Photo: Marl Councillors Mike Priestley and Sue Shotter. Also available on Flickr.
Liberal Democrat Sue Shotter gained Marl in Conwy from the Conservatives last night:
LD Sue Shotter 389 (40.4; -10.1)
Con 270 (28.1; +5.7)
Lab 216 (22.5; +14.2)
Ind 87 (9.0; -9.7)
Majority 119
Turnout 31.3%
LD gain from Con
Percentage change is since May 2008
New councillor Sue Shotter said:
This result was achieved through a combination of Mike’s hard work over the years building up the Lib Dem vote, teamwork, ALDC campaigning methods – and the ability of our members to ignore all the extremes of weather that North Wales in January could throw at them!
Christine Humphries, President of the Welsh Liberal Democrats and agent for the Marl campaign, said:
We’re delighted with this result! The Tories used every trick in the book – but even a personal endorsement from David Cameron failed to help them retain this seat. Mike’s hard work over the last few years has borne fruit and proves that where we work we win.
It’s interesting to note that while the overall turnout was 31.30% – the turnout for Postal Voters was over 74%. Although a number of our supporters who had postal votes had not posted them off immediately, they were reminded by a diligent and timely canvassing operation.
Congratulations to Sue, Christine and all the Marl team!
Elsewhere, the Liberal Democrats held a seat in Olton, Solihull:
LD Claire O’Kane 1188 (39.7; -11.0)
Con 1179 (39.4; +5.7)
Lab 280 (9.4; +1.8)
Solihull and Meriden Residents Association 228 (7.6; +6.3)
Green 115 (3.8; +1.5)
[BNP (0.0; -4.3)]
Majority 9
Turnout 30.59%
LD hold
Percentage change is since May 2010
This week’s other results:
Tonbridge, Kent:
Con 3229 (56.6; +9.3)
Lab 1216 (21.3; +11.9)
LD Garry Bridge 561 (9.8; -5.9)
Green 366 (6.4; -3.8)
UKIP 337 (5.9; -6.8)
[English Democrats (0.0; -4.7)]
Majority 2013
Turnout 23%
Con hold
Percentage change is since June 2009
Baguley, Manchester:
Lab 996 (70.8; +23.8)
Con 160 (11.4; -4.8)
UKIP 76 (5.4; -1.4)
LD Yvonne Donaghey 52 (3.7; -20.8)
BNP 52 (3.7; +3.7)
Green 51 (3.6; +0.8)
Ind 19 (1.4; -1.3)
Majority 836
Turnout 12.9%
Lab hold
Percentage change is since May 2010
See ALDC for full details of this week’s by-election results.
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
The Disneyfication of Haley Mills
Survation now put Andy Burnham 10 points ahead in Makerfield
Michael Meadowcroft: A Liberal of Intellectual Rigour and Uncommon Integrity
Debt-ridden graduates claim they are seen as cash cows
Ruth Bright
BigTallTim
Daniel Walker
Richard Good
Matt (Bristol)
29 Comments
It may be a “gain” in comparison with something, but it looks to me pretty much like a 12% swing from the Lib Dems to Labour since 2008.
And is that Manchester result some kind of record? A 22% swing from the Lib Dems to Labour, with the party dropping nearl 21y points to end up in equal fourth place with 3.7% of the vote.
Manchester result was very poor and there was also a swing against in the Conwy seat (isn’t the gain due to running a candidate in a 2 member ward or something like that?).
Doesn’t quite deserve the melodramatic CAPS LOCK headline
Re the Conwy result, if our vote fell and the Conservative vote rose, how come it was a LibDem gain from the Conservatives? Or is there a glitch in the figures somewhere?
Marl ward is a two member ward and the votes in 2008 were:
Priestley (L Dem) 848 elected
Hurr (C) 375 elected
Cotton (C) 349
Shotter (Ind) 345
Owen (Ind) 293
Gambrill (Lab) 139
It is patently obvious that the only reason the Tories had one seat was the fact that the Lib Dems only put up 1 candidate in 2008.
