There were two principal by-elections yesterday, reports the Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors (ALDC).
In Birstall Wanlip ward of Charnwood Borough Council, Simon Sansome won a sensational victory for the Liberal Democrats coming from third place. On his second attempt Simon took 15% of the defending Conservative’s vote and achieved a 7% majority. The Labour vote remained stable at 27%.
The local team, pictured, put their victory down to running a campaign focused on local issues. They knocked on 2000 doors and put out 15,000 pieces of literature (including a very effective handwritten letter) highlighting their campaigns for a new school and community centre, to improve the park and ride scheme to nearby Leicester and to protect the character of Birstall.
In Cardiff, Labour held Canton ward despite a strong showing from Plaid. The ward has only ever had Labour councillors since Cardiff became a unitary authority. Despite this the nationalist candidate was just 229 votes away from the winning line and saw a 14% boost in their vote share. The Conservatives came third on 13% and the Greens fourth on 5% having lost 10% of their vote share. Matt Hemsley for the Liberal Democrats and the TUSC candidate both achieved around 3% of the vote.
Just one town council by-election was reported to ALDC. Tony Gubb got a respectable 21% in a Ware Town Council by-election and was just 70 votes behind the Conservative candidate who successfully retained the seat.
For all the detailed results see the ALDC elections page: http://www.aldc.org/category/by-election-results/
* ALDC is the Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors and Campaigners
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29 Comments
Over the past month the average LibDem vote share actually showed a marginal increase of 0.25%, compared to the last time these seats were fought. On the same basis the Tory vote was down 0.7% & Labour down 2.3%.
I think the description “sensational” about the Charnwood result is way over the top. It was not very long ago that Birstall Wanlip was Liberal Democrat held, and there was clearly infrastructure to build on. A good result, but hardly sensational.
What interested me more was the Cardiff result – not the party politics of it. There were 6 candidates, 3 women and 3 men. The women between them took nearly 90% of the total votes, the men barely made 10% together!
Obviously the Birstall Wanlip result was very much better than the one in 2011:
LD Simon Sansome 508 (39.6%; +15.2%)
Con 419 (32.7; -15%)
Lab 355 (27.7%; -0.1%)
http://www.aldc.org/by-election-results/charnwood-bc-birstall-wanlip/
But in the context of pre-coalition elections it’s hardly “sensational”. This was a ward in which the Lib Dems topped the poll in 2003 and 2007, achieving 43% and 44% of the vote respectively. So it’s really more a question of that 2011 result (in which only one LD candidate stood in a two-seater ward) having been sensationally bad:
http://thepollshavenowclosed.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/charnwood-birstall-wanlip-libdem-gain.html
“Over the past month the average LibDem vote share actually showed a marginal increase of 0.25%, compared to the last time these seats were fought.”
This seems to be your new mantra. But “the last time these seats were fought” is now almost always a time after the precipitous decline in the party’s poll ratings in late 2010, so it’s hardly surprising there’s been little change since then.
Even results like Birstall Wanlip, which look “sensational” compared with “the last time these seats were fought”, are showing a decline from pre-coalition levels of support.
“The Conservatives came third on 13% and the Greens fourth on 5% having lost 10% of their vote share. Matt Hemsley for the Liberal Democrats and the TUSC candidate both achieved around 3% of the vote.”
Nice attempt to disguise the fact that Matt Hemsley finished last on 2.8% of the vote, behind TUSC on 3.5% …
A statement of “the bleedin’ obvious”, but the elections to be fought in May are the last ones to be fought last time prior to the formation of the Coalition. This will make it easier for lazy and over-optimistic Lib Dem commenters to claim improvement, but I believe it will be a long long time before we get back to 2005 style results, let alone 1995 ones!
Sorry – correction! In my post at 1249 I was referring to comments made on elections post May 2014. Those in May will undoubtedly be dire, and will be interpreted as such.
Way back in the 1970s a councillor from Pendle used to do a summary of local council by election results each week in Liberal Democrat News. This was before we had built up our local government presence as a party. The ALC as it then was employed very few people but was able to do a myriad of useful, inspiring and sensible things which encouraged and helped others throughout the country to work and to win. They did not indulge in empty spin.
The difference between those weekly reports and some of the comments that we get nowadays was that then there was an honesty which is missing today in the age of spin. People obviously do not realise how stupid them seem when they repeatedly try to make silk purses out of something even less promising than a pig’s ear.
The election results of the party under Clegg continue to be abysmal. There are obvious exceptions and occasionally there is a chink of light in the gloom. But for six years (starting before the coalition) Nick Clegg has lead the party into decline.
The facts are there, six years of facts: election results from parish councils all the way up to MEPs. How many days is it to the elections in May 2014? There will be some who do well as a result of their own hard work. But who believes the spin of those who pretend that everything is OK and that the party will be rewarded by the voters for the “difficult decisions” Clegg and co have made by becoming a “party of government”?
As Chris and John Tilley both trenchantly note, it’s gotten to a pretty dire situation when managing to get something approximating to pre-2010 support is “sensational”. However that should not detract from sincere congratulations to the people who evidently worked so hard to achieve this result. How “sensational” results such as holding onto your vote at such significant expenditure of effort are to be replicated in May is not so clear.
