Yes, you read that headline right. This is not a drill. We actually took a seat off UKIP in Aylesbur. Congratulations to Cllr Susan Morgan and her team for a cracking result.
Lib Dem GAIN from UKIP in Aylesbury.
Cllr Susan Morgan is tonight’s Market Square Hero 😀
LD 785
Lab 151
Con 147
Ukip 111
Green 43 pic.twitter.com/Pmk3DwBq0J— ALDC (@ALDC) April 6, 2017
It was one of these eye-watering vote share increases.
Elmhurst (Aylesbury Vale) result:
LDEM: 63.5% (+37.9)
LAB: 12.2% (-10.0)
CON: 11.9% (-9.3)
UKIP: 9.0% (-14.4)
GRN: 3.5% (-4.2)— Britain Elects (@britainelects) April 6, 2017
Fantastic.
In Walcot ward of Bath and North East Somerset Council, Richard Samuel handsomely increased the Lib Dem vote share to hold the seat.
Walcot (Bath & North East Somerset) result:
LDEM: 48.6% (+11.2)
GRN: 22.2% (+0.4)
CON: 22.0% (-0.5)
LAB: 7.2% (-7.4)
[Share chgs corrected]— Britain Elects (@britainelects) April 6, 2017
Also up for a very large gin and tonic the next time we meet up is erstwhile Conference trouble maker Alisdair Calder McGregor who leapt into second place in the safest Tory ward in Calderdale. He was the only candidate whose party’s vote share actually went up.
Hipperholme & Lightcliffe (Calderdale) result:
CON: 60.3% (-4.3)
LDEM: 17.1% (+6.8)
LAB: 16.5% (-0.5)
GRN: 6.1% (-2.0)— Britain Elects (@britainelects) April 6, 2017
In St James Ward in Tendring, our vote went up by almost 13% in a ward we hadn’t stood in before.
St James (Tendring) result:
CON: 47.9% (+12.7)
UKIP: 22.5% (-16.3)
LAB: 15.0% (-1.0)
LDEM: 12.8% (+12.8)
GRN: 1.9% (+1.9)— Britain Elects (@britainelects) April 6, 2017
This is a night when the word “wowsers” is well and truly merited.
* 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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16 Comments
Not only did my vote share go up, but I got more actual votes (420 this time vs 319 last time), despite turnout being down overall.
All other candidates went down in both.
Caron, you do know he’s got expensive tastes, right? I mean he lives with me 😉
*being dispatched to Tesco for tonic*
Well done to all, but particularly to Susan Morgan. There will always be those who will bang the drum for populists and scapegoaters, but clearly there at least there are plenty of people who just want a party that stands for something and isn’t pretending to be someone else.
Good to see a full slate of candidates this week. Well done, to all four.
Alisdair, Well done 🙂 That increase in the percentage of votes – and actual number of votes, despite a lower turnout – is a considerable achievement in the safest Conservative ward in Calderdale 🙂
Onward and upward 🙂
I predict there may be a few Lib Dem gains from UKIP on May 4th – here in Devon, where we currently have 4 UKIPpers, I would rate it quite likely.
I swung by Elmhurst in Aylesbury this week and could see the team were well organised, up for the fight and ready to win. Glad they got such a ringing endorsement – well-deserved based on what I saw. Several more UKIP targets in Aylesbury for the Bucks CC election next month as well, so this bodes very well.
In the light of Trump’s activity, local government elections are not particularly earth shaking. Nevertheless, interested, and pleased to see some progress in Hipperholme and Lightcliffe (where I spent my teenage years and cut my political teeth).
There is clearly still a long way to go though because around 1961/63 time we regularly got within less than a hundred votes of gaining that seat with John Turner of Bramley View as our candidate (supported by the future Judge Jim Pickles of The Crescent). It was done by door knocking, a thorough canvass, and the classic Shuttleworth sheets. Must seem like ancient history now.
But, well done, Alisdair.
UKIP are going to get hammered on 4th May. The BBC will then interview Nuttall, Farage etc all the next day to discuss it.
The Conservative gain in Tendring was also a gain from UKIP. UKIP{ are well and truly
kippered.
Tony,
You forgot to add and the Thursday after they’ll have a UKIP guest on Question Time.
@ David Raw: in 2010 at the height of Cleggmania I got over 1200 in H&L with a solitary leaflet only delivered to one of the six polling districts in the ward; I’ve been trying to get the local party to sanction active campaigning there ever since. We’ve finally got the capacity for it with the brexit membership boost, so you can bet your behind we’re making the most of it.
Fortunately the BBC TV obsession with UKIP dos not seem to have infected Radio 4 and Tim Farron is regularly mentioned and sometimes Norman Lamb, although I realise this is small consolation as most people get their news from TV.
UKIP looks more and more like Pim Fortuyns party in the Netherlands: after Fortuyn got murdered (still a shock to Dutch politics), his party became part of the government coalition (having gained 17% of Commons seats in May 2002) but started disintegrating almost immediately. Its cabinet ministers couldn’t stand each other, and its inexperienced MP’s got up to all kinds of antics.
In 2003 it lost most of its seats, and at the 2006 election, each MP had started his or her own party (sounds familiar?). None of them made it, because Geert Wilders had appeared on the horizon.
And now (2017) a new party, Forum for Democracy, has gained two MP’s, and is seen as a big threat to Wilders and his PVV…
The Economist (Bagehot column) is quite right to say that the ghost of Enoch Powell is again stalking this Tory government, and fomenting open racism in the UK.
But the Liberals were the most principled opponents of Powell (Labour and Tory MP’s sometimes took over his biased rhetoric); and the LibDems of UKIP, BNP and others.
All over Europe, Social Liberals stand out against populism and racism (and combinations of the two): LibDems, D66, Macron…
Jennie, Just picked up on your note. Good to hear and wishing you good luck in H & L in the future.
Just as a bit of history, we also had a Young Liberal branch in H & L. We got publicity and raised fund for Oxfam with a sponsored walk to the Yorkshire coast through Cleckheaton, Leeds and York in 1962. Came back in the back of a van, knackered. One of our members was Terry Lacey’s cousin Steve – Terry fought the Gorton by-election in 1967. Happy days.