Electoral law takes no account of the Beast from the East. Once an election is set, it goes ahead regardless. Returning Officers have no discretion to alter the timetable.
So, yesterday in East Devon, the Lib Dems quietly held a Council seat despite a strong challenge from an Independent.
Exmouth Town (East Devon) result:
LDEM: 28.2% (-2.7)
IND: 26.6% (+26.6)
CON: 21.5% (-3.6)
LAB: 13.0% (-7.7)
GRN: 10.7% (-12.6)Liberal Democrat HOLD.
— Britain Elects (@britainelects) March 2, 2018
Well done to Tim Dumper and the team. I hope they have thawed out.
Other by-elections took place in Clackmannanshire, Basingstoke and Solihull and we had candidates in all of them. This post will be updated with the results when they are known.
Update: A respectable 10% from a standing start.
Blythe (Solihull) result:
CON: 75.9% (+24.7) HOLD.
LAB: 13.6% (+4.6)
LDEM: 10.5% (+10.5)No Res Assoc (-33.5) and Grn (-6.4) as prev (2016).
— Britain Elects (@britainelects) March 2, 2018
And an increase in vote share in Basingstoke.
Kempshott (Basingstoke & Deane) result:
CON: 58.9% (-2.0)
LAB: 31.4% (+16.1)
LDEM: 9.7% (+2.4)No Grn (-4.7) and UKIP (-11.8) as prev (2015).
— Britain Elects (@britainelects) March 2, 2018
The SNP held Clackmannanshire Council – but we did have a candidate.
* 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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10 Comments
12.4% turnout, probably all postal!!!
Spare a thought for the polling station officers. I hope they had the means to keep warm and something to read.
There really ought to be some sensible way of postponing a by election for reasons of extreme poor weather, or an act of terrorism or something. Assuming all the candidates agree. I know it costs money, but it wouldn’t happen very often.
Right – thanks for all the congrats. Yes, we have thawed out, Caron, those of us who could manage to get out! No, Theakes they were not anywhere near all postal – in round figures, two thirds of votes were on the day about 440, and one third postal, 220. I was disappointed in the PV turnout, given the variety of candidates available, at only around 45%. I was absolutely delighted with the on the day turnout with people struggling through the snow to get there, admittedly we have a relatively compact and flat urban ward here.
Nick Collins
They put on their A Team of polling staff who stayed on for the count, and I paid special tribute to them afterwards. The Chief Exec – who absolutely loves elections anyway – put himself on as substitute poll clerk, but they all got in OK. One member of EDDC staff was from Exeter, and she was collected and taken home by a 4×4! I spent a reasonable amount of time with them during the day anyway.
Our full results here, both EDDC and Exmouth Town Council
EDDC
Tim Dumper LD 187
Independent 176
Tory 142
Labour 96
Green 71
Exmouth Town
Alex Sadiq LD 252
Tory 156
Green 152
Labour 86
I won’t get carried away at this point about the Indy, but suffice to say her intervention made the District election much closer and more complicated than the Town Council one, where Alex won comprehensively and deservedly. This is her third byelection contest in about 18 months, and I am so glad for her that she is now elected. She will be an extremely talented councillor. She had an awful day, having to be away on business, and getting stranded by the snow. But at least I could ring her from the count and tell her the great news, at which she, by then safe and warm at home, was absolutely delighted!
These double elections are a useful controlled environment to test the effect of changing one variable. In this case an independent candidate whose impact seems to have been as follows:
LD -65
Gn -81
Con -14
Lab +10
NV -26
Shows how a strong independent can hurt us (by a quarter) but even more so the Greens (more than half). Whereas the tribal Conservatives and Labour voters were hardly affected. Labour is interesting as their vote actually went up. Which kind of makes sense as they had a better chance of winning with the Independent candidate than without. But it may just be that they had a stronger candidate for the DC election.
Paul Kennedy
There were more variables than just the absence of an Indy at Town Council level. The candidate for Labour, by the way was the same at District and Town, so no difference there. I think the key difference was in the two Green candidates. The person standing for District, although already a Town Councillor, is significantly less well-known than the Town Council candidate, who is a multi-genre musician, known well across the education community as well. I don’t disagree that the Indy affected our Lib Dem and the Green vote more than Labour or Tory, but I do think that the fact I present there had a considerable effect regarding the vote differential for Greens at the two elections.
Tim,
Well done on holding the seat. My son lived in the ward (Victoria Road) when at Uni 10 years ago – now sadly closed and transferred to Plymouth in an appalling decision – and he voted for the LDs in Exmouth.
Good to see you can still win after the University moved out.
Hi Andy
Thanks very much for that! It takes me back a bit – campaigning with the Students’ Union among others (as PPC) to try to keep Rolle College in Exmouth. I didn’t attend Rolle myself, but have fond memories from primary school of going up on a Saturday mornings for very interesting science and nature sessions – not really lessons, but explorations of those topics – on the beach, in the lab etc!
The lady I succeeded as Lib Dem Councillor is a former Rolle College student, and we have many here in town, of similar opinions, as you would imagine.
Congratulations to both Tim and Alex – but never underestimate the independent candidates! Something we are still trying to fathom out from the general election in East Devon. But as far as local elections are concerned, we’re on the way back!
We hope, Andrew!!