@ JohnTilley “People obviously do not realise how stupid them seem when they repeatedly try to make silk purses out of something even less promising than a pig’s ear”.
They need to keep up morale somehow John.
“Way back in the 1970s a councillor from Pendle used to do a summary of local council by election results each week in Liberal Democrat News. ”
More relevantly he and his colleagues used to give appropriate advice on how to fight seats, at a time when the Liberal Party was not popular nationally. And then their successors did the same at the end of the 1980s when the merged party was not popular nationally. It is a mystery to me that ALDC do not now give similar advice but mainly just churn out a lot of government propaganda.
Fortunately there are still people around the country who know better and who are helping to keep this party alive on the ground in some places, as in Birstall. (Whether this result is a sensation or not, it’s still bloody good).
Tony
It is painful to see the spin here. The Leics result was very good, coming 6th in Canton ward in Cardiff really wasn’t epic.
We should say this.
John Tilley wrote:
“The election results of the party under Clegg continue to be abysmal.”
That’s an uncontroversial statement of fact. Now, let’s substitute the word, “”coalition””, for “Clegg”, and we get to the reason why the results are abysmal. The reason is the “coalition”, not Mr Clegg. Until we all recognise that, and do something about it (ie, leave the “coalition”), nothing is going to change. There are those who think the “coalition” is such a noble undertaking that it is worth sacrificing the party just to be in it. I’m not one of them. Firstly, I believe our country needs a liberal, centre-left party. Secondly, the “coalition” is allowing the Tories to do great harm to Britain and its people. It is so important to remember that Mr Clegg didn’t take us into “coalition” on his own. He had the overwhelming support of those party members who went to Birmingham. Those who did that need to hold up their hands and admit their terrible error. Their failure to face up to their historic mistake – even to the extent of deluding themselves that ridding ourselves of Mr Clegg alone will change anything – is simply adding to the catastrophe.
@Sesenco
Alright, you didn’t want the Coalition. What would you have had happen instead? A majority Tory government?
What is your supposed alternative?
@ John Tilley
I’m very keen to hear about how your campaign for a replacement leader is going. Got many names coming forward yet?
RC You still haven’t answered me, about your deeper motivations as to keeping asking your question or, whether as some have surmised, you are a parliamentary adviser or similar. Meanwhile, as I have advised you several times, people are not going to give you firm answers.
@RC. In answer to your question — yes indeed.
But it is not my campaign. You may have noticed a recent election in which Malcolm Bruce was successful — That was nothing to do with me either. Stephen Tall did a piece in LDV based on one of the articles in the national press on the subject of a leadership election. Quite a few names mentioned in that, and more in the comments that followed. But that is not surprising after six years of failure and decline there is bound to be a groundswell of dissatisfaction from all corners of the party.
Just a reminder of where we were before Clegg’s leadership dragged us down —
The party had control of 31 councils in 2008. In council elections we had 25% of the vote, placing us ahead of Labour and we had more than 4,200 council seats—21% of the total number of seats.
Would RC like to remind us of the position in terms of councils controlled and seats held today after six years of the leader that he adores so much?
@ Tim13 Maybe RC is Ryan Coetzee?
@RC “Alright, you didn’t want the Coalition. What would you have had happen instead? A majority Tory government?
What is your supposed alternative?”
Big assumption that the Tories would have initiated another election, chances are they would have been scared to chance another election with such a poor result. Even if they had done so the LD’s might have retained a base to work from as it is the losses have set the party back many many years and in my opinion damaged the parties reputation. You only have to read Sarah Teathers comments to realise the harm done to the party. How many more will suddenly find a voice once they are out of Government.
John Tilley Ryan Coetzee? Brilliant thought! It would be great to think you’re right!
Following Richard Heathcote’s point, the Tories also knew that Labour had been “on the comeback trail” since a week before the election, and by the time The Tories were realistically in a position to call a second election, Labour were already ahead in the polls.
If you look at the past Canton result, 6th was about where we were always going to come. I understand Matt is the only activist in the ward, so coming last isn’t exactly a surprise.
On a related note, he fought a campaign that actually included liberal issues: fighting against the council’s plan to equip its enforcement officers with camera headsets.
He deserves our respect for doing the right thing on both counts.
Doesn’t look as if Lib Dems are reporting fairly … the results show we have a huge job to do in future … can we please get real and do the job without blinkers.
Whatever we think of head cameras, I thought the police were anxious to do it to a) be able to refute charges of police abuse of members of the public, and b) to dissuade potentially out of control officers from abusing people. Maybe we should be encouraging it rather than discouraging? As we know, council enforcement officers are often involved in controversy, and have been injured and even killed in the line of duty. They are also, like police subject to accusations of wrongdoing. Perhaps this topic requires a thread of its own?
RC asked me the following question:
“Alright, you didn’t want the Coalition. What would you have had happen instead? A majority Tory government?
What is your supposed alternative?”
That is a legitimate question, and I will answer it.
