Well, that was a turn up for the books. Liberal Democrats in Kingston have stormed to victory in the Grove Ward by-election. The Tories threw the kitchen sink at the ward, even sending Chris Grayling and Sol Campbell there along with a huge amounts of activists, but their vote was pretty embarrassing to be honest.
UKIP: 58
Greens: 88
Conservatives: 688
Labour: 223
Lib Dems: 1577
In Wales, we took a seat from Labour by some margin.
Llay – Wrexham:
Conservative 64
Labour 353
Lib Dem 700
UKIP 60
Green n\a
Ind 124
Ind 41
Lib Dem Gain from Lab
Swing 38% to LD from Lab
— Politico Daily (@Politico_Daily) July 16, 2015
And in Battle, Cllr Kevin Dixon regained the seat he lost in May:
Fantastic District Council result in Battle regaining the seat I lost in May, with a massive 58% of the vote. @LibDems @timfarron @ALDC
— Kevin Dixon (@KevinDixonEsq) July 16, 2015
Congratulations to our new councillors and well done to their fantastic campaign teams.
These are all the results we’re aware of – if there are any more, do let us know.
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29 Comments
Huzzah – well done to all in Rother, Wrexham and Kingston. Fantastic results. There’s meant to be a county-council by-election going on in Cumbria today, just over the border from the seat of Our Glorious And Newly Enthroned Leader, but I’m yet to see any evidence of it happening or what the results are. Would be a small miracle to win there – but given the results above, small miracles seem to be the order of yesterday.
How many by-elections where there? any data on overall gains and losses. Interesting early results for sure!
Just like the old days, hardly any MPs, a new exciting leader and lovely by elelction gains.
Really impressed with that result in Llay. Not somewhere I’d have expected to see a 38.5% swing from Labour to Lib Dems.
PS it might be Wrexham council, but Llay is definitely not “in Wrexham”. It’s a village about five miles away.
Can anyone give more information on the Wrexham result? From elsewhere, I have discovered that the contest last time was between Labour (who got over half the vote) and two independents. This time, all the main parties stood and the Lib Dem candidate got over 50% of the vote.
Great results – well done to all involved.
Neil – Mike Smithson on Political Betting says the only other change of the night was Tory gain from UKIP in Gorleston (Norfolk CC). That implies that there were Labour holds in Mile Cross (also Norfolk CC) and Prestatyn (Denbighshire CC), a Tory hold in Greystoke & Hesketh (Cumbria CC), and a UKIP hold in Rush Green (Tendring DC). Not totally sure on that, but it’s what I take from it.
In the general election Wrexham Lib Dems worked in Montgomeryshire and our vote was decimated. For Rob Walsh who was our candidate then to spring back and win over 52% in Llay was magnificent. Like nearby Gresford, Llay was a coal mining village built by the coal company for Llay Main colliery, Britain’s deepest pit. The Miners Institute was the most significant building. It has since expanded with new estates but has always returned Labour Councillors even when some years back we led Wrexham Council. This is a very important and significant win with the Welsh Assembly elections due next May and is a good portent for Tim Farron’s leadership. It also is a feather in the cap of Kirsty Williams whose wonderful speech this week had the quality of LlG himself! Kirsty is the obvious choice for Deputy Leader of the Party!
Well done ROB!
Martin Thomas
Some more information about that amazing result in Kingston.
As it happens there was a by-election in the same ward on May 8th, following the resignation of a Lib Dem councillor, and we held on to it by 18 votes. Shortly afterwards our long serving councillor Chrissie Hitchcock sadly and unexpectedly died.
Our candidate, Jon Tolley, this time round was not only a new member, but he actually stood as an Independent in the by-election on May 8th, although he had always voted Lib Dem in the past. He uses social media really well and spoke to people that the Lib Dems weren’t reaching, especially younger people. As it got closer to the election he got worried that the Lib Dem candidate might actually lose due to his intervention. We had already been talking to him about the real issues in the town centre that he was highlighting and were delighted when he joined the party straight afterwards.
You can see him talking about why he stood for the Lib Dems the second time round here:
The Tories put up a candidate who lives 3 miles away and whom they billed as ‘a local grandmother’.
Sir Norfolk,
You can see the results of all the by-elections here: http://vote-2012.proboards.com/board/3/local-elections
Generally that is the first place to find out about any by-election…..
