Congratulations to Cllr John Pugh. Southport’s former MP who retired from the Commons at the General Election has had a cracker of a win in a by-election for the Dukes Ward of Sefton Council.
Duke's (Sefton) result:
LDEM: 56.0% (+28.4)
CON: 26.3% (-9.4)
LAB: 13.9% (-2.3)
UKIP: 2.3% (-13.5)
GRN: 1.5% (-3.1)— Britain Elects (@britainelects) November 2, 2017
That great result was upstaged by a 25% swing from the Tories in Arun.
Brilliant result for Martin Smith in Arun District. 25% swing from Tories. pic.twitter.com/xQuQTExGrf
— ALDC (@ALDC) November 2, 2017
Aldwick West (Arun) result:
LDEM: 52.7% (+34.2)
CON: 35.2% (-16.7)
LAB: 8.2% (+8.2)
GRN: 4.0% (+4.0)LDem GAIN from Con.
— Britain Elects (@britainelects) November 2, 2017
And to cap it all, there was another gain from the Tories in Devon.
And Derrick Spear makes it a hat-trick of gains for the Lib Dems tonight, winning Braunston East in North Devon 😀 pic.twitter.com/aga46PS9lV
— ALDC (@ALDC) November 2, 2017
And in a town council seat we were defending in Eastleigh we won with 65% of the vote.
Great HOLD in Eastleigh. Dave Kinloch wins Hedge End TC (Grange Park West) for Lib Dems with 65% @ALDC @LibDems Con 2nd 20% Lab 3rd 15% pic.twitter.com/LAJWwG0Arg
— ALDC (@ALDC) November 2, 2017
Well done to all our new Councillors and their campaign teams.
* 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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26 Comments
Also Braunton East in North Devon!
I await with interest theakes take on this 😉
Steven Ward held the East Ward on Gainsborough Town Council for the Lib Dems with over 50% of the vote. #VoteSaxon the former UKIP parliamentary Candidate for Gainsborough finishing last behind a nondescript.
As lovely as it is to see Tim Farron in the picture, should we not have updated?
Poor old DEADKIP deader than a Norwegian Blue Parrot, not looking great for the Greens either. I have some sympathy for the Greens but the lose of DEADKIP is no loss at all, I fear however something will replace them a new nastier Tory party perhaps, O too late it has.
Terrific set of results. Well done to all involved.
Very welcome news indeed.
A great night after a few weeks of fairly dismal results. The big question is whether this is the start of a return to the by-election form we were enjoying a year ago or whether it is a temporary blip caused by the Tories current woes. Time will tell.
As Agent and Campaign Manager in the Dukes Ward contest in Southport yesterday, could I point out that we didn’t actually beat the Tories with a 19% swing whatever the figures show.
Who says so?
Southport Labour Party, who have recently gone to the expense of buying a banner that says “Only Labour can beat the Tories in Southport” – see http://www.southportlabour.org.uk/southport_s_former_lib_dem_councillors_join_labour_party
So if only Labour can beat the Tories, then clearly we didn’t, otherwise the Labour Party would be saying something that wasn’t true.
So sorry John, I know you think you won last night, but actually you didn’t. At least according to Labour.
@Simon, not only did Labour fail to beat the Tories in Duke’s, I see they also lost vote share.
Perhaps you should contact your local trading standards authority and complain about Labour’s false advertising? :^)
Dr Pugh won the election, held on Thursday Novemebr 2, by a comfortable margin with more than double the votes (1680) of second place Ann Permain (790), who ran for the Conservative Party.
Frank Hanley of Labour finished in third place (417), well ahead of UKIP’s Terry Durrance (69) and the Green candidate Nick Senior (45).
http://www.southportvisiter.co.uk/news/southport-west-lancs/former-mp-john-pugh-returns-13852712
They only need another 1300 votes to win Simon, I suspect they are referring to it as a near miss.
frankie: The Green candidate in North Devon increased their vote by 10.5 % to 31.3 % while the Liberal Democrat vote increased by 3% to 37.1 %. Nevertheless things do seem to be looking up at last. Congratulations to the winners.
Simon Shaw bemoans the Labour “only we can beat the Tories…” slogan. I would hasten to point out that the Lib Dems have this ridiculous habit of putting up “Lib Dems winning here!” posters during elections, even in places where, at recent national elections, Labour have pushed us from second place to third place.
My father, a life-long Liberal/Lid Dem supporter who only joined the party a year or two ago, said he thinks these are just absolutely ridiculous and embarrassing posters. I agree entirely. Simply factually incorrect, as are the Labour posters in Southport to which Simon refers.
