a possible 13).  Windermere Town's 2008 Lib Dem score of 82.7% puts it at number 7 on the list.

With that share of the vote (although the Lib Dem share did reduce in 2011 when a Labour candidate stood) a Lib Dem loss would be a major upset.  Hoping that won't happen is Jo Stephenson, who lost his seat last year in the neighbouring marginal ward of Windermere Applethwaite and Troutbeck.  The Tories have selected Bermuda-born retired qualified chef Sandra Lilley, while Labour's candidate in 2011, retired headteacher Penny Henderson, is standing again.  Completing the ballot paper is Robert Gibson, a tutor, standing for UKIP.

May 2011 result LD 537 C 117 Lab 114
May 2008 result LD 563 C 118

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

I'm not aware that the Greens ever had any seats in South Lakeland.  It's not a district that would have lots of stereotypical Green voters in the way that neighbouring Lancaster does, and the local Lib Dems have the pavement style of politics sewn up.

In fact I'm struggling to think of any Green councillors in the whole of Cumbria.

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

I'm not aware that the Greens ever had any seats in South Lakeland.  It's not a district that would have lots of stereotypical Green voters in the way that neighbouring Lancaster does, and the local Lib Dems have the pavement style of politics sewn up.

In fact I'm struggling to think of any Green councillors in the whole of Cumbria.

they lost in 2007 I think, I might be wrong

There weren't any Green candidates in South Lakeland in 2003.  Defectors perhaps?

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

To continue the family affair, Steve Povey was a cousin of one of Leek's Tory councillors.

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

The Holy Word was coming, honest.

This week sees four by-elections all caused by resignations.  There is a safe Conservative ward in West Sussex, a fascinating C/Lab ward on the Leicestershire coalfield, and two LD/C contests in councils with long-standing Lib Dem control.

IBSTOCK AND HEATHER, North West Leicestershire DC; caused by the resignation of Labour councillor Stacey Harris, a second-year Loughborough University student who had apparently fallen out with her council group.

The large village of Ibstock can be found about 13 miles west-north-west of Leicester, on the A447 Coalville-Hinckley road.  It is on the Leicestershire coalfield and, with a coal seam about 200 feet below the surface, a colliery was established here in the 1820s.  Coal is no longer mined here, but the colliery had a sideline in brick-making which has thrived and developed over the years into Ibstock plc, which is now the UK's largest brick manufacturer and is still based in the village.  The ward of Ibstock and Heather also includes the smaller village of Heather to the west.  Socially the ward is rather mixed but not too badly off overall.

North West Leicestershire council itself is a rather mixed area, including almost the whole of the coalfield (whose major town is unsurprisingly named Coalville) but also some Tory rural areas around Castle Donington and the socially mixed town of Ashby-de-la-Zouch.  This added up to a district that up until 2007 was Labour-controlled more often than not, but in 2007 the Labour vote collapsed here and Labour went from control of the council to holding just five seats.  One of those five seats was held in the formerly-safe-Labour Ibstock and Heather ward, the Tories gaining the other two seats.  A large part of the Labour vote ebbed away to minor parties; two seats were won by the BNP, who topped the poll in neighbouring Hugglescote ward, and in Ibstock in 2007 UKIP polled almost 20%.

There then followed a series of two fascinating by-elections in this ward.  The remaining Labour councillor died in 2007 and a by-election was held in January 2008 which Labour held by 62 votes over the BNP, who finished second with the Conservatives third.  One of the Conservative councillors then died and a second by-election was held in December 2008 which was even closer; this time the Conservatives held by 15 votes over the BNP with Labour in third just 28 votes further behind.  The BNP followed up in 2009 by taking a clear second place in the local county division of Ibstock and Appleby, which includes more favourable Conservative territory and was an easy Conservative gain from Labour, and easily saved their deposit in the 2010 general election for the North West Leicestershire constituency, which has the same boundaries as the district council and was a Conservative gain from Labour, the previous Labour MP having died a few months before the election.

Then at the last district council election in 2011 the local BNP basically threw in the towel, standing just one candidate in what had been one of their best districts.  Ivan Hammonds, the previous BNP standard-bearer in Ibstock, stood as an independent.  The Conservatives held overall control of the district with a reduced majority, while Labour gained one seat off the Conservatives in Ibstock and Heather to leave the ward split 1C/2Lab.

With such close results in the last few years this by-election - the third in this ward in just over four years - looks very unpredictable.  I haven't been able to find much biographical information on the candidates, but all of them did stand last year for wards in the coalfield.  The defending Labour candidate is Dave de Lacy, who narrowly lost year in Greenhill ward (east of Coalville), while the Tory candidate is Russell Boam, who narrowly lost last year in the Coalville suburb of Whitwick.  Ivan Hammonds is standing again as an Independent.  The Lib Dems have re-selected Kim Wyatt, who had by far the best performance of the three Lib Dem candidates in this ward last year; Sue Morrell (who fought Barden, south-east of Coalville, last year) is the Green Party candidate, and UKIP's candidate is Ashby-de-la-Zouch based Jakob Whiten, who last year fought the safe-Labour Coalville suburb of Thringstone for the Conservatives.

May 2011 result C 970/648/612 Lab 748/693/685 Ind 420 LD 355/161/156
Dec 2008 by-election C 660 BNP 645 Lab 614 LD 174
Jan 2008 by-election Lab 699 BNP 637 C 515 LD 411
May 2007 result C 737/731/599 Lab 707/620/559 UKIP 411 LD 225/222
May 2003 result Lab 672/659/648 C 433/424

ITCHINGFIELD, SLINFOLD AND WARNHAM, Horsham DC, West Sussex; caused by the resignation of the Leader of the Council, Conservative councillor Robert Nye, due to financial difficulties with his business.

This is one of those long wards made up of lots of little villages.  It is named after its three constituent parishes, Itchingfield (south-west of Horsham), Slinfold (west of Horsham) and Warnham (north-west of Horsham).  On the boundary of Itchingfield parish is Christ's Hospital station on the Arun Valley railway line, whose hourly service to Victoria station attracts London commuters; the other two parishes have worse transport links and are further down the social scale (although not deprived by any stretch of the imagination).

The ward is part of the safe Conservative Horsham parliamentary constituency, which returns Francis Maude to Parliament, and this is now a safe Conservative ward.  The two seats split C/LD in 2003 with the Tories topping the poll by just 6 votes, but the Lib Dems lost their seat here in 2007 and fell further behind last May.

The three losing candidates from last May, Ian Shepherd (LD, from Warnham), Justin Pickard (Grn, from Barns Green, a village in Itchingfield parish) and George Tribe (UKIP, from Itchingfield) have all been re-selected to fight the by-election.  The Conservatives have selected Stuart Ritchie, a chartered accountant from Warnham, while Labour are fighting the ward for the first time; Horsham-based nursery manager (in the sense of growing plants) David Hide is hoping to sow the seeds for a good Labour performance. 

May 2011 result C 1303/898 LD 569 Grn 366 UKIP 276
May 2007 result C 1088/1082 LD 772/673 UKIP 220
May 2003 result C 908/869 LD 902/810

OADBY WOODLANDS, Oadby and Wigston BC, Leicestershire; caused by the resignation of Liberal Democrat councillor Malcolm Brown.

One of England's smallest district councils with a population of less than 60,000, Oadby and Wigston borough covers two middle-class suburbs of Leicester which for some reason have never become part of the city proper. 

Oadby Woodlands ward, one of five wards covering Oadby, is the south-eastern end of the Leicester built-up area, located on the northern side of the A6 London Road.  It is one of the most well-off areas of a well-off town (the ward's three census areas are all within the 20% least deprived in England, and two of them are within the 4% least deprived) but hasn't escaped the demographic change which Leicester has seen: at the 2001 census nearly 26% of the population were ethnically Indian, mostly Hindu.

Rather like Sutton below, Oadby and Wigston combines prosperity with many years of Liberal Democrat control, in this case going back to 1991 with often huge majorities (in 1995 the Lib Dems almost had a clean sweep with 25 seats out of 26).  The district is the most Lib Dem part of the Conservative parliamentary seat of Harborough, which the Lib Dems have been targeting unsuccessfully for years.  The three elections in this ward since 2003 have all seen very similar results, the Lib Dems winning a straight fight with the Conservatives with between 55% and 59% of the vote.

The Lib Dems have selected Naveed Alam, who fought Oadby Grange ward last year and was one of only three Lib Dem candidates in the district not to be elected.  The Conservatives have re-selected Bhupendra Dave who fought the ward last year, and this time the LD/C duopoly of candidates is broken as UKIP have nominated Dan Price, who fought Oadby St Peter's ward for the Conservatives last year.

May 2011 result LD 865/785 C 628/557
May 2007 result LD 754/745 C 531/522
May 2003 result LD 546/507 C 443/412

WORCESTER PARK, Sutton, South London; caused by the resignation of Liberal Democrat councillor Jennifer Campbell-Klomps, who is moving abroad.

Worcester Park was originally a deer park adjacent to Henry VIII's Nonsuch Palace, and is named after the 4th Earl of Worcester who became Keeper of the park in 1606.  Today it's another tract of the seemingly endless middle-class inter-war suburbia in outer London, located west of the A24 London Road, north of the A2043 Malden Road and east of the Waterloo-Epsom railway line.  That line includes Worcester Park station from where trains reach Waterloo in around 25 minutes.

The area is the north-western corner of the London Borough of Sutton, which has been Liberal Democrat-controlled since 1990.  When this ward was created in 2002 it was one of the Lib Dem wards with a safe majority.  The Lib Dems performed relatively poorly in 2006 and Worcester Park was gained by the Conservatives, but the Lib Dems bounced back at the last council elections to split the ward's representation, gaining two of the three seats.

The Lib Dems have a large majority in Sutton, but this by-election is in a split ward and the Tories will fancy their chances of victory.  They have selected Simon Densley, a local school governor and IT worker, while the Lib Dem candidate is Roger Roberts, a veteran councillor who lost his seat in the neighbouring Nonsuch ward two years ago.  Labour's perennial Worcester Park candidate Hilary Hosking, who works in the rail industory, is standing again; she is the only candidate who lives in the ward.  Also on the ballot paper are George Dow of the Green Party, who is based at the other end of the borough in Wallington and fought Carshalton and Wallington at the last general election, and UKIP's David Pickles who was their parliamentary candidate for the local seat of Sutton and Cheam two years ago.