This was just posted on the 16th July thread:
Greystoke and Hesket
Con 635 55.1% (+2.2)
LD 518 44.9% (+22.1)
That is the Cumbria CC seat. Previous results:
2013: Con 723, UKIP 331, LD 312
2009: Con 1222, LD 399, Grn 302, Lab 130
2005: Con 1775, LD 1063, Ind 395
So a BIG swing to Lib Dem, but not quite enough to win!
Thanks, Andrew. Encouraging results across the country. Small steps, but let’s hope they point towards a turning of the tide next May, to give a positive narrative around the progress of the party and Tim’s leadership.
Local government successes are encouraging, yet I am reminded that good results in target areas drew me in to believe that we could hold on to at least half our seats last May. We have to take the encouragement but remain realistic.
Recent polling, for what it is worth, has us lower than the election result. I am not sure we should be chasing poll ratings or even giving so much credence to local bye election results; I think we should be reflecting on what Liberal values are in the 21st century and how these Liberal values can be applied to current issues, such as housing and the fate of housing associations.
For issues of the future (e.g. Trident replacement) we must be much more careful. Spell out the Liberal principles but not commit ourselves in a way that leaves a hostage to fortune as we did with tuition fees.
Martin,
You have to remember that all those gains we made in the last 30 years were built on success in local government (apart from a few by-elections.) It is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the Lib Dems to win Westminster seats.
But as Tim Farron has said, success in local government is a worthy aim in itself, and everywhere we get votes and seats is a place where we can gain members and show what Lib Dem values mean in practice. We have to become a mass movement again if we are to get anywhere in Parliament.
So lets just celebrate winning some seats instead of moaning that it will not turn into seats at Westminster!
Its interesting to look at results in seats where we only have a paper candidate, and in some cases our vote is still over 20% down from previous highs. In other cases we did not manage to find candidate. These results are good indicators of our general standing in the country and they show there is a long way to go. As the Chinese say, ‘Even a journey of a 1.000 miles starts with the first step.’
Andrew:
I accept all that. Nonetheless, I recall celebrating local election gains only to lose the seat in the general election. We have to adopt a new realism. I believe their were serious doubts about a lot of our data based on polling and canvassing that should not have happened. At worst it meant that we deployed resources wastefully.
I think that in all seats where we were second there should be an detailed analysis of the current position with a critical assessment of chances of taking the seat and what needs to be done, what the strategy should be in terms of both local and overall constituency politics.
A similar realistic assessment is needed at the national level. In some cases we can make use of our lack of profile to avoid pitfalls. The EU referendum, which is largely about the internal politics of the Conservative party is one such trap. Assuming that the vote will be to stay in, a nasty backlash is likely to follow. Our position in the campaign needs to be calculated to avoid the repercussions as much as possible, by keeping clear and if necessary denying the inevitable negative campaigning. We need to stick to the positive Liberal case of the virtues of cooperation to deal with issues that small and medium sized nation states cannot deal with alone.
Martin,
I agree that the EU referendum is a very dangerous thing for the Tories. Cameron is going to say he has won the concessions necessary to stay in and a significant minority of his party is going to disagree, including quite a lot of MP’s. UKIP will hope that a yes vote by 55-45 (as is perhaps likely) will result in them getting 45% of the votes in 2020, like the SNP. But they are in a very different position from the SNP, who were the governing party of Scotland, completely embedded at all levels of Scottish politics…
I think our aim in the referendum should be to try to capture the 38% of people in Britain who think the EU is a good thing http://uk.kantar.com/public-opinion/politics/2014/uk-attitudes-to-eu-membership-poll/ The referendum is going to be a battle of two negative campaigns (fear of immigration vs fear of exit), and if we concentrate on the positive we will move up from 8%, in my opinion!
