Congratulations to Pawan Gupta and Brent Liberal Democrats for winning the by-election in Dudden Hill:
Liberal Democrats 1,262 (39.8%)
Labour 1,177 (37.2%)
Tory 412 (13.0%)
Respect 160 (5.1%)
Green 156 (4.9%)
Majority 85
(In 2006 the three Lib Dem majorities were 32, 114 and 297 in this ward).
Turnout 34.2%
A particularly good result as the Liberal Democrats have taken the lead in running Brent Council, having made huge gains in the 2006 local elections, though not quite enough to have an overall majority.
This is a similar story to the previous Kentish Town (Camden) by-election – which was also a Liberal Democrat win – and also, like Dudden Hill, saw a remarkably negative Labour campaign. But on both occassions the voters the rejected Labour’s negative attacks.
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12 Comments
Excellent news!
I take it Labour threw everything at this one – given its significance in terms of the Parliamentary seat?
Everyone I spoke to around Griffin Close at last weekend said “Oh, yes, I’ll vote for Sarah Teather”.
A good sign for Sarah, given that I asking if they’d vote for Pawan Gupta 😛
“I take it Labour threw everything at this one – given its significance in terms of the Parliamentary seat?”
I take the Libdems did the same given its significance in terms of Parliamentary seat, did they?
Labour had Hazel Blears yesterday out campaigning…and if she has the same effect on Brent voters that she usually has on me, she probably costed Labour the seat….
Lib Dems should be polling 50-60% in this ward (considered much better than the new Brent Central wards). Labour’s Dawn Butler likely to win here.
Looks like the Lib Dems won the delayed election in the Frampton Cotterell Ward in South Gloucestershire last night as well. The bit below is from the BBC News SW website.
The Conservatives have failed to take control of South Gloucestershire council after losing a delayed election to the Liberal Democrats.
After the recent local elections, the Tories held 34 of the 70 seats, the Lib Dems had 25 and Labour nine.
Voting was delayed in Frampton Cotterell following the death of a candidate a few days before polling.
Husband and wife team David and Pat Hockey have now taken the two remaining seats for the Lib Dems.
The council remains hung, although a coalition between the Lib Dems and Labour could out-vote the Tories.
A full council meeting will be held on 6 June to elect a new council leader.
Turn-out was more than 54% which is considered high for a council election.
The results:
Ray Bazeley LAB – 162
John Farbrother CON – 1179
Dave Hockey LIB DEM 1624
Pat Hockey LIB DEM 1546
Sarah Jane Kitching CON 1165
Terry Trollope LAB – 225
Excellent results and down to having very strong campaign teams and candidates in both places.
Dave and Pat Hockey have been key members of Steve Webb’s campaign team for many years and are top notch local campaigners.
Agree with Chris (above), not for the first time.
I only had the time to visit twice (at the last weekend and for the last few hours on polling day). Was genuinely surprising (and encouraging) to see how many people mentioned Sarah Teather approvingly (either by name or “my lady”).
And she does seem to have done a heck of a lot of good casework, judging by the feedback I was getting 🙂
Are you sure you have the correct result for the Dudden Hill By Election? I ask because I have in front of me the Dudden Hill Ward By-Election Special put out by the Conservative Party. The headline is CONSERVATIVES HEAD FOR STUNNING WIN!, and continues ‘Local voters in Dudden Hill are confirming the national trend: the Conservatives are now the party of first choice in Brent…’
Yet in the election result you show the Conservatives in third place. Has there been a mis-print? After all, you can believe everything the Conservatives say, can’t you ?
Indeed, I saw that leaflet too. It even had completely misleading bar charts on it!
It is clearly a fake then, as Conservatives would never do such a thing…
Everyone knows that misleading bar charts are now a standard feature of Conservative campaigns.
Do you think it’s part of their ‘love strategy’?
Well, those bars can look pretty phallic…
That leaflet also said “Last year the LibDems came from nowhere to win seats in Brent East…if those LibDem protest voters had voted for us instead, we’d have won!”
Seems logical enough. What a pity LibDem voters didn’t all vote Conservative this time. Instead of winning the Conservatives saw their share of the vote drop by 3.2%.