The party should have forced the Tories to govern as a minority. That would have (1) allowed us to remain an independent party free to make and promote our own policies, (2) forced the Tories to cooperate with us on individual issues, thereby giving us more influence than we have at the moment, and (3) enabled us to vote down Tory proposals with which we profoundly disagree (such as NHS part privatisation and war with Syria).
No doubt you will immediately retort (as is implicit in your post) that Mr Cameron would have called a second election in the next 6 months and obtained an overall majority. Now, can you answer me this? If David Cameron really believed that to be true, why did he not simply wait for 6 months and call that second election, rather than lock himself into a “coalition” for 5 years?
In 2015, we are going to be asked questions like: Why did you say there was no alternative to the Tory deficit reduction plan, when your leader had described it as “irrational” the previous week? Why did you support the Health and Social Care Bill, when it wasn’t even in the Coalition Agreement? Why has your leadership stayed silent when the government is proposing to incarcerate children in schools for 50 hours a week, 48 weeks of the year – while your leader, at the very same time, spoke up for the rights of the tobacco industry? Why did your MPs vote for war with Syria? Do you think that the convoluted, mealy-mouthed answers that canvassers will be required to deliver will succeed in convincing anyone?
In April/May 2010, I took a week off work to campaign for a Liberal Democrat candidate who was elected to Parliament, defeating a sitting Tory. Do I regret what I did? No, not at all. I was happy to campaign for a party that was on the centre-left and promised to uphold human rights. That isn’t the party I now find.
Now, here’s another question for you, RC. If we continue with the “coalition” right up to polling day, with or without our present leader, how many seats do you think we will be get?
Those advocating a minority Conservative government in 2010 should be clear: you still have to pass the budget to allow a minority government to operate.
On why Cameron didn’t just wait for 6 months and win a second general election.
1. It would have been a disaster for the country facing a perfect storm of debt crisis
2. There’s no guarantee that Cameron would have still been leader of the Conservatives 6 months later – the Tories are not sentimental about defenestrating leaders who don’t win.
3. Impatience.
And I guess 4, a Labour victory 6 months later was still possible, particularly if a weak Cameron could be blamed for the perfect storm. Equally another hung parliament would have been possible, leading to the obvious question: why didn’t you just get on with it the first time?
@Joe Otten – or as the old saw puts it ” a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush”.
I have no problem with coalitions. My objection is to unmitigated disaster that Mr. Clegg has presided over. I do not propose to repeat the litany of failed reforms and votes against of cherished Liberal principles that he has presided over for the sake of short-term political expediency.
Instead I promise not to mention Mr Clegg’s leadership again before May 23rd and for the sake of good candidates the length and breadth of the country I would hope others will do the same. After that date all bets are off.
@ JohnTilley “ Just a reminder of where we were before Clegg’s leadership dragged us down – The party had control of 31 councils in 2008. In council elections we had 25% of the vote, placing us ahead of Labour and we had more than 4,200 council seats—21% of the total number of seats”.
Thanks to Charles Kennedy and Sir Menzies Campbell. Did we shoot ourselves in the foot?
I am following the example of Paul in Twickenham
I will not mention Mr Clegg’s leadership in LDV again before May 23rd for the sake of good candidates the length and breadth of the country.
After that date …. .. .
The Liberal Party collapsed after World War I mainly because it was unable to square its beliefs with the practicalities of governing and fighting a war which it had entered into and because there was an alternative available for opposionists – Labour whose policies turned out to be just as impractical. The collapse in support for the Liberal Democrats has little to do with the merits or otherwise of Mr Clegg but everything to do with the need to implement harsh policies to deal with the nation’s economic problems which were created by decades of wishful thinking and misguided spending by the two bigger parties compounded by the rise of China and other Asian economies and mass immigration which have forced down wages and the standard of living of all but the very rich. The core votes of Labour and the Conservatives are higher than those of the Liberal Democrats and those who believe in fairy land have gone of to UKIP or the SNP, Plaid Cymru etc . It is interesting that Socialist parties like TUSC which do have policies although thye are probabnly just as crazy as those of the other parties, have not benefitted and the Greeen vote seems to have collapsed as well.
As the former Governor of the Bank of England said, those parties who have had to deal with the consequences of the desperate economic and financial crisis may and probably will pay a heavy price at the next election but it has not been solved yet and the Labour Party have absolutely no idea what to do about it so they will most likely disappoint their supporters if elected. What will the voters do then ? They seem to have forgotten the mistakes of that party soon enough so no doubt they will have forgotten the necessarily harsh measures of the Coaltion by 2020.
@Joe Otten
“Those advocating a minority Conservative government in 2010 should be clear: you still have to pass the budget to allow a minority government to operate.
1. It would have been a disaster for the country facing a perfect storm of debt crisis”
So had the Lib Dems won a majority and passed their “I agree with Gordon” budget, it would have been a disaster for the country? The Tories would have had to pass a different budget to the one they did with you, that’s all.
There was no debt crisis. A large deficit, but debt was very prudently scheduled- far more so than the bad situation Hollande inherited.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15717770
There’s far more debt now than in 2010? Where’s the crisis?
I can’t believe you’re still flogging this dead horse that you “saved the country from a debt crisis”.