Martin,
I agree with you that we need a realistic approach to targeting.. For example rumour has it we threw a lot of resources at Hornsea and Wood Green, which objectively was a no-hope seat, despite an excellent high profile MP. In the end our vote went down 14.7%. In Twickenham we were perhaps lulled into a false sense of security: I am sure we campaigned hard, but perhaps not quite as hard as in H&WG. And our vote went down by 16.4%. If we could have clawed 2.1% of the votes back from the Tories in Twickenham we would have won by a whisker…
However we should not blame just our own polls and and canvass returns. The Ashcroft Polls were the key comfort blanket. I spent quite a bit of time on UK Polling Report during the election and about 200 people very interested in psephology (of all political persuasions) made predictions on the eve of election. I don’t recall anyone predicting <15 seats for us and many predicted 30+. Maybe 2 predicted a Tory majority… The whole political establishment was deceived by the polls and we should not blame Paddy Ashdown too much for doing the same…
It is also sobering to see that the amount of campaigning (beyond a certain amount) sometimes made little difference. For example Bradford East was another seat where we clearly had no hope of winning, and where the sitting MP was hardly flavour of the month. I doubt if any resources were diverted to Bradford East from outside Bradford, yet our vote there fell by only 4.2%, with the result that we now need a smaller swing there than in H&WG (although neither is exactly marginal!) did a locally-based campaign with not much help from the centre actually do better? We also did quite well in Burnley…
Finishing the last comment…
2020 could be a very difficult election as the 2013 boundary proposals would have torn both Leeds NW and Sheffield Hallam in two (I don’t know about others, but Westmorland and Lonsdale looked ok!), along with many seats where we start from second now. The only way to make a convincing case for second place in the successor seats will be local government results and we had better start anticipating the boundary changes now and build local parties and votes. Hallam was due to gain a ward in Barnsley where no Lib Dem has even stood in living memory, while losing Dore and Totley, our best ward! If we get back up to 15% plus in 2020 I will call that a big success even if we do not gain any seats. We could have a long road back to any influence at Westminster and along that road we should snatch influence at local level wherever we can. And we should also try to get back into second place in as many seats as we can. We will be very lucky to get a winnable by-election in this parliament
Andrew:
You are right, I should have mentioned the Ashcroft polls as well as local government results.
In 2020, the Tories will have even more money and we will have a lot less, which is why we should try to make a referendum campaign cost neutral. In this respect and possibly due to boundary changes, 2020 will be very challenging, however, in specific terms I do not think it is really possible to see beyond an EU referendum. Anything more than 40% for a No would be a disaster and create an unpredictable mess .
You are right that UKIP are not comparable with SNP (one of our most stupid strategies in the election), but we should still expect a boost for them in the event of a Yes vote. Other difference to the Scottish independence referendum are likely to be in the engagement with the electorate: in Scotland there was a renewed engagement in politics, I fear that an EU referendum will tap much more into an anti-politics movement. UKIP and the Tory Europhobes will want to spread a sense of cynicism and disengagement; they will be hoping to put off the large number of people for whom the EU scarcely registers as an issue from voting.
A No vote would be another sort of mess. It could lead to more support for us and possibly some defections and Scottish independence would be firmly bck on the agenda. Despite this most of us would actually want the Toreis to be the ones having to clearing up the mess they had left behind.
So you are right that the 2020 election will be very difficult, but for the most part we do not know how.
Martin,
I don’t think UKIP will ever surpass the 27% they got in 2014, tbh. The SNP have the great advantage that in the context of Scottish politics they are very much a centrist party, whereas UKIP have pretty right wing views on most issues – they can gain votes amongst the disadvantaged and disillusioned as well as better-off right-wing Tories, but they are always at the top of the list of parties people will never vote for.
What is more it was not the referendum that gave the SNP close to 50% of the vote – they already had that in Holyrood and it really should not have been a surprise when they repeated the performance in a General Election… People expected that losing the referendum would lose to a loss of support for the SNP, and that is what their result was compared with… In contrast, the General Election result looks to have disillusioned UKIP activists and voters and up to now their votes in local by-elections have been consistently down. I expect them to bounce back as the referendum approaches but they have a long way to go to get to 27%.
I think a yes vote by any margin will actually put the issue to bed. Europe is not at the top of the agenda for most voters, and neither Labour nor the Tories will want to re-open the issue. I expect turnout in the referendum to be much less than in the Scottish vote, simply because as you say, many people do not care one way or the other.
I do agree that the referendum will have unpredictable effects on the support for all the parties.. But I am quite hopeful that it will be good for us, actually.
Andrew:
27% is a lot even when the turnout is taken into account. Actually in the wake of a narrow Yes vote they could exceed 27% in 2019. I cannot agree that any kind of Yes (or No) vote will put the matter to rest, nor will it settle matters in the Conservative Party, moreover whatever Cameron claims to have negotiated is likely to persist as a bone of contention. Very rapidly the Out camp will claim that promises have been reneged upon.