The campaign has seen an interesting own goal by the Lib Dem side: the area has recently lost a police sergeant, so to highlight this Lib Dems put out a leaflet promoting the website saveoursergeants.org.uk but failed to buy the domain name first, allowing the Tories to snap it up and use it to say nasty things about the Lib Dem candidate.

May 2010 result LD 2739/2291/2269 C 2309/2287/2229 Lab 585/542/507 UKIP 534
May 2006 result C 1398/1311/1306 LD 1167/1155/1136 Ind 656/567/544 Lab 188/187/176
May 2002 result LD 1327/1274/1212 C 725/699/678 Lab 249/229/226 Grn 167

As doktorb says, there are no by-elections on 23rd February.

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

Thursday 1st March is my birthday.  It's also the date set for two county council by-elections in two of England's smaller county towns.

ABBEY, Shropshire Council; caused by the resignation of Conservative councillor Josephine Jones.

Abbey - not an exceptionally helpful name for a county division.  In fact at the last county council elections in 2009 there were five separate Abbey divisions contested in England.

This Abbey division is named after Shrewsbury Abbey, a former Benedictine foundation dating from 1083, and located east of the town centre along the road to London.  If the name sounds familiar, it's probably from the Brother Cadfael detective stories by Ellis Peters, which were set in and around the Abbey during the Anarchy period.  Much of the Abbey buildings are long gone now, but some of the church remains, so the Abbey has done better than the Gay Meadow, Shrewsbury Town's hilariously-named former football ground at the western end of the ward, now demolished.  Other buildings of note in the ward include the county council headquarters in the Shirehall, and the railway signalbox at Severn Bridge Junction; the world's largest remaining mechanical signalbox with 180 levers, it controls the junction at the south-east end of Shrewsbury station.

The division was created in 2009 for the first unitary Shropshire Council election, and runs along the southern edge of the Shrewsbury-Wolverhampton railway line.  The only previous result is from 2009 in which it was a safe Conservative area.  Previously on Shrewsbury and Atcham district council the western end of the division (including the Abbey) had been in the Lib Dem stronghold of Underdale ward, while the eastern end had been in the safe-Conservative Column ward of Shrewsbury and Atcham district council, and in the safe-Labour (at least in 2005) Monkmoor ward of the old Shropshire County Council.  The ward is entirely in the top half of the deprivation indices.

The list of candidates has a significant omission: there is no Labour candidate for the by-election.  Defending the seat for the Conservatives is Peter Wright, former Assistant Chief Constable of West Mercia Police.  The Lib Dems have nominated environmental scientist Hannah Fraser, and the other candidate for the by-election is retired college lecturer John Brown, standing for the Green Party.

John Brown (Grn)
Hannah Fraser (LD)
Peter Wright (C)

June 2009 result C 637 LD 383 Lab 269


CASTLE, Cumbria County Council; caused by the death of Liberal Democrat councillor Jim Tootle at the age of 59.  During his council career Tootle had blamed the "Cursing Stone", erected in Carlisle 2001 and inscribed with an ancient Border curse, for the 2005 Carlisle floods and 2001 foot-and-mouth outbreak.

Castle - not an exceptionally helpful name for a county division.  In fact at the last county council elections in 2009 there were five separate Castle divisions contested in England.

This Castle division is named after Carlisle Castle, which was built in the 11th century under King William II, and rebuilt in stone by his successor Henry I, to guard the English/Scottish border.  The castle saw action many times up until the unification of England and Scotland in 1603, and last saw action in 1745 when it was the last English garrison left by Bonnie Prince Charlie during the Jacobite rebellion.  Today the castle is open to the public, but the Army still has a presence here, the castle being the headquarters of the Duke of Lancaster's Regiment.  In 2009 I went to Carlisle Castle under their auspices as part of the centenary celebrations for the TA.

The county division named after Carlisle Castle falls into two separate parts.  To the west side of the castle and the River Caldew is the Willow Holme and Newtown areas around the Cumberland Infirmary.  To the east side of the castle is Carlisle's historic city centre, all of which is in this ward except for Citadel railway station.  The northern boundary of the ward is the River Eden and much of the north of the ward is flood plain.  Some Cumbria University buildings are within the ward, which is generally low-down in the deprivation indices.

The county divisions and city wards in urban Carlisle all have the same boundaries, so it's possible to look at the results here on an annual basis.  One thing that immediately sticks out is that Castle has a very high councillor attrition rate: this is the fifth by-election here since 2000, making fifteen polls here in eleven years (eight ordinary city council elections, three ordinary county council elections, three city council by-elections in April 2001, November 2005 and March 2009, and a county council by-election in February 2007).  From June 2001 to May 2010 all of these were won by the Liberal Democrats with Labour second, making Castle the only reliable Lib Dem ward in Carlisle.  Labour reduced the Lib Dem majority to 14 votes in 2010 and gained the ward from the Lib Dems last year, the first time they had won Castle since the April 2001 by-election when a Liberal Party candidate stood and split the Lib Dem vote.  The BNP polled well in the March 2009 by-election (19.7%) but have faded into the background since then.

Jim Tootle was also one of the city councillors for Carlisle, but as he was due for re-election in May there won't be a city council by-election before then.  This by-election is thus just for his county council seat.  Both of the remaining city councillors for the ward are contesting the by-election: Olwyn Luckley (re-elected to the city council in 2010 and winner of the 2007 county by-election) is looking to hold the county seat for the Lib Dems a second time and Willie Whalen (elected to the city council in 2011), a Ucatt union official, is hoping to gain the ward for Labour a second time.  At the time of writing the Wikipedia page for Carlisle says Luckley is already the county councillor - the election hasn't happened yet, people.  The Conservatives don't always stand here (there was no Tory candidate last year) but have found a candidate this time, Irthington-based businessman Keith Meller.  The Green party candidate Neil Boothman is a care worker, while UKIP are standing here for the first time in the shape of their 2010 parliamentary candidate for Carlisle, retired businessman Michael Owen.

Neil Boothman (Grn)
Olwyn Luckley (LD)
Keith Meller (C)
Michael Owen (UKIP)
Willie Whalen (Lab)

May 2011 City Council result Lab 549 LD 438 Grn 135 TUSC 90 BNP 84
May 2010 City Council result LD 816 Lab 802 C 553 Grn 161
June 2009 result LD 424 Lab 297 C 241 Grn 144 BNP 129
March 2009 City Council by-election LD 465 Lab 304 BNP 255 C 143 Grn 125
May 2008 City Council result LD 562 Lab 299 C 206 Ind 202
May 2007 City Council result LD 607 Lab 331 C 185
Feb 2007 by-election LD 653 Lab 222 C 117 Grn 29
May 2006 City Council result LD 632 Lab 321 C 149 Ind 69
Nov 2005 City Council by-election LD 538 Lab 370
May 2005 result LD 937 Lab 853 C 349
June 2004 City Council result LD 917 Lab 541
May 2003 City Council result LD 603 Lab 443
May 2002 City Council result LD 549 Lab 373 C 195
June 2001 result LD 994 Lab 786 C 448
Apr 2001 City Council by-election Lab 329 LD 294 C 258 Lib 67

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

EDIT: Wait; why is Chowdhry standing if he already is a Councillor? What the hell?

Probably because he doesn't think he can get re-elected in Central ward in May. 

---

For the three by-elections on 8th March we travel to three of England's towns that begin with S.  There are polls in a safe Labour ward in Slough, a safe Conservative ward in Sittingbourne, and a Conservative/Labour marginal in Stafford.

BAYLIS AND STOKE, Slough Council; caused by the disqualification of Labour councillor Azhar Qureshi, who did not attend any meetings of the council in six months.  He had been taken ill while on holiday in Pakistan and was unable to return to the UK on doctors' advice.

Travel west out of London on the M4 motorway or the Great Western main line, and Slough is the first town you reach.  It's a very atypical town for the south of England, as its economy for many years was based on manufacturing; this really took off in the 1920s with the development of the Slough Trading Estate, which insulated the town from the Great Depression and attracted an enormous number of immigrants from all over the world.  Today the factories are dying off and being replaced by office buildings for multinational companies, attracted by the town's good transport links and closeness to Heathrow Airport.

Perhaps because of this and Slough's working-class nature, the town gets a bad press.  The neighbouring town of Windsor, on the other side of the River Thames, has for years been lobbying Royal Mail to take it out of the Slough postcode area, with a complete lack of success.  Most outsiders know Slough for two things: the Ricky Gervais 'comedy' The Office, which was set in the town, and John Betjeman's 1937 poem ("Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough! It isn't fit for humans now").

Baylis and Stoke ward is a residential area north-west of the town centre and west of Stoke Poges Lane, running from the railway line in the south to the borough boundary (which is closely drawn around the built-up area) to the north.  The 2001 census found that the ward was majority Asian (Pakistani 31.5% and Indian 18.8% to White British 34.9%); 32.7% gave their religion as Christian compared to 31.6% Muslim and 12.7% Sikh.

Slough council politics became a bit fractured in the Noughties with a galaxy of different Independent groups, but this now appears to be settling down and Labour have a large majority on the council.  Baylis and Stoke ward was created in 2004 out of two previous safe Labour wards, Baylis and Stoke, but was won at its first contest by the Liberal Democrats.  Labour took the three Lib Dem seats back between 2006 and 2008, but it took until 2011 for the Lib Dem vote to collapse, almost entirely in Labour's favour with Labour polling over 80% last year.

The list of candidates is a strange one.  Labour have nominated local bank manager Mohammed Nazir, Ivan Dukes is the representative of the council's bickering independents and UKIP are standing here for the first time in the form of Allan Deverill.   Interestingly there are no Conservative or Lib Dem candidates; even more interestingly at the top of the ballot paper appears the current Central ward councillor Pervez Choudhry.  Choudhry gained Central ward for Labour from the Conservatives in 2008, then defected to the Conservatives and became group leader, then had the Conservative whip suspended after being charged with bigamy.  Not that this should stop Nazir easily holding the ward for Labour.

Pervez Choudhury (Ind)
Allan Deverill (UKIP)
Ivan Dukes (Ind)
Mohammed Nazir (Lab)

May 2011 result Lab 2351 C 349 LD 225
May 2010 result Lab 2071 LD 1082 C 1052
May 2008 result Lab 1413 LD 1222
May 2007 result Lab 1359 LD 965 C 282
May 2006 result Lab 1189 LD 838 C 481 Respect 202 Slough Ind 79
June 2004 result LD 1348/1188/1187 Lab 1034/975/958 C 300/271

Parliamentary constituency: Slough


KEMSLEY, Swale District Council, Kent; caused by the death of Conservative councillor Brenda Simpson.