To spin this as a Lib Dem gain headline, frankly shows how desparate you must be for good news, It borders on the downright dishonest
To be fair, Helen has repeated it exactly as it appears on the ALDC website, so I don’t think she’s the one being dishonest.
But this is a pretty dire set of results by any standards.
it should certainly be of concern that in each seat, Liberal Democrats are down
10.1%
11%
5.9%
and
20.8 %
One word in caps for by-election results is LDV house style.
And hardly spin. We didn’t hold it before. Now we do. Therefore it’s a gain.
Or GAIN 😉
Helen,
Thanks for local election results. I have recently given up LD News because I really can’t afford to pay a full membership sub and buy the newspaper.
One had to go and, since I follow the blogs and on-line newspapers closely, I thought it should be the newspaper.
The only thing I really miss is the election results section, so good to have them on LDV.
“And hardly spin. We didn’t hold it before. Now we do. Therefore it’s a gain.”
Ho hum. I’ll know better than to jump in and defend you next time …
I see little to cheer for us Lib Dems in these 4 results. We gained the seat despite losing a fifth of our vote. A similar drop in Solihull saw us scrap a hold with a 9 vote majority. The other 2 results saw us losing second places, including coming 4th behind UKIP with just 52 votes in Manchester on a 20% swing from us to Labour .
Local by-elections are usually a Lib Dem strength. I know being in govt. is tough but these results are not promising.
Baguley.
Ouch.
No, not even close. Indeed, the largest one in just the past decade would be the 30% swing from Labour to LD in Brent East in 2005.
It’s hard to tell offhand, but from what I can see this one was simply because the Lib Dems didn’t campaign for this seat, so only posted a paper candidate.
I’m not sure why you, a well-known Labour supporter, would be concerned by this.
“I’m not sure why you, a well-known Labour supporter, would be concerned by this.”
I didn’t say it was a concern for me did I 😉
Although to be truthful, I do find it very concerning, I am concerned that the more damage done to the Liberal Democrat party, and the reduction in size of the party, The more the risks are that the Conservative party may gain from this.
I am allowed to be concerned, on what goes on and happens in other parties, as you are also, I am sure 😉
“It’s hard to tell offhand, but from what I can see this one was simply because the Lib Dems didn’t campaign for this seat, so only posted a paper candidate.”
Do you really consider that sufficient explanation for the Lib Dem vote share falling from 24.5% to 3.7%?
That Olton result is a tad worrying, Lorely Burt has worked her backside off to see off the Tories in true blue Solihull.
Delighted to see the Marl result, not least as I suspect I went to school in the ward (long, long ago). Surely the encouraging thing here is that we were able to take the second seat, having not even fielded a second candidate in the previous election. Our ‘lead’ councillor clearly has a huge personal following and it is good that it can transfer to a second candidate (it doesn’t always!).
Surely a gains a gain regardless of how it comes about? It’s not that unusual for a party to see their vote drop even when gaining the seat. Not normal I accept that, but certainly not that rare and that applies to victories by all parties and so I’m not being partisan in saying it.
None of us can know if we would have won both seats in Marl last time had we had two candidates, and some places only put up one candidate in multi member wards because they believe they can only win one of the seats (not ALDC’s standard advice though). So implying this isn’t really a win because we hold the other seat in the ward is just trying to do down a genuinely good result. If you don’t want to hear positive stuff about the party then don’t come on a website aimed at Lib Dems.
OK, so the vote shares this week aren’t great overall and I’m not trying to say there isn’t a problem. But some results, and Baguley is a good example, are well down on 2010 when we got surprisingly good results in what are normally no hope wards for the party just because of the national swing and the improved party profile. In by-election, especially if we haven’t put in any effort, the wards have then simply reverted to type.
