By-elections are usually what Thursdays are for, but Hangers and Forest ward in East Hampshire polled yesterday – and it was tantalisingly close to being another Lib Dem gain.
It’s unusual to go from a standing start to almost half the vote, but they did it.
The Hangers & Forest (East Hampshire) result:
CON: 45.3% (-23.7)
LDEM: 43.6% (+43.6)
JUST: 7.9% (+7.9)
LAB: 3.3% (-9.7)— Britain Elects (@britainelects) July 26, 2016
Just 9 votes in it
An incredible effort by Roger Mullenger and his team.
There does seem to be something of a pattern forming now, with significant vote rises in many places, particularly in the south of England.
Keep up the good work, everyone.
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11 Comments
Unlucky – Totnes Town today, then four more on Thursday
Anyone know when the seat was last fought ?
Mark Pack has a record of who fought it this century.
Paul,
See here for the last few times.. http://vote-2012.proboards.com/thread/8265/elections-july-26-27-28.
No Lib Dem has stood there since before 2003, anyway. I think results like this show that the goodwill has returned to us that disappeared in the coalition years, and the possibility of winning a parliamentary by-election (other than where we start from first) no longer seems quite so remote. But we are still only getting derisory votes in Labour areas with a paper candidate..
Very interesting set of by-elections this week which will test if we can make prgress against Labour as well as the Tories
Making progress in the majority of Labour areas will be more difficult. People feel betrayed and being the party of IN while it no doubt plays well in affluent Tory areas does not in deprived areas full of what I call “Stop the World I want to get off voters”. I’m afraid Right Wing populist blame the (insert target of choice, normally someone different from you) will play much better. I suspect UKIP will try to morph into this, failing that some other group will.
And the good news continues Totnes (South Hams) is a gain with a 22 per cent increase in the vote, albeit helped by the fact that labour, whose seat it was, did not stand.
Clive,
Labour had already lost it to the Greens in reality, who won a by-election there last year..we seem to have squeezed the tory vote to win, mainly, but captured some Green votes too.. an independent stood who was really Labour and got much the same vote as last time..
Broadly speaking, we have recovered more quickly (in our strong Tory facing areas) from our 2015 – and Clegg period – thrashing, than the Greens have from their overall poor performance last year. I agree with Andrew above that this result was nothing much to do with Labour in reality. It would be interesting to understand Labour motivation (conspiracy or c*ck up!) in not standing there. I am also not sure how far people outside the Southwest understand Totnes’s special status (New Agey, idiosyncratic etc) which does not really indicate much beyond its boundaries, and certainly not across South Hams Council area. Worth saying that South Hams District was one of the few this way outside cities, which voted for Remain.
Tim
There is various speculation on the site I refer to above about Labour in that seat but it seems possible the independent candidate had not been a Labour member long enough to stand for them..
By-elections today in Newport and Haringey will tell us more about us vs Labour…
Andrew – I use Vote UK Forum as a principal source of info on by-elections anyway, and had been reading the material you refer to. My comment re the age of 19 factor is not drawn from those sources, but from those close personally to the candidate, so I would tend to believe those sources, frankly.
That is, the latter sources, rather than the former.