The UK has quite a few planned villages which were built by indstrialists to serve workers at their mills.  New Lanark in Scotland, Saltaire in Shipley, Bourneville in Birmingham and Port Sunlight on the Wirral are the most famous; close to me is the lesser-known planned village of Barrow Bridge, now on the edge of Bolton.  But until writing this preview I hadn't been aware of Kemsley as a place that falls into this category.

In 1924 Frank Lloyd, a paper magnate who already owned a successful mill in Sittingbourne, developed a new paper mill on the Kentish marshes at Kemsley, and in order to house its workers he developed a garden village.  Sittingbourne Paper Mill closed a few years ago, but the Kemsley Mill is still going strong; it the UK's largest recycler of waste paper and one of Europe's largest paper mills. 

There was once a narrow-gauge railway connecting the two mills to docks at Ridham on the Swale, part of which is now preserved as the Sittingbourne and Kemsley Light Railway; at the other end of the village Kemsley has a main-line railway station on the Sheerness branch (two trains per hour to Sheerness and Sittingbourne, change at Sittingbourne for London).

Today Kemsley is a suburb of Sittingbourne, the gap between them having been filled in recent years with the construction of the private Church Milton estate, which also transformed the ward from traditional Labour (thanks to the paper mill workers) to safe Conservative.  Brenda Simpson was first elected for the ward in 1988 and had represented it ever since.

The three main parties plus UKIP are on the ballot paper.  The Conservative candidate is Mike Whiting, who is a county councillor for the local division of Swale Central.  Labour have selected Richard Raycraft; the Lib Dem candidate is former district councillor Berick Tomes, while former Tory campaigner Derek Carnell is standing for UKIP.

Derek Carnell (UKIP)
Richard Raycraft (Lab)
Berick Tomes (LD)
Mike Whiting (C)

May 2011 result C 830/797 Lab 461/397 UKIP 230 LD 132
May 2010 result C 1743 Lab 766 LD 616
May 2008 result C 855 Lab 296 LD 153
May 2006 result C 722 Lab 268 LD 180
June 2004 result C 531 UKIP 232 Lab 184 LD 114
May 2002 result C 572/464 Lab 207/157 LD 185

Kent County Council division: Swale Central
Parliamentary constituency: Sittingbourne and Sheppey


ROWLEY, Stafford District Council; caused by the death of Conservative councillor David Allan at the age of 65.  Before becoming a councillor he had served in the Royal Air Force for 31 years and rose to the rank of Squadron Leader.

Rowley ward covers western parts of the town of Stafford.  Running south-west from the Brutalist railway station along the Newport Road, it includes the gentrifying former railway workers' estate of Castletown and runs across open country to the ruined Stafford Castle, a landmark next to the M6 motorway.  However, the ward is named after Rowley Park, a middle-class residential area located around the eponymous park and the private Rowley Hall Hospital.

With the ward mostly having prosperous demographics, you might assume that this would be a safe Conservative ward.  Indeed the ward has returned two Conservative councillors at every election since 2003, but only in 2007 could it be described as safe: the 2003 election had Conservative majorities of 23 and 9 votes, and the majorities at the 2011 election were 109 and 24 votes.  This will gave Labour hope that they can gain a seat here in the by-election.

Both main parties have selected candidates with experience in healthcare: Vi Allen for the Conservatives is a former nurse who now works as a chiropodist, and is also (I now find out) David Allan's widow, while Labour's Anne Hobbs is described as a nurse health visitor.  The Lib Dems are sitting out the by-election after polling dismally last year.  The Greens have selected their regular candidate here Kate Harding, while UKIP have gone for Malcolm Hurst.

Violet Allan (C)
Kate Harding (Grn)
Anne Hobbs (Lab)
Malcolm Hurst (UKIP)

May 2011 result C 868/783 Lab 759/711 Grn 222 LD 146
May 2007 result C 831/801 Lab 552/529 Grn 287
May 2003 result C 662/648 Lab 639/552 LD 231 UKIP 145

Staffordshire County Council division: Stafford Central (Castlefields), Stafford West (Rowley Park)
Parliamentary constituency: Stafford

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

There are seven by-elections on 15 March 2012, possibly the busiest remaining day for local by-elections before the main local elections in May.  Three wards in the Essex town of Braintree will go to the polls, as will an industrial Tory Nottingham suburb, a safe Lib Dem Portsmouth suburb and a rural ward on the Yorkshire coast which elected a Green councillor last year.

BRAINTREE EAST, BRAINTREE SOUTH, and GREAT NOTLEY AND BRAINTREE WEST, Braintree district council, Essex; caused by the resignations of Conservative councillors David Messer, Stephen Sandbrook and Claire Sandbrook respectively.  All three former councillors have moved away from the area.

Braintree appears to be one of the more determinedly obscure towns in southern England.  It can be found in the rural northern half of Essex, about eleven miles north of the county town, Chelmsford.  The town was originally Roman and is located at the junction of two Roman roads, but it became prosperous in mediaeval times by weaving wool, turning to silk during the Industrial Revolution; the main silk mill here was run by Samuel Courtauld, whose descendants founded the Courtauld Institute of Art in London.  Probably the main reason for outsiders to visit is the designer outlet village of Braintree Freeport.

Today Braintree has boomed with overspill from Chelmsford and London (the town and the Freeport have stations on a single-track branch off the Great Eastern Main Line; there are hourly trains to Liverpool Street, change at Witham on Sundays).  To accommodate the incomers, much new housing has been built, including the modern private garden village of Great Notley to the south-west of the town, which declared independence in 2000 and became a civil parish of its own.

Braintree is in a rural area but this doesn't necessarily translate to strong Tory votes.  The area has had Labour MPs in the past, most famously Tom Driberg in the 1940s and 1950s, when this area was part of the Maldon constituency; more recently Braintree elected a Labour MP in 1997 and (narrowly) in 2001.

Indeed Braintree town is one of the more politically marginal areas.  Braintree East ward (which contains some very deprived parts as well as the Freeport) was fairly safe Labour in 2003, but the Conservatives gained one of the Labour seats in 2007 and held on to it in a June 2008 by-election.  Last May's election again produced a 2Lab/1C split in what was effectively a photo-finish between the top candidates.

Braintree South ward is more socially mixed and consistently marginal.  In 2003 it elected two Labour councillors and one Lib Dem, who stood alone, Labour topping the poll.  The Conservatives got in on the act in 2007, gaining a seat from Labour and making the ward a three-way LD/C/Lab split, the Lib Dems topping the poll.  The Conservatives held a by-election here in June 2010.  The Lib Dem councillor retired in 2011 and the Conservatives gained the Lib Dem seat and finished top of the poll to make the ward 2C/1Lab.

Great Notley and Braintree West ward, however, is safe Conservative as befits the fact that it's almost entirely a private middle-class estate.  At every election here since 2003 the Conservative majority has increased.

The candidate list shows that there are no Lib Dem candidates in any of the three wards, as in 2011; however, in Braintree East former Lib Dem candidate Paul Lemon is standing as an independent.  In that ward Labour are standing Eric Lynch, who lost his seat here last year, while the defending Conservative candidate is chartered engineer and technologist Stephen Nimmons, who fought the Green Party stronghold of Bradwell, Silver End and Rivenhall ward last year.  The Green Party's candidate is Wendy Partridge, who stood here last year, and Phil Palij is standing for UKIP.

Braintree South has the shortest ballot paper with just three candidates.  Abi Olumbori, who won the 2010 by-election here but unsuccessfully fought last May's election in Bocking South ward, is standing again for the Conservatives.  Labour (Martin Green) and the Green Party (Timothy Reeve) have selected candidates who fought Braintree South last year.

Finally, the Conservative candidate in Great Notley and Braintree West is Frankie Ricci, who is up against three candidates who were unsuccessful in other wards last year: Juliet Walton for Labour, Lynne Maynard for the Greens and Gordon Helm for UKIP.

Braintree East
Paul Lemon (Ind)
Eric Lynch (Lab)
Stephen Nimmons (C)
Phil Palij (UKIP)
Wendy Partridge (Grn)

May 2011 result Lab 762/756/710 C 759/691/668 Grn 297
June 2008 by-election C 668 Lab 406 Grn 125 LD 119
May 2007 result Lab 581/541/516 C 546/507/483 UKIP 266 LD 247/244
May 2003 result Lab 597/531/502 C 304 Ind 254/228 LD 219/216

Braintree South
Martin Green (Lab)
Abi Olumbori (C)
Timothy Reeve (Grn)

May 2011 result C 844/806/605 Lab 780/711/709 Ind 408 Grn 291
June 2010 by-election C 351 Lab 316 LD 216 Ind 138 Grn 44
May 2007 result LD 673 C 607/529/498 Lab 582/518/474 Grn 259 EDP 247
May 2003 result Lab 611/563/520 LD 528 C 371/337 Grn 187

Great Notley and Braintree West
Gordon Helm (UKIP)
Lynne Maynard (Grn)
Frankie Ricci (C)
Juliet Walton (Lab)

May 2011 result C 1435/1418/1211 Lab 407/362/306 Grn 274
May 2007 result C 1158/1129/1010 LD 284 Ind 203 Lab 184/148/132
May 2003 result C 862/794/767 LD 341/316/304 Ind 192 Lab 168/158/141


CHILWELL AND TOTON, Nottinghamshire County Council, caused by the death of Conservative councillor Tom Pettengell; and TOTON AND CHILWELL MEADOWS, Broxtowe district council, Nottinghamshire, caused by the resignation of Conservative councillor Craig Cox.

We're in the Greater Nottingham area here, for Chilwell and Toton are two middle-class suburbs of Nottingham, located to the south-west of the city hard up against the Derbyshire border. 

The area's generally middle-class makeup rather belies a recent industrial past: Chilwell first became a major residential area during the First World War to serve a large military ordnance factory which filled the gap between Chilwell and Toton (and which blew up in 1918 killing 134 people), while Toton to the west grew up in the nineteenth century thanks to Toton Sidings, once Europe's largest railway marshalling yard, which received coal from the Nottinghamshire coalfield and sorted it for distribution across the UK.  The military still have a presence and the marshalling yards are still there, but both are now much reduced from their former glories.

The Nottinghamshire county council division of Chilwell and Toton includes the Broxtowe district wards of Toton and Chilwell Meadows at the western end, Chilwell West in the middle and Chilwell East at the eastern end.  Since 2005 all these areas have returned a full slate of Conservative district and county councillors, including a district council by-election in Toton and Chilwell Meadows in September 2009 which the Tories easily held.  The last non-Tory win here was in 2003 when Labour won one of the three district council seats in Chilwell West, which is more socially mixed than the other two wards.

