There were 4 principal council by-elections this week, including a rare Wednesday by-election. It was all change as each contest resulted in a change of representation.
There was a fantastic Lib Dem gain from the Conservatives on Mid Devon District Council in Upper Yeo Valley and Tawe ward. Congratulations to Councillor Alex White and the team in Mid Devon on winning over 50% of the vote and increasing the Lib Dem share by 11%. A brilliant result.
Mid Devon DC, Upper Yeo Valley and Tawe
Liberal Democrats (Alex White): 405 (52%, +11%)
Conservative: 226 (29%, -14.5%)
Labour: 91 (12%, -16%)
Green Party: 54 (7%, new)
The next by-election was in Hillhead ward on Glasgow City Council. Thank you to Daniel O’Malley for standing for the Liberal Democrats here and flying the flag. In a close election the Green Party gained the seat from Labour on the seventh round of the STV count.
Glasgow City Council, Hillhead
First Preferences:
Labour: 1298 (31.9%, +9.7)
Scottish Green Party: 1284 (31.5%, -4.7)
SNP: 1015 (24.9%, -3.7)
Conservative: 217 (5.3%, -1.4)
IGV: 133 (3.3%, new)
Liberal Democrats (Daniel O’Malley): 106 (2.6%, -2.8)
Independent: 22 (0.5%, new)
Stage 7 Final Result:
Scottish Green Party: 1908
Labour: 1721
The final by-election on Thursday took place in Wales on Bridgend County Borough Council in Aberkenfig ward. There was no Lib Dem candidate here. Just Labour and an Independent contested the ward, meaning that that Plaid Cymru didn’t even defend it. In the end Labour gained the ward from Plaid but the result was close.
Bridgend CBC, Aberkenfig
Labour: 291 (55%, +26%)
Independent: 236 (45%, new)
On Wednesday night there was one by-election – also in Wales – on Carmarthenshire Council in Elli ward. Thank you to Justin Griffiths for making sure the Lib Dems were represented on the ballot paper amongst the 8 candidates. Considering the Lib Dems did not stand here last time this is a great step forwards. The Independent seat was gained by another Independent.
Independent: 211 (33.9%, new)
Conservative: 151 (24.2%, +16.4%)
Labour: 145 (23.3%, -3.4%)
Plaid Cymru: 48 (7.7%, -2.7%)
UKIP: 27 (4.3%, new)
Independent: 23 (3.7%, new)
Liberal Democrats (Justin Griffiths): 16 (2.6%, new)
Gwlad: 2 (0.3%, new)
A full summary of all results can be found on the ALDC by-elections page here.
* Charles Quinn is Campaigns Organiser for ALDC and a local councillor in Hull.
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4 Comments
Glasgow Hillhead…… Liberal Democrats : 106 (2.6%, -2.8%)..
Hillhead was Roy Jenkins’ constituency between 1982-87……. when unfortunately lost to the new MP for Rochdale. George has certainly gets around.
When looking at local by-elections there is a tendency to focus on the latest week’s results, or if you are a little more sophisticated, at the recent couple of months or so. Thus one tends not to notice how things have changed over time.
The last fifty local by-elections can be summarised as LD 32.8%, Con 28.5%, Lab 23.0%, Green 8.7%. Compare this with the situation ten years ago when the last fifty elections (up to 6th March 2014) which was very different: Lab 32.0%, Con 26.9%, UKIP 15.6%, LD 10.9%, Green 2.5%
Okay, so that was during the collation years. But if, you go back a further five years to March 2009, before the coalition, the share of the vote was: Con 37.3%, Lab 24.6%, LD 22.1%, BNP 7.5%, Green 2.9%
In fact you have to go back to November 2005 to find a time when we were doing as well in local by-elections as we are now. One must not get complacent but we are actually doing quite well.
(Data is for England & Wales only – Scottish politics is very different – and excludes parish/town councils)
I usually comment at this point that the Opinion Polls haven’t changed in Months but that is no longer true.
Over the last 3 Weeks the Conservative average has dropped from 25% to 23% – most of those Voters apparently going to Reform who have edged up to 12%.
In a sense this is not surprising, Tory internal Politics keeps dragging them farther Right. The result is that Government often talks like Reform while doing very little of anything, sensible Tories drift away while the nutters go for the “Real Thing”.
How low the Conservatives can go is anyones guess.
Well done mid Devon 😀