Anyway, well done Dr Pugh!
I agree with Michael, let us put the Winning Here posters on the Nov 5th Bonfire, where they belong.
Well done John.
I would not get too excited. I suspect John Pugh’s name carried a lot of weight and in North Devon I belive the Conservatives did not stand in either the Council or Parish vacancy, (must be complicated reasons for this), it was Lib Dem, Labour and Green. Guess we got part of the Tory vote! Arun on paper looks the pick but interestingly again it appears substantial UKIP vote to Lib Dem where we “give it one”, sorry inappropriate langueage.
There are still no signs whatsover of us getting off the floor in the old Labour areas, where 2 & 3% is the norm, if we are lucky.
Still gains are gains, better than the opposites. Come on the protest vote!!!
“Langueage” was not a pun!!!!
Does anyone know the figures from Braunton East ?
I cant find it anywhere .
Congratulations and admiration, to John , to Simon and their colleagues.
And well said to all especially David , re those daft and dated, very , posters !
theakes,
You are wrong about Devon
The Liberal Democrats have made a by election clean sweep in Braunton, Derrick Spear was elected as the new district councillor for Braunton East and Adam Bradford was elected to Braunton Parish Council.
The seats were vacant after long serving councillor Roy Lucas stood down.
In a fairly close contest, Mr Spear polled 459 votes ahead of the Green Party’s Brad Bunyard on 387, with Felix Milton (Conservative) on 225 and Mark Cann (Labour) on 165. The turn out was 41 per cent.
http://www.northdevongazette.co.uk/news/braunton-by-election-2017-winners-1-5264102
but I suspect you are right about getting part of the Tory vote as by the looks of it so did the Greens. How unfortunate for them they couldn’t hang onto it.
nvelope2003,
The Greens seem to do well in the South West everywhere else they are generally being outperformed by UKIP and that isn’t good for them.
congratulations to all concerned.
Theres no doubt that this weeks results on their own represent a peak but there has been a steady improvement in our results since our low point in early July.
Over the last 4 Months our Local Vote has gone up by around 9%, taking us back to where we were in May, a National Equivalent Vote of around 18%.
That is way out of line with our current Polling of around 7% but similar to previous recoveries , typically our Local performance recovers earlier & faster than our National voting. We have usually done better at a Local level & the gap between our Local & National performance has opened up since The Coalition.
Can I stress that I am reporting past improvements & not prediction any future ones. We have reasonable cause to hope though.
@Michael Kilpatrick
“Simon Shaw bemoans the Labour “only we can beat the Tories…” slogan. I would hasten to point out that the Lib Dems have this ridiculous habit of putting up “Lib Dems winning here!” posters during elections”
As a matter of interest the diamond Correx poster boards we (re-)used in Southport said “John Pugh – Fighting for Southport”.
Although it wasn’t a consideration when the boards were ordered in 2010 (or whenever) it does occur to me that that sort of slogan works well even if you don’t win or if you are thought to be unlikely to win.
I would accept that the “Fighting for XXXX” approach is unlikely to work everywhere. For instance, I’m not sure “Greg Mulholland – Fighting for Leeds North West” works, and saying “…. Fighting for Leeds” comes across as rather pompous as well as presumptious!
I was waiting for Theakes take on things. Highly amusing on a Friday!
Michael I so agree about the winning here posters. We seem to have been losing ever since they were adopted! A clear case of hubris and a totally embarrassing failure to face up to our subsequent nemesis.
My bad about the Cons. Must have looked at the wrong information. Greens have been slipping back in Devon, have relatives strongly involved with, this was one of their major concentration of effort cases. It is a warning.
When we start getting a minimum of 10 -15% in all Labour wards in North and the Midlands I will dare to hope.
Another problem for the future: Brexit does not happen as expected, see UKIP surge again? Bound to hit us, that floating protest vote.
Liberal Democrats seem to do better when their is no (popular ? ) local independent or Green candidate standing so rather implying that they are still the recipient of protest votes where they are seen as the main challenger to the 2 big parties, except in the North where Labour seems to be going from strength to strength, hoovering up former Green, TUSC and Liberal Democrat votes in a determined attempt to get rid of any possibility of a Conservative victory. I doubt if a Corbyn Labour victory will help the Liberal Democrats and they can expect a long period in the wilderness if that should happen. The present Labour leaders would probaly like to abolish future general elections, at least in the form we are accustomed to.