The 2005 county council result in Chilwell and Toton was quite close between Labour and the Conservatives.  This was held on the same day as the 2005 general election, in which then Labour MP Nick Palmer held on to the local Broxtowe parliamentary constituency.  Palmer regularly posts on political/electoral internet forums, including turning up on Britain-Votes' live blog last Thursday night.

Labour made a recovery in the area in 2011; while they didn't win any seats the two Chilwell wards are now marginal, with Toton and Chilwell Meadows being safer for the Conservatives.  Across the three wards in 2011 the Conservatives beat Labour by 48% to 36%.

Despite this, Labour are not going to be gaining a seat in the county by-election for the simple reason that they haven't nominated a candidate.  The Tories have selected local doctor John Doddy to replace Tom Pettengell, a former chairman of the county council; he will face competition from Lib Dem David Watts, a district councillor representing Bramcote ward, and UKIP candidate Lee Waters.

Issues in the district by-election include plans for 800 new homes in the ward and cuts to Toton's bus service.  The Tory candidate is Halimah Khaled, a charity worker and mother of 3 grown up children.  Her main opponent is Jane Marshall for Labour, who was 33 votes away from winning a seat in Chilwell East ward last year; also standing are Barbara Carr for the Lib Dems and UKIPper Keith Marriott.

Chilwell and Toton
John Doddy (C)
Lee Waters (UKIP)
David Watts (LD)

June 2009 result C 3388/3356 Lab 1442/1135 LD 1076/998 UKIP 786 Grn 658/500 BNP 546
May 2005 result C 3971/3920 Lab 3646/3160 LD 1653/1639 Grn 649

Toton and Chilwell Meadows
Barbara Carr (LD)
Halimah Khaled (C)
Keith Marriott (UKIP)
Jane Marshall (Lab)

May 2011 result C 1529/1491/1413 Lab 926/925/837 LD 377/334/304 UKIP 305
Sep 2009 by-election C 1081 LD 474 Lab 296 BNP 58
May 2007 result C 1394/1315/1301 LD 725/719/669 Lab 411/402/387 BNP 205 UKIP 149
May 2003 result C 1183/1126/1118 Lab 504/490/452 LD 446/358

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

[Part II]

HERTFORD, Scarborough district council, North Yorkshire; caused by the resignation of Green Party councillor Nick Harvey, apparently out of frustration that he was being ignored by council chiefs.

Scarborough is one of those councils where the ward names don't necessarily give you any clue as to where within the district they are.  This is certainly true of Hertford ward, which in fact is a rural ward covering the area to the south and west of Filey. It is named after the River Hertford which here flows away from the sea along the ward's northern boundary into the Vale of Pickering.

The largest settlement within the ward is the village of Hunmanby, one of several places which claim to be England's largest village, which has a railway station on the Yorkshire Coast line (nine trains per day to Hull and Scarbrorough, six trains per day on Sundays); other settlements within the ward include Folkton and Muston on the Filey-Malton road, Reighton on the Filey-Bridlington road, and the Filey holiday camp, which was once Butlins' premier resort but is now operated as a caravan park by the Haven group.

Hertford ward has a rather high councillor attrition rate, this being the third by-election here in six years.  The Conservatives won both seats in 2003, the second seat by just fifteen votes over the Lib Dem candidate, won a bizarre by-election in November 2006 which was a straight fight with the BNP, and held both seats in 2007.  Then in August 2009 Nick Harvey won a by-election for the Green Party with a huge share of the vote, and he was re-elected at the top of the poll last year, the Conservatives winning the other seat.

The by-election campaign appears to have one overriding issue: the closure of Hunmanby library by North Yorkshire county council, despite (according to the current edition of Private Eye magazine) 25 local people being prepared to volunteer to run it.  There is also controversy over a proposed wind farm in the area.

The Greens have not nominated anyone to replace Harvey, so the Conservatives would appear to be well-placed to take the seat back; the Tories have selected a strong candidate, Michelle Donohue-Moncrieff who is the chairman of Hunmanby parish council (and stood as the Lib Dem candidate here in 2007).  The other three candidates are all based in Scarborough: Vanda Inman is standing for Labour, Bob Jackman for the Lib Dems, and Michael James is the ward's first UKIP candidate.

Michelle Donohue-Moncrieff (C)
Vanda Inman (Lab)
Bob Jackman (LD)
Michael James (UKIP)

May 2011 result Grn 1192 C 902/444 Lab 287
Aug 2009 by-election Grn 894 C 356 Ind 94
May 2007 result C 732/709 LD 591 Grn 508 BNP 212
Nov 2006 by-election C 736 BNP 267
May 2003 result C 700/586 LD 571


PORTCHESTER EAST, Fareham borough council, Hampshire; caused by the resignation of Liberal Democrat councillor Chris Brown just before he was to be disqualified for not attending any council meetings in six months.

Like Braintree above, Portchester is a Roman town, located on the northern bank of Portsmouth Harbour between the city of Portsmouth and the town of Fareham.  Unlike Braintree, there are major Roman remains here: the Roman fort of Portus Adurni built to protect the harbour is described as the best-preserved Roman fort north of the Alps, largely because it was so strong that when the Romans left it became an Anglo-Saxon stronghold, then a Norman castle, and ended its useful days as a prison during the Napoleonic wars.  The town of Portchester, which grew up around the fort, was never incorporated into Portsmouth and is now the eastern end of Fareham district; essentially it's a middle-class Portsmouth suburb.

Fareham is one of that handful of councils which have elections by halves, in which half the council is up for election every two years.  The relevant boundary commission mostly ensured that those councils had a uniform pattern of two-member wards, but failed to do so with Portchester East which ended up as a three-member ward.  This means that Portchester East alternates between electing one and two councillors at each election, an electoral cycle it shares with just one other ward in the entire country.

Not that this affects things much politically - Portchester East is a safe Lib Dem ward with the Conservatives running a distant second, although admittedly the last local election here was in 2010 so the effect of the Coalition has not been tested in Portchester yet. 

There are a few articles about the campaign on the local newspaper website portsmouth.co.uk, although as usual the online comments on the articles generate more heat than light.  Issues which have come up include the possible introduction of charging for public car parks in Portchester (with all five candidates coming out against) and whether the sea defences are adequate.

One interesting aspect of the candidate list is that the Lib Dems have selected Geoff Fazackarley, who was one of the Tory candidates here in 2010.  The Conservatives have gone for Alison Walker, daughter of Portchester West councillor Nick Walker.  The Labour candidate is Richard Ryan, who in the dim and distant past was a district and county councillor for the area and still regularly stands here.  The ballot paper is completed by Green Party and independent candidates John Vivian and Manny Martins.

Geoff Fazackarley (LD)
Manny Martins (Ind)
Richard Ryan (Lab)
John Vivian (Grn)
Alison Walker (C)

May 2010 result LD 3554/3178 C 1929/1231 Lab 721/607
May 2008 result LD 1802 C 1055 Lab 326 BNP 323
May 2006 result LD 2394/2105 C 939/820 BNP 389 Lab 345/320
June 2004 result LD 1889 C 1190 Lab 501
May 2002 result LD 2222/1931/1921 C 732/709/644 Lab 688/616/530

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

It's all Southern England in an interesting set of four by-elections today.  The Lib Dems have a difficult defence from Labour in north-west London; there is a contest on the Essex seafront with a Residents Association defending; and the Conservatives are hoping to hold onto a Hertfordshire county seat where Labour will fancy their chances, and a very marginal ward in Devon where their councillor has resigned under rather a cloud.

DOLLIS HILL, Brent borough council, North London; caused by the death of Liberal Democrat councillor Dr Alec Castle.  Dr Castle, a former lecturer, was 66 years old; he had served as a Labour councillor in Brent from 1998 to 2002 and as a Liberal Democrat councillor since 2006.

A working-class tract of north-west London, Dollis Hill can be found to the south-west of the M1 terminus at Staples Corner, the ward being located south-west of the A5 and generally south-east of the A406 North Circular Road.  The ward has an interesting social makeup: the 2001 census found a White British population of just 25%, with Indians (16%) and Irish (13%) as the next-most-populous ethnic groups and about one-sixth of the population identifying themselves as black.  17% of the population gave their religion as Muslim and 15% as Hindu.  The entire ward is placed in the worse-off half of the deprivation indices.

The area is named after the Dollis Hill Estate, created in the early nineteenth century by the Finch family buying up several farms in the area and building Dollis Hill House, which in late Victorian times became the home of Lord Aberdeen and a haunt of famous people including Mark Twain and William Gladstone.  Lord Aberdeen moved out in 1897 after being appointed Governor-General of Canada, and the estate was then sold to Willesden urban district council who turned the land into Gladstone Park.  Unfortunately Dollis Hill House was demolished earlier this year after being severely damaged by fire in the 1990s.

The ward named after the estate (which confusingly does not include the Dollis Hill underground station) appears to be very politically volatile.  As recently as 2002 it was a safe Labour ward, with Labour polling 50% to 34% for the Conservatives and 9% for the Lib Dems.  Then in 2003 came along an event since which politics in the area has never been the same - the Brent East by-election which resulted in a Lib Dem gain from Labour by Sarah Teather.  At the time Dollis Hill ward was the northern end of the Brent East constituency (which was abolished in 2010).  The Lib Dems followed up in the 2006 Brent Council elections by gaining one of the three seats in the ward from Labour, and in 2010 the Lib Dems gained the other two seats to make it three out of three, although the ward remained marginal (the Lib Dem majorities were 108, 79 and 27 votes) - this at an election in which Labour regained overall control of Brent council.

This ward is still part of Sarah Teather's constituency (now Brent Central) and the by-election here will be the first post-Coalition test of the formidable Brent Lib Dem campaigning machine.  Given this and the fact that Ken Livingstone lives in the neighbouring Mapesbury ward, the 2008 GLA results are perhaps less useful here than they are in other parts of London; Ken beat Boris here by 49% to 29%, while the Conservatives narrowly beat the Lib Dems into third place (interestingly, Respect were best of the rest).

With the marginal nature of the ward much will depend on the candidates.  The defending Lib Dem candidate Alison Hopkins, described as 'local through and through' having lived in the area for 55 years, is campaigning against cuts to Brent council's library service and plans by neighbouring Barnet council to build a rubbish dump just outside the ward boundary.  For Labour, Parvez Ahmed, who owns a Bangladeshi restaurant in Kilburn, wants the speed limit reduced in residential streets.  Samer Ahmedali is the Conservative candidate; he lives in Harrow and is a manager at a Wembley supermarket.  The ballot paper is rounded off by retired college lecturer Pete Murry, standing for the Green Party.

