Since my last post we have held on to 3 further councils, making ten in all.
All three will be celebrating increased majorities. In Cheltenham we now have 36 out of 40 seats! And Mole Valley is not far behind with 31 out of 39. Woking’s results are equally pleasing – a win announced while there are still 7 more seats to declare.
Things were looking very hopeful in Wokingham, but the final result has us holding exactly half the seats, so it is officially No Overall Control.
Our eyes are still on Elmbridge and also Tunbridge Wells where we are doing well. I will update this as news comes in.
Over the last few hours we have been running neck and neck with the Tories in terms of the number of seats we have won in local elections this time. As I write both parties are on 433. Mind you, they have lost 416 and we have gained 80.
* Mary Reid is a contributing editor on Lib Dem Voice. She was a councillor in Kingston upon Thames, where she is still very active with the local party, and is the Hon President of Kingston Lib Dems.
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5 Comments
Worth pointing out that the gains in Cheltenham were achieved by completely wiping out the Conservatives. There are now zero Conservatives on Cheltenham Borough Council, Justice Minister Alex Chalk’s constituency…
Helpfully, political pundits are already trying to extrapolate for a future General Election. Although such exercises are somewhat questionable they can be a valid corrective to other published projections.
What stands out is that while Labour are doing very well, it is not as well as seen in opinion polls; the converse applies to the Conservatives – doing badly, but not quite as badly. In fact voting suggests that Labour might not have enough for an overall majority. The Sky pundit suggested that we might be on 38 seats! – But it was unclear to me whether this was on an overall percentage rating or by reference to specific constituencies (unfortunately, I suspect the former). It would be interesting if we can produce a list of constituencies where we had the highest vote – it should not be too difficult, however, I have found it surprisingly hard to access the raw data.
Rather than speculate about possible pacts, we can use the results to highlight where we do have a justified claim to be ‘winning here’.
I’m intrigued that the Tories apparently now have no council seats in Woking, only one seat in Eastleigh and two in Mole Valley – all LibDem-controlled councils, despite the Tories holding all three parliamentary seats with reasonable majorities, which seems a bit contradictory. Does anyone know what the stories are in those areas? Are any of them target seats?
They are all GE target seats.
The Woking Tories bankrupted the Council with extremely foolish property deals. They are not likely to recover for many years.
Woking is a very possible gain at the GE. There may well be several gains in Surrey.
@Simon R – as Chris Moore says, these are all target seats, and are at the heart of the Blue Wall campaign.
If you look at a map you can see the three solid Lib Dem London councils of Richmond, Kingston and Sutton. Richmond and Kingston between them have 3 Lib Dem MPs. Radiating out from these into Surrey are half a dozen Councils with a strong Lib Dem presence but, at present no Lib Dem MPs – these are where we hope to win.