By-elections are back in the spotlight and the Lib Dems kicked off the second half of the year much the same as the first, another successful night in the world of council By-elections. With Boris gone, Tiverton and Honiton won and few new Lib Dem councillors on the roster, it really is a great time to be a Liberal Democrat.
With eight principal elections up for grabs, of which seven saw a Lib Dem on the ballot, and a straight shoot out Town Council By-election, July 7th was sure to be an interesting affair on the By-election front.
We kick off proceedings on Camden Council in the capital where newly elected Lib Dem councillor Linda Chung gained the seat of Hampstead Town from the Conservatives with a stonking three hundred vote majority! Congratulations to Linda and local team.
Camden, Hampstead Town
Liberal Democrats (Linda Chung): 919
Conservative: 620
Labour: 559
Green: 104
Independent: 44
National Housing Party: 1
Next to Mole Valley, where the Lib Dems obtained a stellar second place finish all the while pushing the Tories into third place. The Green Party ultimately took the seat, but Mike Ward and the team can be very proud of their 30% vote share and whopping 20% vote share increase!
Mole Valley, Charlwood
Green Party: 284 [41.7%, +13.6%]
Liberal Democrat (Mike Ward): 210 [30.8%, +19.5%]
Conservative: 166 [24.4%, -22.0%]
Labour: 21 [3.1%, from nowhere]
The next Lib Dem result of note came from our Town Council By-election on Ashington TC where Andy McGregor and the local team fought Labour for the seat of Seaton in straight shootout. We were just over a hundred votes shy of victory, but from a standing start it was a fantastic return for the local team.
Ashington TC, Seaton
Labour: 331
Liberal Democrats (Andy McGregor): 220
Elsewhere then, on Hatfield Council ward of Hatfield Central Labour held on despite a strong challenge from the Conservatives. Thank you to the Lib Dem candidate Richard Griffiths for giving a Lib Dem option to voters there.
Welwyn Hatfield, Hatfield Central
Labour: 599 [53. %, +0.9%]
Conservative: 273 [24.4%, -9.0%]
Liberal Democrats (Richard Griffiths): 183 [16.4%, +2.6%]
Abolish Town Council:: 61 [5.5%, from nowhere]
On West Sussex, Milton Keynes and Hackney councils the Lib Dems struggled to gain traction, but we thank Hazel Thorpe, Raissa Roy and Thrussie Maurseth-Cahill respectively, for providing a Lib Dem option to local constituents.
West Sussex, Worthing West
Labour: 1262 [52.0%, +5.7%]
Conservative: 795 [32.8%, -6.4%]
Liberal Democrat (Hazel Thorpe): 235 [9.7%, +5.3%]
Green: 133 [5.5%, -1.8%]
Milton Keynes, Woughton & Fishermead
Labour: 1355 [73.2%]
Conservative: 340 [18.4%]
Liberal Democrats (Raissa Roy): 154 [8.3%]
Hackney, De Beauvoir
Labour: 758 [41.5%, +15.5%]
Green: 731 [40.3%, +18.3%]
Liberal Democrats (Thrussie Maurseth-Cahill: 133 [7.3%, -5.0%]
Independent: 83 [4.6%, -3.8%]
Conservative: 82 [4.5%, from nowhere]
Women’s Equality: 27 [1.5%, from nowhere]
There was another by-election on Thursday night on Chesterfield Council which was not contested by the Lib Dems.
* Paul Heilbron is a Campaigns and Communications Intern at ALDC
Follow @LibDemVoice on Twitter
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
Mystery at Witchend is Went the Day Well? and Seven White Gates is A Matter of Life and Death
The long role of the Jewish community in Liverpool
Labour's post-election (non-)honeymoon: The Week in Polls
September now
Farron photos
Peter Martin
Mick Taylor
Michael BG
Jennie
Nell Jerram
12 Comments
Great to see the ‘National Housing Party No More Refugees’ candidate winning just a single vote in the Camden by-election.
Here’s the longer term view for the last fifty local by-elections. For consistency I prefer to use month-end data so these results do not include the by-elections held last Thursday.
Vote share: (The equivalent data for the fifty by-elections up to the end of May is given in brackets).