Parliamentary constituency: Brent Central
GLA constituency: Brent and Harrow
ONS Travel to Work Area: London

Parvez Ahmed (Lab)
Samer Ahmedali (C)
Alison Hopkins (LD)
Pete Murry (Grn)

May 2010 result LD 1914/1885/1833 Lab 1806/1792/1705 C 878/804/649 Grn 203/179/161
May 2006 result Lab 1177/1052/1007 LD 1079/1042/1021 C 727/720/693 Grn 187
May 2002 result Lab 1188/1161/1124 C 801/741/737 LD 209/164/151 Grn 160
--
2008 GLA results (excludes postal voters)
Mayor: Ken 1426 Boris 851 Paddick 383 Grn 57 Chr 54 BNP 51 UKIP 23 Left 23 EDP 10 Winston McKenzie 7
2885
London list: Lab 1028 C 590 LD 566 Respect 136 Abolish Congestion Charge 132 Grn 130 BNP 100 Christian 98 UKIP 33 EDP 30 Left 14 Unity for Peace and Socialism 9 One London 8 Rathy Alagaratnam 6


ST BARTHOLOMEWS, Tendring district council, Essex; caused by the death of Holland-on-Sea Residents Association councillor Mary Bragg at the age of 76.

Another of those cases where ward and, in this case, district names are not very helpful.  The Tendring local government district is the north-eastern corner of Essex, basically everything beyond Colchester, with the seaside resort of Clacton-on-Sea and the port of Harwich being its largest towns.  St Bartholomews ward (named after a local church) covers the western part of Holland-on-Sea, an eastern suburb of Clacton. 

This ward is coastal retiree territory, with the 2001 census finding that the population of the ward had a median age of 61 (the median age of England as a whole is 37); perhaps because of this the ward is one of the better-off parts of Clacton according to the deprivation indices.  Not quite 'Frinton for the incontinent' as a famous Liverpool Street station graffito had it, but not far off either geographically or demographically.

Tendring local politics is rather weird, in that much of the opposition to the Conservative group (who gained overall control last year) comes from local residents' groups.  The residents fell back overall last year and Labour, who poll well in Harwich, are now the second largest group on the council, but the Holland-on-Sea Residents Association did buck this trend, greatly increasing their majority in St Bartholomews ward to turn it from a marginal into a safe ward, and also gaining from the Conservatives the other Holland-on-Sea ward (Haven ward).

The Residents Assocation have selected Chris Cowlin to defend the seat, while the Conservatives have picked the local county councillor Linda Mead who represents Clacton East division.  This time the by-election isn't a two-horse race as Labour have put nomination papers in for Keith Henderson, who completes the ballot paper.

Essex county council division: Clacton East
Parliamentary constituency: Clacton
ONS Travel to Work Area: Clacton

Chris Cowlin (Holland-on-Sea Res Assoc)
Keith Henderson (Lab)
Linda Mead (C)

May 2011 result Holland-on-Sea Res Assoc 1341/1278 C 527/428
May 2007 result Holland-on-Sea Res Assoc 908/853 C 783/778
May 2003 result Holland-on-Sea Res Assoc 737/673 C 640/624

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

TAVISTOCK NORTH, West Devon district council; caused by the resignation of 20-year-old Conservative councillor Darren Lake over inappropriate Facebook comments.

Tavistock, located twenty-five miles north of Plymouth, is the largest town in the sparsely-populated West Devon local government district.  Although known to the wider world almost solely as the birthplace of the Elizabethan admiral Sir Francis Drake, the town was already rich by Drake's time through a combination of religion (Tavistock Abbey), the cloth trade and tin-mining.  After the dissolution of the Abbey the dominant force in the town became the Dukes of Bedford who took over the abbey's land. 

Copper-mining became the major local industry by about 1800, earning the Dukes of Bedford so much money that they were able to comprehensively rebuild the town centre.  With such wealth eventually comes a major liability for death duties, and in 1911 the Bedford family had to sell most of their holdings in the town in order to meet them; the town council ended up with much of the property and as a result of these holdings is one of the richest parish councils in England.

Today Tavistock is a typical country market town with some Plymouth commuting and a significant tourist trade, drawn by its scenery, rural tranquility and the town's many independent shops.

The Tavistock North ward covers the part of the town north of the River Tavy, including much of the town centre, together with some rural scenery to the north, south and east (including a small part of the Dartmoor National Park).  Its past election results suggest that this is the sort of the area where the person matters almost as much as the party; the ward's three seats split 2C/1LD in both 2003 and 2007; the Lib Dems then gained a seat in a February 2008 by-election following the resignation (or possibly death; sources conflict) of one of the Conservative councillors.  The Conservatives did bounce back in 2011 to win all three seats, but the third Tory seat was gained with a majority of just one vote over a slate of independent candidates.

The poor Tory performance in the 2008 by-election, also held after a seat became vacant within a few months of election, does not give them much grounds for optimism this time round with the resigning councillor under somewhat of a cloud.  Nevertheless they have selected Colin Rogers, who has turned the town's old railway station into holiday accommodation (and got filmed by Channel 4 doing it).  Jeff Moody, one of the independent slate that came close to winning last year (he was 8 votes short), and Adam Bridgewater, who won the 2008 by-election for the Lib Dems, will probably provide the most testing opposition; also standing are Moira Brown for Labour (who stood in this ward last year), Andrew Mudge for UKIP and Daniel Worth, standing as an independent.

Parliamentary constituency: Torridge and West Devon
Devon county council division: Tavistock
ONS Travel to Work area: Plymouth

Adam Bridgewater (LD)
Moira Brown (Lab)
Jeff Moody (Ind)
Andrew Mudge (UKIP)
Colin Rogers (C)
Daniel Worth (Ind)

May 2011 result C 706/592/584 Ind 583/576/369 LD 490/406/248 Lab 367
February 2008 by-election LD 812 C 425 Grn 133
May 2007 result C 567/526/510 LD 543/404/339 Grn 312 UKIP 260/248/205
May 2003 result C 613/493/487 LD 501/470/406 Grn 292


WALTHAM CROSS, Hertfordshire County Council; caused by the death of Conservative councillor Terry Price.

(My thanks to Broxbourne councillor Richard Clemerson for help with this preview.  Cllr Clemerson has written an excellent series of Wikipedia articles on local elections in Broxbourne: see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hertfordshire_local_elections and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broxbourne_local_elections.)

This is the very south-eastern corner of Hertfordshire, located north of the M25 motorway (part of which here is in a tunnel) and west of the River Lea (or Lee; spellings differ).  Waltham Cross itself lies at the southern end of the ward; the cross the town is named after is one of the three surviving Eleanor Crosses, and marks the last resting place before London of Queen Eleanor's funeral procession from Lincoln to Westminster in 1290.

In modern times News International have opened a large printing works next to the motorway which prints copies of The Sun and The Times, while the marshes next to the Lea (or Lee) which cover the eastern part of the county division have been developed as the Lee Valley White Water Centre, which later this year will host the canoe slalom events at the London Olympics.  The white water centre and town are served by Waltham Cross railway station on the West Anglia Main Line (two trains per hour to Liverpool Street via Tottenham Hale plus one train per hour to Stratford); also in the division is Theobalds Grove railway station on the Southbury loop line (two trains per hour to Liverpool Street via Seven Sisters).

The Waltham Cross county division currently covers the Theobalds and Waltham Cross wards of the Broxbourne local government district (although this will no longer be the case from May when new district wards are introduced in Broxbourne).  Broxbourne is generally prosperous and a Conservative stronghold; however, this town is the exception that proves the rule, with much of the division having similar demographics to the grottier parts of the London borough of Enfield, which lies immediately to the south. 

The effect of this is that the Waltham Cross district ward has voted Labour at every election since 2006, although sometimes narrowly, where over the same period every other Broxbourne ward has voted Conservative at every election, often with very large majorities.  At the last two county elections Theobalds ward has outvoted Waltham Cross ward to ensure Conservative wins in the county division, narrowly in 2005 but handily in 2009.  In the 2011 Broxbourne Borough elections the combined vote in the Waltham Cross and Theobalds wards for the Conservatives was less than 90 votes ahead of Labour.

Defending for the Conservatives is Dee Hart, who is a district councillor in Rosedale ward in Cheshunt.  Malcolm Aitken, one of the district councillors for Waltham Cross ward, will be hoping to gain the division for Labour in the by-election.  Completing the ballot paper are Peter Huse of the Lib Dems, a regular candidate in Broxbourne elections since the 1980s, and Albert Nicolas of UKIP, standing here for the first time.

Parliamentary constituency: Broxbourne
Broxbourne district council wards: Theobalds, Waltham Cross
ONS Travel to Work area: London

Malcolm Aitken (Lab)
Dee Hart (C)
Peter Huse (LD)
Albert Nicolas (UKIP)

June 2009 result C 1476 Lab 955 BNP 615 LD 479
May 2005 result C 2317 Lab 2020 LD 662 BNP 454

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

Yes, I forgot to post the Holy Word.  Apologies.  I've been very busy this week.

There is no Holy Word next week either because next Thursday is Maundy Thursday and no by-elections have been arranged for that day.

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

April is normally a lean time for local by-elections; with local elections due in much of the country in May many local parties prefer to postpone by-elections until then, and there is also a presumption against holding by-elections on Maundy Thursday.  There are three by-elections on tomorrow: one in rural Nottinghamshire caused by the death of a councillor, and two in Darlington caused by councillors being disqualified.  But before that, there was a rare Wednesday poll today:

EAST FINCHLEY, Barnet borough council, North London; caused by the resignation of Labour councillor Andrew McNeil who is moving to Northern Ireland for family reasons.

Originally part of the Bishop of London's hunting ground, the London suburb of East Finchley (the N2 postal district) was first seriously developed in the nineteenth century, with the coming of a railway line connecting the area with Kings Cross.  Building was basically complete by 1910 and since then the area has been residential, with a little industry and a large cemetery: the St Pancras and Islington cemetery is described as London's oldest and largest municipal cemetery and is the last resting place of Ford Madox Brown.  The railway line to Kings Cross was replaced in the 1940s by an extension of the Northern Line of the Underground, with East Finchley station at the northern end of a 17-mile tunnel to Morden which was for many years the longest railway tunnel in the world.

