The #libdemfightback continues with two good by-election wins in the south east. First of all, Neil Houston held on to the Long Ditton Ward of Elmbridge Council:
LIB DEM – 770
CON – 611
GRN – 79
UKIP – 61
And in Seaford, in East Sussex, 18 year old Isabelle Murray, who wasn’t even old enough to vote in May, won the Seaford Central ward on the Town Council by quite some margin.
LIB DEM-370
UKIP-210
IND-207
CON-193
GREEN-57
Congratulations to Neil, Isabelle and their campaign teams.
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14 Comments
Congratulations to Neil and Isabelle!
Lets not forget the 11.3% increase in vote for Roy Horobin in Croft Baker ward (NE Lincs) and the 3.4% increase for Alan Dean in Mill Hill (Blackburn)
In Croft Baker we came 6th in 2014 and 4th in 2015 and are now 3rd. In Mill Hill we have improved since General Election Day, but have a long way to go considering Alan Dean won one of 3 seats in 2004 and came close to holding in 2008. We have many people like Alan who have been flying the flag in the adverse circumstances of the last 5 years, and deserve our support
Indeed. The UKIP vote tanked in Lincolnshire which is a really good sign.
Congratulations – there is no doubt a new feeling around. UKIP are losing share everywhere. Lib DEms are almost uniformly gaining share. I do think everyone should acknowledge (including Clegg loyalists) that a new rhetoric is about, Nick has stood down, at present it is felt that our new leader represents something of a return to old values in the party, and our followers are gradually returning. This can only be good.
Congratulations to them both – was fun looking up where exactly Seaford is, but delighted it is now in the LibDem fold.
@Tim13
I agree with you about a new rhetroic, but we should not forget that so many of those new members who have flocked to the party have cited the argument’s contained within Nick’s speech as a reason why they joined (I think I read that the majority are choisng a Clegg membership card as well 🙂 ).
Whilst it does feel like a page is turning, only fair to point to that example! And that this week the party voted against the welfare bill in line with what Nick and Danny blocked in Govt.
Yours faithfully,
A Clegg loyalist who is 100% behind Tim 😀
Seaford is the largest town in Lewes District and part of Lewes constituency. In May we held one district seat (with the Tories winning the other) so this is a good step forward for the local Lib Dems.
Great – well done to everyone involved, Rob.
We should also note that 2 of the last 3 Polls (there have been 8 since May 7th but they dont get much publicity) have put us ahead of UKIP, a big shift in a couple of months.
“I do think everyone should acknowledge (including Clegg loyalists) that a new rhetoric is about, Nick has stood down, at present it is felt that our new leader represents something of a return to old values in the party, and our followers are gradually returning. This can only be good.”
I think everyone should acknowledge that the voters are no longer blaming us for stuff they don’t like happening in government, particularly cuts, and that they can safely vote for us as a protest, knowing that we are now a million miles away from returning to power at Westminster in the foreseeable future.
Yours faithfully,
Another Nick Clegg loyalist
(who’s lukewarm about Tim, because I think he’ll be made mincemeat of should he attract even half the hostile media coverage Clegg did)
Tim Farron is not in coalition with Tories. The context is different.
I think that Nick Clegg is far more popular in the country than contributors to this website think. Personally I wouldn’t write him off as leading the party again sometime in the future.
There is a real opportunity for the party now as the Tories have been set loose, Labour is in disarray and the Ukip/Green vote is in retreat. However I am also lukewarm on Tim Farron as he is an easy hit for aggressive political interviewers. He still hasn’t been able to bring himself to say, on a yes/no basis, that consensual sex between gay couples is not a sin of any kind.
Robert, Indeed Nick is the most popular leader this party has ever had, since he found that the route to government success in 2010 was losing 5 of our MPs. He then set about repeating that on an even greater scale with his rout to success being losing not five but fifty MPs. Developing this was his key advisor Ryan, who showed him personal polls that showed this would result in a grateful nation returning him to number 10 on a tidal wave of acclaim for his wisdom and humility. Sadly a tiny error with decimal point being misplaced in a key spreadsheet lead to the loss of only 49 seats and a failure to capitalise on his key electoral strategy.
His key target for 2020 is now to lose another 90% of our councillors and 77.50% of our MPs, leaving Nick as our final MP. Perfect for his triumphant return as party leader and subsequently taking over from his mentor David as Prime Minister, elevated yet again by popular acclaim across the nation, rising in Scotland following his demolition of Nigel Farage in the In-Out European campaign, then the other Celtic fringes and finally, as a vindication of the wisdom of his strategy, all the good one nation Conservatives of Uxbridge, South Ruislip and Witney.
Nirvana is at hand!
we won by elections at the start of the coaltion as well-I campiagend in Earls Court London-and we won-and aldo in grove-0p=-the same warsd that had a win mentioned in this article-and we won-we win these sorts of elections of differential turnout-they do not mean anything towards r prospects for the future-thats what the evidence points to…please pay attention to it..
Robert 25th Jul ’15 – 9:58am
“…Nick Clegg is far more popular in the country than contributors to this website think.”
Robert
92% of those who voted in the General Election showed how popular he is by voting for parties other than the Liberal Democrats.
More than half our candidates lost their deposit, ie they got less than 5% of the vote.
When you use the words “far more popular” what precisely do you mean?
Well done all.
The new members I’ve spoken to are either people who’d supported us on most occasions for some time, back before Nick Clegg, but never before felt a need to join, or students. Nick Clegg’s resignation speech contained a lot of stuff few Tim Farron supporters could quarrel with. It was earlier events that turned many strong supporters off.
The general view of the new members seems to be favourable to Nick Clegg personally, and supportive of some of the things we did achieve in coalition, but in no way hostile to a shift to a more assertive and radical Liberalism. They are for the most part good Liberals and very anti the new government.