11 Comments

• Lennon 18th Oct '13 - 11:01am

  I think that your change in Carlisle is wrong – Gain from Conservatives whilst losing 15% of the vote from last time?

• Ruaraidh 18th Oct '13 - 11:21am

  Lennon – it’s elected in thirds so that’s a change from 2012 (when we won another seat in the ward).

• Tim13 18th Oct '13 - 11:31am

  If you look at the history of that ward (certainly since 2007) it has considerable Lib Dem history, and at least one Lib Dem councillor, although it registers as a gain, it is not quite the same as a gain in a ward where we simply haven’t got an elected presence. Yes, it was a relatively good night for Lib Dems last night, but it is slightly irritating that LDV posts a comment when there has been some success, but doesn’t mention the downside of poor results. There are continuing problems all over the country, and it doesn’t really give people a genuine flavour of what is happening if there is simply a relentless reporting of positive results but nothing else.

• Lennon 18th Oct '13 - 11:46am

  @Ruaraidh – Fair enough – I was comparing to politicalbetting which showed change since 2011 (which makes more sense in my mind but there we go).

  @Tim13 – quite agree – even last night there were local by-election results which were very poor (albeit in areas which are not natural areas of Liberal strength – Chichester and Thurrock) which has not been mentioned – any chance of consistency?

• Rob Banks 18th Oct '13 - 1:15pm

  Mark

  You are also forgetting about a great result in Lewes where Lib Dems held one seat and gained one from the Green Party in a double town council by-election: http://leweslibdems.org.uk/en/page/lib-dems-gain-two-seats-on-lewes-town-council

• Liberal Neil 18th Oct '13 - 1:20pm

  And in Didcot All Saints where we increased our share from 18% in a by-election last year to 24% yesterday in a TC by-election where the other parties were trying to squeeze us.

• ATF 18th Oct '13 - 3:26pm

  The Luton result is excellent. The Labour candidate was their local election agent, a tough cookie (to put it diplomatically) and they would have put a lot into winning the seat.

  As well as being a top chap, Clive was an excellent councillor locally in the past and great to read that he has been victorious once more.

• David Pollard 18th Oct '13 - 6:08pm

  I agree with Tim13. Just giving the good results is dishonest. A look at the ALDC web site gives the true picture. LibDems are standing fewer candidates than UKIP and getting a much worse share of the vote in places where we are not strong. The results show that the party is being forced back into its strongest areas, with very poor results elsewhere.

• Jonathan Brown 18th Oct '13 - 11:31pm

  I’m from one of the places we did badly (Chichester) and it really was a disappointing result. But it was also pretty odd. We put more effort into this that we have for many other recent elections, had a good candidate – better than any of the others – and were constantly meeting people who said they didn’t want party politics in their village (suggesting they’d be open to switching from a poor tory candidate to a good Lib Dem one). And yet the tory vote swamped (if I can use that word on a 24.6% turnout) in. UKIP did well, despite having a poor candidate too (we have some good ones locally) and very little campaigning. The greens also did well, although they did put a lot of effort in too.

  Despite that, I think we learned a fair bit as a party (we’re kind of having to relearn how to campaign from scratch), and there wasn’t actually much – if any – hostility towards us. Quite the opposite. It just didn’t translate into votes!

• MalcolmGardner 19th Oct '13 - 1:44am

  I was with Jonathan Brown where the Lib Dem ‘extra’ vote did not turn out, for that’s my analysis. What we got was better than the average of national opinion poll ratings by 1 or 2 percent. However, the Greens losing in Lewes might have been in a small way down to all the attention they gave the Chichester District seat and prove of more use. It would not be my first experience of a poor result, where the ripples may have helped positively in other adjacent areas, just saying. Fight them all as hard as you can and you never know how it might distract another party from ruthless targeting of regional and national resources.

• Andy Boddington 19th Oct '13 - 6:58am

  Full details of the Luton result with thanks to Ian Eiloart

  Results from Thursday’s by-elections for Lewes Town Council in Lewes Bridge Ward. Two of the six seats had been vacated by resignations for personal reasons. One outgoing councillor had been elected as a Green, but resigned from the party: so he was an independent when he resigned from the council for personal reasons. The other was a Lib Dem, who’s moving away. Both were good community campaigners, and good councillors.

  So that’s one gain from independent, and one hold. It is significant, though, that the Greens lost out to Labour here. We’re just 10 miles from Brighton and Hove, and the Greens have been our main rivals in Lewes Town (but not Lewes District) for the past few elections.

  Liz Allsobrook (Lib Dem) – 408
  John Lamb (Lib Dem) – 355
  Lloyd Russell Moyle (Lab) – 247
  Louis Blair (Lab) – 231
  Jonny Denis (Green) – 132
  Sarah Neels (Green) – 120
  Donna Edmunds (UKIP) – 113
  Nick Robinson (CON) – 106
  Ian Wilson (UKIP) – 105
  Richard Turner (Con) – 92

  Turnout 987 = 27%