The current East Finchley ward runs north and north-west from the underground station along the High Road and the East End Road, as far as the North Circular Road.  Socially it's a rather divided ward, with the area around the East End Road being in the top half of the deprivation indices, the northern end of the High Road being close to the bottom, and the rest of the ward somewhere in between.

Politically, Finchley will always be associated with Margaret Thatcher, having returned her to Parliament from 1959 until 1992.  However, it was never a super-safe seat for her and these days the old Finchley constituency she represented has a majority of Labour councillors (the current Finchley seat includes Golders Green which is a better area for the Tories). 

East Finchley is the core of those Labour wards, having voted for the party at every election since 1982.  The three elections on the current ward boundaries have all produced safe Labour holds, with the Green Party usually finishing third ahead of the Lib Dems (except at the most recent council election in 2010).  In 2008 this was the only ward in the Finchley and Golders Green constituency to vote for Ken Livingstone.

Given the generally middle-class makeup of the area the Labour strength is rather strange; one possible reason is that the ward borders the Hornsey and Wood Green constituency, which similarly leans to the left more than its social makeup might indicate thanks to a large left-liberal population and Guardian readership.  Of course, this may be completely wrong.

The by-election produced no minor party interest and the only candidates are from the three main parties.  Defending for Labour is 25-year-old Arjun Mittra, who is opposed by currency trader Anshul Gupta, standing for the Conservatives, and Jane Gibson for the Liberal Democrats.

Parliamentary constituency: Finchley and Golders Green
GLA constituency: Barnet and Camden
ONS Travel to Work Area: London

Jane Gibson (LD)
Anshul Gupta (C)
Arjun Mittra (Lab)

May 2010 result Lab 3315/2931/2868 C 1994/1855/1723 LD 1725/1397/1237 Grn 652/588/477
May 2006 result Lab 1852/1767/1767 C 1080/1078/1073 Grn 748/586 LD 745/640/555
May 2002 result Lab 2013/1933/1900 C 879/823/798 Grn 626 LD 547/489/365 UKIP 148

2008 GLA elections (excludes postal voters)
Mayoral: Ken 1921 Boris 1527 Paddick 487 Grn 243 BNP 40 Chr 33 Left 19 UKIP 18 EDP 10 Winston McKenzie 3
List: Lab 1534 C 1218 Grn 626 LD 485 BNP 86 Chr 73 Abolish Congestion Charge 70 Respect 57 UKIP 47 Left 41 EDP 33 Unity for Peace and Socialism 8 One London 5 Rathy Alagaratnam 0


Moving on to tomorrow's polls, we start with two by-elections in Darlington caused by councillors being disqualified.

HARROWGATE HILL, Darlington council, Co Durham, caused by the disqualification of former Labour councillor Mark Burton; and HURWORTH on the same council, caused by the disqualification of the Liberal Democrat group leader Martin Swainston.  Former councillor Burton is serving a 22-month prison sentence for sexually assaulting a schoolgirl and possession of child pornography, while former councillor Swainston did not attend any council meetings in six months.

240 miles north of East Finchley is another ward on the old Great North Road.  Harrowgate Hill ward is basically the northern end of the market town of Darlington, located on the A167 road towards Durham.  The built-up area merges seamlessly into Harrowgate Village, a relatively new development outside the old borough boundary and still part of Whessoe parish.  Harrowgate Village is a very well-off area but only accounts for about a quarter of the voters; Harrowgate Hill proper is in the middle of the deprivation indices.

While this is certainly one of the nicer areas of Darlington it returned a full slate of Labour councillors in 2003.  In 2007 the Labour vote collapsed and the Conservatives took two of the three seats in an effective photo-finish between the two parties.  Labour regained the Conservative seats last year, but while Mark Burton had a large personal vote at the time the other two seats were won much more narrowly, with majorities of 96 and 47 votes.

Hurworth is a very different ward, covering the rural area immediately to the south of Darlington.  It is based on the village of Hurworth-on-Tees, and also extends to the east to include the smaller villages of Neasham and Sockburn; located in a bend in the river Tees, Sockburn was once the southernmost point of the old county of Durham.  Just outside Hurworth is Rockliffe Hall, built in 1863 by Arthur Backhouse, a member of one of the Quaker families for which Darlington is famous, and now the training complex for Middlesbrough FC.

Hurworth ward was very safe Conservative in 2003 with only Labour opposition.  This changed in September 2005 when Martin Swainston won a by-election here for the Lib Dems, the Conservative vote collapsing.  The Liberal Democrats followed up in 2007 by gaining the second seat and making the ward safe for them; Labour polled just 2.4% that year, which must be some sort of record for a ward in County Durham.  In 2011 Swainston had a large personal vote but his running-mate fell to only 63 votes ahead of the Conservatives.

Both by-elections are being contested by the three main parties and UKIP.  In Harrowgate Hill, where Labour could be in some trouble given the circumstances of the by-election and the loss of Burton's personal vote, they have selected Helen Crumbie.  The Tories have gone for Gill Cartwright, who was top of the poll here in 2007 and lost her seat last year.  The Lib Dems, who didn't stand here in 2011, have selected Hilary Allen, Daniel Fairclough is standing for UKIP and Paul Thompson is standing for the far-right England First party.

In Hurworth the disqualified Lib Dem councillor Martin Swainston is standing for re-election.  There is a precedent for this in County Durham (an Independent councillor won a by-election in South Tyneside in 2009 caused by his being kicked off the council for non-attendance) but it's still an interesting redefinition of chutzpah.  Swainston is opposed by Christopher Brownbridge for the Conservatives, Steve Rose for Labour and David Davies for UKIP.

Harrowgate Hill
Parliamentary constituency: Darlington
ONS Travel to Work Area: Darlington

Hilary Allen (LD)
Gill Cartwright (C)
Helen Crumbie (Lab)
Daniel Fairclough (UKIP)
Paul Thompson (England First)

May 2011 result Lab 1261/959/910 C 863/590/554
May 2007 result C 713/689/544 Lab 706/663/614 LD 532/469/456 BNP 296 Grn 223
May 2003 result Lab 1016/907/833 C 647/513/494 LD 439/337/276 BNP 261 Ind 221

Hurworth
Parliamentary constituency: Darlington
ONS Travel to Work Area: Darlington

Christopher Brownbridge (C)
David Davies (UKIP)
Steve Rose (Lab)
Martin Swainston (LD)

May 2011 result LD 886/568 C 505/386 Lab 175/175
May 2007 result LD 987/846 C 505/354 Ind 164 Lab 40/37
Sept 2005 by-election LD 527 C 379 Ind 297 Lab 45
May 2003 result C 1175/1121 Lab 318/315


LOWDHAM, Newark and Sherwood district council, Nottinghamshire; caused by the death of the Chairman of the Council, Conservative councillor Keith Sheppard.

Seven miles north-east of Nottingham is the large village of Lowdham, located at the junction of the A612 Nottingham-Southwell and A6097 Bingham-Farnsfield roads.  It is served by a railway station on the Nottingham-Lincoln line, with roughly hourly trains to Nottingham.  This may not seem much to say about the place, but it's all I could get out of Wikipedia.  The Lowdham ward includes the nearby villages of Bulcote, Gunthorpe, Caythorpe, Hoveringham, Gonalston and Epperstone.

The politics of the ward are even less interesting than its Wikipedia entry: in 2003, 2007 and 2011 it elected two Conservative councillors unopposed.  The most recent contested local election in the area was the 2009 Nottinghamshire county council election, with the Conservatives winning the local county division (Farnsfield and Lowdham) by almost five to one against only Labour opposition.

Thursday's by-election will be the first contested election in Lowdham ward since it took on its current boundaries in 2003 (Newark and Sherwood was re-warded in 2007 but this ward wasn't changed).  Four candidates have been nominated: Tim Wendels for the Conservatives, Daniel Hibberd for Labour, Liberal Democrat William Davison and independent Tim Cutler.

Nottinghamshire county council division: Farnsfield and Lowdham
Parliamentary constituency: Newark
ONS Travel to Work Area: Nottingham

Tim Cutler (Ind)
William Davison (LD)
Daniel Hibberd (Lab)
Tim Wendels (C)

May 2011 result 2 C unop
May 2007 result 2 C unop
May 2003 result 2 C unop

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

With just two weeks to go before the May elections, people looking for some electoral straws in the wind have four by-elections to chew on in London and the South East, three of which are in wards which will seem strangely familiar to those who follow local by-elections closely.

GORESBROOK, Barking and Dagenham, North London; caused by the resignation of Labour councillor Louise Couling due to ill-health.  She had been on leave of absence from the council for over a year.

Barking and Dagenham is one of those places where ward names don't mean a lot to people not from the area.  The Goresbrook ward is named after the Gores Brook and specifically Goresbrook Park at its centre, an area of land which was left undeveloped due to its low-lying flood plain nature when the rest of the area was built on as part of the enormous Becontree Estate.  The ward, which straddles the old boundary between Barking and Dagenham, lies between the A13 Ripple Lane to the south and the District Line to the north; just outside the north-west corner is the Becontree underground station on the District Line.  The population of the ward is generally white working-class, and the area scores poorly on the deprivation indices.

The ward has a very unusual recent electoral history, although you wouldn't have been able to tell from the May 2002 result which resulted in a safe Labour win of all three seats against only two Liberal Democrat candidates.  The fun started in September 2004 when a by-election was held here which resulted in a gain for Dan Kelly, representing the British National Party.  It was the first BNP seat on Barking and Dagenham council, at the time the only BNP council seat in London, and an omen of things to come. 

Dan Kelly's time as a councillor was short-lived due to poor health and he resigned after a few months, forcing a further by-election in June 2005 at which Labour's candidate Warren Northover regained the seat.  However, the fun was not over; between the two by-elections was the 2005 general election at which the BNP candidate for Barking, Richard Barnbrook, finished a strong third just 27 votes behind the Conservatives, although well behind the re-elected Labour MP Margaret Hodge.

Hodge talked up the BNP threat before the 2006 borough elections.  Her fears were well founded; the BNP could only find thirteen candidates across the borough but twelve of them got elected with vote shares that suggested the BNP could have seriously challenged for control of the council had they nominated a full slate.  Two of the BNP councillors - Richard Barnbrook and Tracy Lansdown - were elected in first and second place in Goresbrook ward, with Warren Northover the only Labour councillor to be re-elected, coming in third place.