Labour 36.2% (36.3%)
Conservatives 28.7% (28.5%)
Liberal Democrats 16.3% (17.5%)
Greens 7.9% (8.8%)
Others 10.9% (8.8%)
Gains and losses are:
Labour: Net gain of ten: 12 gains, 27 held, 2 lost
Lib Dems: Net gain of six: 8 gains, 1 held, 2 lost
Greens: No change: 1 gain, 0 held, 1 lost
Health Concern: Net loss of one: 0 gains, 0 held, 1 lost
Independents: Net loss of three: 2 gains, 2 held, 5 lost
Conservatives: Net loss of twelve: 3 gains, 11 held, 15 lost
Labour won 39 seats, Conservatives 14, Liberal Democrats 9, Independents 4, Greens 1
This data is for the most recent 50 by-elections in England & Wales (5th May to 30th June). Parish/Town councils are not included. Numbers do not add up to fifty because of many double elections on May 5th.
P.S. I wholeheartedly agree with Brad Burrows comment. As far as I know this is only the fourth time this century that a candidate has received only one vote – the other 3 were all independents.
@ Kevin Hawkins. England & Wales……. and Scotland, Kevin ?
@ David,
Perhaps Kevin doesn’t have the data, perhaps he realises that comparing the apples of FPTP in England and Wales with the pears of STV in Scotland is a fool’s errand.
Perhaps you might offer us the data for Scotland, noting that by-elections in Scotland tend to produce results that differ significantly from ordinary elections?
Mark Valladares is right in that including Scotland would be comparing Apples and Pears. Apart from the points Mark mentions I would also add that Scottish politics dominated as it is by the SNP is of little relevance to what is happening in England and Wales. Also, PR means that Scottish local election wards tend to be larger which further distorts the overall results. I don’t look at Northern Ireland by-elections for the same reasons.
I also exclude town/parish councils for reasons that Mark Pack has discussed in some detail on his website.
@ Mark Valladares. I don’t have the information, Mark, which is why I asked for it.
It’s reasonable to expect the use of STV in Scotland ought to be kinder to Liberal Democrats than first past the post as used in England. My understanding is that local councils in Wales will have the option of using STV next time in 2027….. though maybe Mr Hawkins could clarify that. ‘Having’ the option’ seems fraught with difficulties, temptations and complications.
My by-election data is stored on an Excel spreadsheet and is capable of being analysed in a variety of ways. Here is a table I’ve not published before showing how parties have performed in local by-elections under different Leaders of the Opposition since 1994. The number in brackets is the number of by-elections, while the lead is the difference in percentage share of the vote between the two main parties. A negative percentage means that the opposition party is trailing behind the government party. The opposition leaders are ranked here in order of highest percentage lead.
David Cameron (1,028) +19.5%
Tony Blair (404) +14.2%
Michael Howard (564) +11.0%
Iain Duncan Smith (444) +7.3%
William Hague (1,238) -0.1%
Ed Miliband (1,128) -1.6%
Jeremy Corbyn (1,106) -2.0%
Keir Starmer (553) -5.0%
Stop calling him Boris
I’m curious why we didn’t contest the seat in Chesterfield? Normally an area where we are very active. Can @Paul Holmes (or someone else) tell us?
Think we need to identify how we have collapsed over the past 5 years in Worthing, remember we almost had the Council one year, the seat in Chesterfield used to be a Lib Dem ward with 3 Lib Dem councillors and Hackney where the Greens almost obliterated us.
We still have a very long way to go and with no B Johnson to help us it will be a difficult road ahead.
We need a by election at Somerton and Frome.
Missed by-Election:
Epsom & Ewell, West Ewell
Residents Associations: 549 [43.4%, +27.9%]
Labour: 395 [31.2%, +20.2%]
Conservative: 205 [16.2%, +7.8%]
Liberal Democrats (Marian Morrison): 117 [9.2%, -0.1%]
Residents Associations HOLD
Labour seems to have improved its position since Johnson resigned. Maybe the Red Wall type voters are drifting back to their former party now he will no longer be leading the Conservatives and they will soon have a more traditional Conservative leader.