There were only three Council by-elections tonight, all Conservative defences.
The Lib Dems have two new councillors as we gained in Devon and Northamptonshire.
Charterlands (South Hams) result:
LDEM: 46.1% (+46.1)
CON: 39.3% (-25.0)
LAB: 10.7% (+10.7)
GRN: 3.9% (-15.6)
No Ind unlike previous.— Britain Elects (@britainelects) February 23, 2017
A ward we didn’t even stand in last time is now represented by Lib Dem Cllr Elizabeth Huntley.
Just like in Kettering.
Barton (Kettering) result:
LDEM: 57.0% (+57.0)
CON: 29.8% (-19.3)
UKIP: 9.4% (-14.1)
GRN: 3.7% (-3.5)
No Labour unlike previous.— Britain Elects (@britainelects) February 23, 2017
Congratulations to Cllr Andrew Dutton.
And in Chigwell, not a place where you would expect to find a huge amount of Lib Dem support, our vote went up by more than 20%. Well done to Joanne Alexander-Sefre for flying the Lib Dem banner.
Chigwell Village (Epping Forest) result:
CON: 76.0% (+13.6)
LDEM: 24.0% (+20.5)
No Lab and Grn unlike prev.— Britain Elects (@britainelects) February 23, 2017
Not a bad night so far. I’m off to bed now as I have a hideously early start in the morning. Paul Walter will update you with the Copeland and Stoke results when they come in.
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings. You can find her on Bluesky at caronmlindsay.bsky.social
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4 Comments
Superb. Average vote gain about 40% this week, lol.
Add to that two gains from Labour in Westhoughton Town Council, both with over 50%, both from standing start.
That brings us up to 8 gains and just 2 losses (in one double by-election) so far this year in Borough, District and Municipal council elections so far this year. I think we can begin to consider this a trend.
Surprisingly, so far we have won 6 from Tories and only 2 from Labour. It’ll be interesting to see if this continues as the numbers build up.
PS I’m disregarding District and Town Council elections, which no doubt have their own story to tell but are very different animals from Borough/District/Municipal Council elections.
I hope all our new winners realise that their first duty is to ensure that when they come up for re-election they hold the seat – or if the seat has an election before they’re due, the seat is won by another Lib Dem candidate. This was my own priority when I won a safe Tory seat in a council by-election (OK – it was back in 1980, but the tactic is still the same). I set about digging myself in, and six months later we won the county seat when it fell due and the following year had all-up elections for the parish council, put up a full slate of 12 candidates and won ten.