Barnbrook rose highly in the ranks of the London BNP, becoming the leader of the BNP's largest council group.  In 2008 he was the BNP candidate for Mayor of London and top of the BNP list for the London Assembly.  He came a strong third to Boris and Ken in his own ward (Boris topping the poll) and the BNP topped the poll here in the list section of the London Assembly ballot.  Across London the BNP list narrowly made it over the 5% threshold for representation in the Assembly and Barnbrook became the GLA's first BNP member.

In 2010 Labour got their act together as the main BNP opposition, prompted by the BNP leader Nick Griffin standing in Barking at the general election which was held simultaneously with the London borough elections.  Allowing for boundary changes, Griffin actually polled a lower share of the vote than Barnbrook had in 2005, while the increased turnout allowed Labour to defeat every BNP councillor - and every other opposition councillor, Labour finishing with all 51 seats on the council.  This despite Labour deselecting their only Goresbrook councillor Warren Northover, who stood in the ward as an independent and came last.

Labour didn't hold all 51 seats for long: it turned out that Louise Couling, one of their new Goresbrook councillors, was ineligible to be a councillor as she worked for the council as a lollipop lady.  This prompted an immediate by-election in July 2010, at which Couling, now no longer a lollipop lady, faced off against Richard Barnbrook for the second time and won again, though rather more narrowly.  Couling has now caused a second by-election in this ward through her resignation.

For the by-election Labour have selected Simon Bremner, a local school governor who has fought a council by-election before, although he won't want the voters to be reminded of his performance at the 2003 Longbridge ward by-election in which he lost the seat to the Conservatives on a massive swing.  Richard Barnbrook has left the BNP after unsuccessfully challenging Griffin for the party leadership in 2010, and their new standard-bearer in the ward is Bob Taylor.  The other candidates are Robert Hills who is standing for the Lib Dems, Mohammed Riaz for the Conservatives and John Dias-Broughton who has the UKIP nomination.

Parliamentary constituency: Barking
GLA constituency: City and East

Simon Bremner (Lab)
John Dias-Broughton (UKIP)
Robert Hills (LD)
Mohammed Riaz (C)
Bob Taylor (BNP)

July 2010 by-election Lab 881 BNP 642 LD 136 C 108 Ind 63 UKIP 50 Ind 11
May 2010 result Lab 2142/1963/1872 BNP 1340/1146/1128 C 644/533 LD 457/347 Ind 335
May 2006 result BNP 1434/1357 Lab 1204/1162/1135 C 373 UKIP 367
June 2005 by-election Lab 1227 BNP 791 UKIP 216 C 167
Sept 2004 by-election BNP 1072 Lab 602 UKIP 137 C 111 LD 85 Grn 59
May 2002 result Lab 847/842/778 LD 520/509
2008 GLA results (excludes postal voters)
Mayor: Boris 753 Ken 681 BNP (Barnbrook) 429 Paddick 127 Chr 63 Grn 26 UKIP 23 EDP 13 Left 8 Winston McKenzie 5
List: BNP 740 Lab 632 C 369 Chr 102 LD 82 Grn 56 Abolish Congestion Charge 54 UKIP 53 EDP 26 Respect 26 Left 7 One London 4 Unity for Peace and Socialism 1 Rathy Alagaratnam 1

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

(Part II)

SPITALFIELDS AND BANGLATOWN, Tower Hamlets, North London; caused by the disqualification of ex-Labour councillor Shelina Akhtar who was sentenced to sixteen weeks in prison for benefit fraud; she had left the Labour party to join the independent group on the council supporting the elected mayor Lutfur Rahman.

From Becontree station, the underground station for Goresbrook ward, it's only twelve stops up the District Line to Aldgate East, the underground station for Spitalfields and Banglatown ward.  Both wards are part of the London Assembly's City and East constituency.  However, they could not be more different.

Directly north-east of the ancient City of London, Spitalfields and Banglatown ward is an entirely built-up area lying to the north of Whitechapel Road, to the west of Vallence Road and to the south of Quaker Street.  In contrast to Goresbrook's White British nature, Spitalfields has been a centre for immigration for centuries, starting in the late seventeenth century when Huguenot silk weavers set up here; they were followed by Irish weavers in the eighteenth century, Jewish refugees in the nineteenth century, and Bangladeshi immigrants in the twentieth century who made Brick Lane, which runs north to south through the centre of the ward, famous for its curry houses.  In the 2001 census this ward was 70% non-white and 58% of the population were recorded as Bangladeshi; the 2002 ward boundary review added the name Banglatown to the ward to reflect its demographic makeup.

The north-western end of the ward, including the Old Spitalfields Market and the Liberty of Norton Folgate (which until 1921 was a real place rather than a Madness album), is rapidly gentrifying thanks to its proximity to the City and association with famous artists; Gilbert and George and Tracey Emin all live in Spitalfields.  Another Spitalfields resident is the architectural historian Dan Cruickshank, who must take some responsibility for some of the gentrification thanks to a successful campaign to save Spitalfields' Georgian merchant terraces from demolition.  By contrast, the ward's four other census areas are all among the most deprived in the country.

The politics of the ward looked simple when it was created in 2002, Labour winning by a large margin from the Conservatives.  Two of the three Labour councillors elected were Helal Abbas and Lutfur Rahman, and the power struggle between them for the council leadership has been a leitmotif of Private Eye's Rotten Boroughs column for much of the period since.

In the years from 2002 to 2006 minor parties started to get in on the act in Tower Hamlets: Respect won their first council seat at a 2004 by-election in St Dunstans and Stepney Green ward, and a couple of months later the Conservatives won their first ever seat on Tower Hamlets council at a by-election in Millwall ward, the scene of that notorious 1993 by-election which elected the first ever BNP councillor (although the BNP have not had a presence here since).  Then in 2005 Respect, in the shape of George Galloway, gained the Bethnal Green and Bow parliamentary constituency, and followed up in 2006 with a strong assault on the council which Labour were lucky to withstand; Respect became the main opposition group and the Labour majority was cut to one.  One of Respect's twelve council seats came in Spitalfields and Banglatown ward, with Abbas and Rahman the two remaining Labour councillors.

The Respect breakthrough was short-lived and by 2008 the group had fallen apart, with some of its members defecting to Labour and some of the rest ending up in a Left List group reflecting the split in Respect more generally.  Respect and the Left List stood against each other at the 2008 GLA election; the Left List made no impact whatsoever but Respect came second in Spitalfields and Banglatown on the list ballot.  The ward voted overwhelmingly for Ken Livingstone as Mayor.

In May 2010 a referendum was held in Tower Hamlets following a controversial petition for an elected mayor; this resulted in a 60% Yes vote.  At the same time Labour greatly increased their majority at the Tower Hamlets council election, Respect being reduced to one seat.  Rahman and Abbas were re-elected as councillors for Spitalfields and Banglatown and were joined by their running-mate Shelina Akhtar who defeated the Respect councillor Fozol Miah.

The Yes vote in the referendum meant that there was a mayoral election in October 2010.  Following a very messy selection the then council leader Helal Abbas ended up as the Labour candidate with former council leader Lutfur Rahman standing against him as an independent with Respect support.  Rahman won in the first round.  This prompted a by-election in Spitalfields and Banglatown in December 2010 which Labour lost to the Respect candidate, former councillor Fozol Miah.

Since Rahman's election as Mayor several Labour councillors have left the party to form an Independent group on the council supporting Rahman.  One of them was his former ward colleague Shelina Akhtar, whose prosecution has resulted in a second by-election in this ward in seventeen months.

For this by-election Labour have selected former Tower Hamlets councillor Ala Uddin, seeking to return to the council after a ten-year break.  His main competition will probably come from Independent candidate Gulam Robbani, who was Rahman's election agent in the Mayoral election and then worked as an aide for Rahman; Rahman has signed Robbani's nomination papers.  There is no Respect candidate this time so the winner will probably come from those two.  Also standing in the by-election are Matthew Smith for the Conservatives, Kirsty Blake for the Green Party and Richard Macmillan for the Lib Dems.

Parliamentary constituency: Bethnal Green and Bow
GLA constituency: City and East

Kirsty Blake (Grn)
Richard Macmillan (LD)
Gulam Robbani (Ind)
Matthew Smith (C)
Ala Uddin (Lab)

Dec 2010 by-election Respect 666 Lab 553 C 135 Grn 52 LD 33 Ind 28
May 2010 result Lab 1660/1545/1500 Respect 1068/441/437 LD 839/673/532 C 571/561/492 Grn 483/265 Ind 141
May 2006 result Lab 912/860/775 Respect 866/682/471 Ind 716 LD 548/424/354 C 458/329/241 Grn 242/191
May 2002 result Lab 936/848/846 C 400/345/272 LD 255/198/186 Grn 198/146/130 Ind 157/137/124/53
2008 GLA results (excludes postal voters)
Mayor: Ken 1669 Boris 381 Paddick 163 Grn 119 BNP 39 Left 24 Chr 22 UKIP 11 Winston McKenzie 9 EDP 4
List: Lab 914 Respect 540 C 311 Grn 268 LD 184 Abolish Congestion Charge 63 Chr 52 Left 41 BNP 35 One London 30 UKIP 14 EDP 13 Unity for Peace and Socialism 10 Rathy Alagaratnam 4


PLAISTOW, Chichester district council, West Sussex; caused by the resignation of Conservative councillor Linda Westmore.

From Aldgate East station, the underground station for Spitalfields and Banglatown ward, it's only seven stops down the District Line to Plaistow, the underground station for...  Sorry, scrap that.  That's a different Plaistow; this Plaistow is a large and remote rural area on the northern edge of Sussex, including part of the South Downs National Park.  The four main villages in the ward are Lurgashall, Northchapel, Plaistow itself and Loxwood; the nearest towns of any size are Billingshurst and Haslemere.

That's not the interesting thing about this ward.  The really interesting thing is the sheer number of by-elections which this ward generates; this is the fifth by-election here since Plaistow ward was created in 2003, and the eighth election in all during that period.  In May 2003 the ward elected Brian Hooton and Anthony Walker; Walker died shortly afterwards and Paul Mackey won the by-election in August 2003; Hooton and Mackey were re-elected in May 2007; Mackey resigned and John Andrews won the by-election in February 2009; Hooton resigned and Philippa Hardwick won the by-election in February 2010; Andrews resigned and Linda Westmore won the by-election in November 2010; Hardwick and Westmore were re-elected in May 2011; Westmore has now resigned.

All of those councillors were Conservatives, and the defeated Liberal Democrat candidate on every occasion has been Lurgashall parish council chairman Ray Cooper, who is standing again.  Defending this safe ward for the Conservatives this time is Nick Thomas, a former district councillor for Midhurst ward.