Finally, for those who used to subscribe to Lib Dem News and miss the election results and the forthcoming by-elections you can find them all on the ALDC website (in the public bit, not the members only site) at http://www.aldc.org
The swings do look bad for us, so it’s a testament to the teams on the ground that they managed to eke out two wins at this difficult time. Cllrs O’Kane and Shotter will have the same vote in the council chamber as if they had huge majorities so it’s just good to have them there.
At the moment things are difficult – we know this – and all we can do is to get out there and remind people of the good we’re doing locally and the much-needed fire-fighting we’re doing nationally. Eventually we’ll get through. It’s nice to be both right and popular but sometimes you can only be one or the other. We know which one Labour likes to choose, but we need to grit our teeth and pick the other one.
And I for one look forward to the LibDems celebrating many gains in the future as a result of similar changes in their voting share as those yesterday!
My hats off to LibDem Pravda for being able to spin something positive out of that set of results. Ps don’t criticise the other parties for spinning in the future, it may be seen as a tad hypocritical.
it should certainly be of concern that in each seat, Liberal Democrats are down
10.1%
11%
5.9%
and
20.8 %
and meanwhile the Tories are up in all but one seat – perhaps that is what ius meant by a Tory led coalition. Time for LibDem members to wake up and smell the coffee??
Yes, this is expected every time a serious candidate retires. If the next one doesn’t campaign, they get approximately zero votes. Happens quite often (LDs never have enough people to fight every council seat across the country).
@ Andrew Suffield
Given that the LDs share was 24.5% in 2010, it would be almost mathematically impossible to “achieve” a swing of 30% as in Brent!!. That said, turnouts aren’t comparabl: 45% in 2010 and only 13% this time, lending credence to your comments about lack of campaign = zero votes .
@ ian ridley
You may be cheered by knowing the LDs also came 4th in 2008.
Not sure what you can make from any of the results apart from a downwards trend in Lib Dem Support.
Not that this would be of much concern to the smart arses. You see when you’re in Govenment you’ve got to take a hit or two so get over it it. As we all know there are also strong local factors often take precendence over national
trends.
I agree with those who say that these results should not be overplayed, but I don’t think they are dire – they are council by-election results, thus largely irrelevant. A 20% swing against a governing Party in a Council by-election is by no means unheard of, and it merely reflects the Lib Dems current unpopularity. It tells us nothing that we didn’t know already.
@Benjamin
“It’s nice to be both right and popular but sometimes you can only be ne or the other”
It would be nice to be one or the other. it seems to me that currently we are contriving to be neither.
We’re cutting the deficit, which will eventually allow us to stop the ever-expanding debt. At the same time, we are introducing progressive policies such as improvements to child tax credits, income tax thresholds and pensions wherever possible. This is undeniably the right thing to do for the country.
Labour on the other hand are opposing every measure the government takes to repair the economy and have just made Ed Balls, a man who thinks that even Labour’s election manifesto was too ambitious in its deficit reduction plans and who advised Gordon Brown to run up even more debt than he already was doing, as their shadow chancellor. Very much the wrong thing to do.
What results like the gain in the Marl ward achieve – is to encourage and give new heart to Liberal Democrats . The Oldham result did that too. When the votes are in the box where wse’ve worked we can win !
Council by-election results are certainly not irrelevant.
The gain in Marl is due to only fielding one candidate last time which was a silly mistake. But now rectified. Well done Roger and the local team.
What these results show is that we can still win seats and we will win a lot in May.
Tony Greaves
@ Tony Greaves
Whilst sometimes optimism has its place, you can’t seriously expect anyone who is not a died in the wool loyalist to swallow your line that; “What these results show is that we can still win seats and we will win a lot in May.”
Do you honestly believe that given Coalition policy, the recent economic figures, and the evidence of the polls, that you are on course for anything better than a good hiding in May?
Like many other former supporters of your party I will not be voting for you this time around, the first time in 30 years I will not have voted for either a Liberal, SDP, Alliance or LD candidate. You’ll be lucky to hold on to what you have, never mind make any gains!