Ralph Scott has scored an excellent victory in the Kentish Town by-election in Camden, taking a Labour seat and beating the Green candidate – their newly elected principal speaker (equivalent of party leader), Sian Berry – who had told the Camden New Journal hours before the polls closed: “We are ahead”.
The result was:
Ralph Scott (Lib Dem) 1,093 (38%, +2%)
Green 812 (28%, +4%)
Labour 808 (28%, -3%)
Conservative 198 (7%, -1%)
The ward elected two Liberal Democrats and one Labour in May and the by-election was for Labour’s seat.
May’s elections saw the Liberal Democrats become the largest party in Camden and take the lead in running the council. To gain a seat in their first electoral test since gaining power is an impressive result – and a tribute not just to Ralph and his team, but also to the way Keith Moffitt has been leading the council since May.
It is bad for Labour to lose a seat, but this is also a bad result for the Greens – only barely coming second despite the party clearly put a lot of effort into the campaign and thinking they had a real chance of winning. They carefully timed various national media coverage of Sian Berry for the run-up to polling day – all to no avail.
In by-elections elsewhere – the SNP failed to take Labour’s seat in Elderslie and the Lib Dems held our seat in Horsham
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8 Comments
Considering that the Lidbems position in the area seems to be still healty (on the back of a strong performance in May), can the Holborn and St Pancrass constituency (where KT is at Westminster level, I believe) become a top target for the Libdems? Or would they risk to “overtarget” the area?
The Greens look really silly now.
It reminds me of Farage’s claims that he was second in the Bromley & Chislehurst by-election a week before polling….
Well done – fantastic result.
“It reminds me of Farage’s claims that he was second in the Bromley & Chislehurst by-election a week before polling…. ”
All parties have these “spin” moments. The worse ones are when they claim a certain result after the polls are closed and so when there’s no purpose to spin.
Andrea, boundary changes work against us in Holborn at the next General Election.
That said, it’s still winnable with the right candidate and the right team – what should be worrying for Labour is that after Hornsey & Wood Green there really is no such thing as a safe Labour seat in North London.
Joe Taylor. I suppose Tottenham is still safe for them (at least for another GE).
One of the advantages of Holborn and St Pancrass as a LD target is that Labour already start from a pretty low vote base (low 40%) and there’s a decent Con (and Green) support to squeeze.
Also, Frank Dobson may well be retiring. And the leafier (Greener??) Highgate ward comes in. While every effort has to be made to get Sarah Teather elected in the new Hampstead/Kilburn constituency, Holborn & St Pancras does show potential. Incidentally, David Cameron has nothing to celebrate in Kentish Town, does he? An extremely poor result for a party which claims it wants to win in the inner cities (even though it doesn’t need to). We should dig out the press releases and rub it in.
“While every effort has to be made to get Sarah Teather elected in the new Hampstead/Kilburn constituency”
Sarah Teather will fight Brent Central at next election, not Hampstead and Kilburn. It does mean that in that area the Libdems already have H&K, Brent Central and Islington South as targets (that’s why I asked at the beginning of the thread if there was a risk of over-targetting adding Holborn and St Pancras)