West Sussex County Council division: Petworth
Parliamentary constituency: Chichester

Ray Cooper (LD)
Nick Thomas (C)

May 2011 result C 1090/1015 LD 477/462 UKIP 221
Nov 2010 by-election C 416 LD 289 UKIP 62
Feb 2010 by-election C 504 LD 301 BNP 69
Feb 2009 by-election C 455 LD 342
May 2007 result C 1026/977 LD 288/287
Aug 2003 by-election C 471 LD 363 UKIP 62
May 2003 result C 677/667 LD 397/383


WATLINGTON, Oxfordshire county council; caused by the death of Conservative councillor Roger Belson at the age of 62.  A former Irish Guards officer, he was paralysed in a road accident in 1989 but had served as councillor for Watlington since 2001 and was on the council's cabinet from 2005 to 2009.

Watlington is a tiny market town in the Chiltern hills, about fourteen miles south-east of Oxford.  It's at the centre of a large county division which stretches along the Chiltern Hills from Nettlebed in the south to the outskirts of Chinnor in the north-east.  The M40 crosses the north of the division giving good road links to Oxford and London.

On the face of it, this is probably the least interesting of this week's four by-elections, as the two previous results have seen very solid Conservative wins, and the two constituent district council wards (Aston Rowant and Watlington) are also very solid Conservative areas.

The defending Conservative candidate is Caroline Newton, about whom I have no information.  The Lib Dems and Labour have both selected unsuccessful candidates for the district council last year, Nicholas Hancock and James Merritt respectively; Hancock is a Watlington parish councillor.  The ballot paper is completed by UKIP candidate Jonathan Kent.

South Oxfordshire district council wards: Aston Rowant, Watlington
Parliamentary constituency: Henley

Nicholas Hancock (LD)
Jonathan Kent (UKIP)
James Merritt (Lab)
Caroline Newton (C)

June 2009 result C 1720 LD 374 Grn 292 Lab 114
May 2005 result C 2270 LD 1000 Lab 480 Grn 286

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

Just to be clear: there is no Holy Word this week.  Normal service will be resumed next week when there is a by-election and a postponed poll.

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

Dunoon first preferences:
Dick Walsh  Ind  777
Michael Breslin  SNP  663
Jimmy McQueen  Ind  432
Mick Rice  Lab  296
Tony Miles  LD  105
William Green  C  94

Quota was 592: Walsh and Breslin elected on first preferences, McQueen elected on transfers.

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

This time I'll actually get the Holy Word out.  The lean period for by-elections following the ordinary May elections continues, with a single by-election in Cumberland on 24th May.

ASPATRIA AND WHARRELS, Cumbria County Council; caused by the resignation of Conservative councillor Mike Johnson, who is now employed by the county council on its highways team and therefore ineligible to be a councillor.  He had previously been working for the roads contractor Amey but the county council has brought its highways work in-house.

This county division covers some rather beautiful countryside running from the small town of Aspatria, on the Maryport-Carlisle railway, south into the Lake District national park as far as the northern edge of Keswick.  The division includes Skiddaw, England's fourth-highest mountain.  One of the villages included in the ward is Bassenthwaite, which gives its name to the Lake District's only actual Lake (all the other bodies of water are called Meres, Tarns and so on).

The division was first created on its current boundaries in 2001, and was a very close fight between the Conservatives and Labour, the Tories eventually winning by just 20 votes.  The Conservative majority greatly increased over the next two elections, reaching 719 over Labour by the 2009 election, after which this division's councillor Jim Buchanan became Leader of the Council.  Unfortunately he served as leader for just ten months until his death in April 2010, shortly after being diagnosed with cancer.  Mike Johnson easily won the resulting byelection, which bizarrely was a straight fight between the Conservatives and the Green Party.  His resignation has caused a second by-election in this division within two years.

Analysis of the district council results in the area would suggest that the main area of Labour strength is Aspatria, which had coal-mining many years ago and can still poll a good Labour vote, although the ward has returned two Independent councillors since 2007.  The two rural wards in the division, Boltons and Wharrels, are often unopposed (the area is part of the west Cumbria Allerdale district, based on Workington, which tends to have a lot of unopposed returns) but were both contested last year: the long-serving Independent councillor for Boltons ward was easily re-elected in a straight fight with the Conservatives; while in Wharrels the Conservative councillor had little trouble beating off competition from Labour, Lib Dem and Green candidates to be re-elected with 57%, but Labour came a respectable second with 31%.

While the Conservatives are probably favoured to hold the ward, as can be seen there isn't a lot to go on from recent election results.  The defending Conservative candidate is Jim Lister, who represents Solway ward on Allerdale district council.  Another district councillor standing is Bill Finlay, one of the two Independent councillors for Aspatria ward, who has attacked Lister over who should take the credit for saving an Aspatria care home from a recent closure proposal by the county council.  The Labour candidate is Brian Cope, who fought Wharrels ward last year and had the aforementioned good result; the Lib Dems' Phill Roberts fought Aspatria ward last year; and the Green Party candidate is David Bober.

Sept 2010 by-election C 823 Grn 342
June 2009 result C 1276 Lab 557 LD 413
May 2005 result C 1609 Lab 997 LD 717
June 2001 result C 1467 Lab 1447 LD 527

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

'Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode,
The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.
A reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles round the shire,
And after him the parson ran, the sexton and the squire;
A merry road, a mazy road, and as such we did tread
The night we went to Birmingham by way of Beachy Head.'
    - G K Chesterton, The Rolling English Road

This post will be a rolling ramble around England to describe the five by-elections on 31st May.  Like the poem, we start off with a Roman connection in Gloucestershire's Fosseridge ward; wend our merry way to seats in Barnet and Bournemouth recently vacated by former council leaders; and we finish by going by way of Beachy Head, not to Birmingham, but to Sc**nthorpe.  The Sc**nthorpe vacancy is a Labour defence while the Conservatives are trying to hold the other four by-elections.


FOSSERIDGE, Cotswold district council, Gloucestershire; caused by the resignation of Conservative councillor Michele Jeffrey, who is moving to Nottingham to become a trainee barrister.

Fosseridge is the only rural ward in this week's selection, and it has a rather curious shape, surrounding the Cotswold town of Moreton-in-Marsh on three sides.  The ward runs from Broadwell in the south through Bourton-on-the-Hill to the west around to Todenham in the north-east, and includes five other parishes in between (Donnington, Longborough, Condicote, Sezincote and Batsford).  The A429 Fosse Way, the old Roman road from Exeter to Lincoln, cuts the ward into three parts and gives its name to the ward.

This ward is a very safe Conservative area in a safe Conservative Parliamentary constituency, although it has elected three different councillors in the last three elections.  The ward was left uncontested in 2003 and 2007, and in 2011 the Conservatives beat the Lib Dems by an embarassment.

The by-election has attracted three candidates.  Julian Beale, about whom I have no information, is the Conservative candidate; he faces opposition from 20-year-old Liberal Democrat candidate Danny Loveridge and independent candidate Chris Turner, who fought the neighbouring Beacon-Stow ward last year.

Gloucestershire County Council division: Moreton-Stow
Parliamentary constituency: The Cotswolds
ONS Travel to Work Area: Cheltenham and Evesham

Julian Beale (C)
Danny Loveridge (LD)
Chris Turner (Ind)

May 2011 result C 638 LD 173
May 2007 result C unopposed
May 2003 result C unopposed


BRUNSWICK PARK, London Borough of Barnet; caused by the death of Conservative councillor Lynne Hillan at the age of 63.  A founder-director of a marketing company, Hillan served as Leader of the Council from 2009 to 2011, creating headlines with the controversial One Barnet programme under which many council services were outsourced in a similar way to budget airlines' cheap and cheerful ethos, leading to the project being nicknamed 'easyCouncil'.

The Brunswick Park ward is the most easterly in Barnet, hard up against the border with Enfield and lying on the eastern side of the East Coast Main Line which is the ward's western boundary.  It's a generally middle-class area centred on the New Southgate Cemetery.  There are no railway or Underground stations within the ward but the East Coast Main Line stations of New Southgate and Oakleigh Park (three trains per hour to Moorgate) are close to the western end of the ward, while the eastern end is served by the Underground stations at Arnos Grove and Southgate on the Piccadilly Line.  The ward is split between the N14 (Southgate) and N11 (New Southgate) postal districts.

In the last three Barnet council elections this was a safe Conservative ward and it forms part of a safe Conservative parliamentary constituency (Chipping Barnet).  The ward, of course, voted in the Greater London Assembly election just four weeks ago and the breakdown of the votes from this ward is interesting; Brunswick Park voted heavily for Boris for Mayor (Boris 51.4% Ken 33.5%) but the GLA list vote was close between the two main parties (C 37.4% Lab 35.9%) and Labour actually carried the ward in the poll for the Barnet and Camden constituency (Lab 40.9% C 34.3%).  The reason for this last result would appear to be that the defending Conservative candidate for the GLA constituency was Brian Coleman who had become very unpopular after being involved in a series of controversies, not least spending thousands of pounds of GLA expenses on taxi fares.

The by-election is a fight between just the three main parties.  The Conservative defence is led by Southgate resident Shaheen Mahmood, executive secretary of the Conservative Muslim Forum; her main challenge will come from the Hendon-based Labour candidate Andreas Ioannidis, who runs a small catering business in Central London and has had much favourable publicity in London's Greek Cypriot newspapers.  The ballot paper is completed by Liberal Democrat candidate Yahaya Kiingi, from Edgware.

Parliamentary constituency: Chipping Barnet
GLA constituency: Barnet and Camden
ONS Travel to Work Area: London

Andreas Ioannidis (Lab)
Yahaya Kiingi (LD)
Shaheen Mahmood (C)

May 2010 result C 3496/3353/3307 Lab 1994/1937/1758 LD 1289/1217/1066 Grn 548/431/409
May 2006 result C 2827/2722/2636 Lab 680/609/600 LD 618/584/515 Grn 427 UKIP 246/224/213
May 2002 result C 2278/2269/2267 Lab 1627/1494/1488 LD 463/443/323 Grn 257
2012 GLA elections (excludes postal votes)
Mayor: Boris 1743 Ken 1137 Benita 142 Grn 136 LD 124 UKIP 73 BNP 37
List: C 1268 Lab 1217 Grn 274 UKIP 225 LD 202 CPA 66 BNP 53 TUSC 28 EDP 26 Hayat 11 House Party 9 NF 7 Alagaratnam 6
Constituency: Lab 1380 C 1161 Grn 306 LD 291 UKIP 238