@Andrew:
“The Ashcroft Polls were the key comfort blanket”
They were a reasonable comfort blanket in respect of the situation when they were conducted. Essentially, their finding stood up when a sizable part of the electorate thought that local considerations were a substantial element in their decision.
In the last week or so of this campaign, an awful lot of voters decided that particular OTHER considerations were more important in their decision-making: these were principally (a) the ‘SNP running government’ issue and (b) the organ grinder/monkey question ie “what special things do the Lib Dems bring to the national government table?”
A week can be a VERY long time in politics. 🙁
@Andrew:
” Bradford East was another seat where we clearly had no hope of winning, and where the sitting MP was hardly flavour of the month.”
Not perhaps to the taste of a lot of armchair Twitterati. But very much to the taste of a lot of his constituency’s voters with whom he engaged at every level.
From 1955 until 1987 the Liberals or Liberal SDP Alliance gained ground at every election when there was a Conservative Government and made big gains when one was defeated by the Labour Party but fell back at elections when a Labour Government was defeated by the Conservatives. Even in the Conservative victories of 1955 and 1959 the Liberals gained votes so there is a good prospect of some improvement in vote share at least in 2020, with possibly a small gain in seats where the margin was close in 2015.
The drop in support for the Liberal/SDP Alliance in 1987 and Liberal Democrats in 1992 (there were some seats gained then) was probably due to Michael Foot resigning as Labour leader which encouraged some former Labour voters to return to that party. The fortunes of the Liberal Democrats rest not just on the success of Tim Farron in gaining support, which I feel is quite likely, but what happens to the Labour Party, and whether support for the Greens falls which is hard to predict but unlikely as deserters back to the LDs will be replaced by new young converts and whether UKIP’s support wilts which is more likely but not certain. A big victory for YES in the European Referendum will not help them. The contradictions in the SNP Government will make it likely that they will not have 56 seats for ever.
Has anyone got a Mail on Sunday from 3 May 1992?
On the front page was a headline that said David Owen backs Tories. The Tories had wanted an additional 2% of the vote to get an overall majority. 2% was the poll rating for David Owen’s splinter party, the Continuing SDP (SDP2). He did not stand at the general election and both his supporters lost their seats to Labour.
Let’s be fait to David Owen, on the inside pages was a long list of constituencies where he thought voters should not choose the Tories. He was registered in four places and chose to vote, for us, and against a Labour left-winger in Limehouse, London.
John Major gave him a peerage and gained an overall majority of 21 seats on just over 2,000 votes, which lasted five years, although the Tory majority fell to zero.
David Owen is currently thinking about joining Labour, but is reluctant to take the Labour whip in the House of Lords. There is a way out of this. David Steel’s recent legislation allows peers to resign their peerages, and some have.
The charming and diplomatic crossbench historian Peter Hennessy asked about hubris, without mentioning nemesis once. David Owen replied about his wife’s comments and two high-powered advisers whom he respected.
As the second leader of the SDP (out of three) his speeches had been analysed by journalists on a simple count of words and phrases, of which “When I was Foreign Secretary” occurred 27 times in one speech.
Asked what he would have done as PM he refused to reply.
Dr. Owen’s love of the NHS is clearly sincere. His father was also a doctor. He has written a book about it recently and urged readers to ask questions in the general election. A lot of them asked the same questions from different addresses.
Dr Owen is living proof that a party does not die while it has a life peer.
Do you have any idea why your voters are coming back? What are people telling the activists?
David Wallace – The July Budget perhaps ?
YouGov have sent me a survey to complete.
It is so simplistic as to make reply al,ost impossible, nit for the first time.
https://start.yougov.com/a/vdLCYKbDQ3ltrk
The simple explanation is one screamed at the liberals by people like me. Being a supporter of either one of the two main parties is simply the kiss of death for a third contender under the UK voting system. A new leader who largely stood apart from this is a good start.
I expect also the parliamentary result we have now is not what people wanted. It was universally billed as a hung parliament and voters have been cheated of their revenge on the politicians because it did not happen. Thats twice in a row they have been cheated. A vote for liberal is a vote againt the system, once again.
The most important thing these and other recent local by-election results show is that the antipathy towards us that we all had to work so hard to fight during the coalition is rewinding rapidly.
Where we have local credibility and put up a decent fight we can get far better results than we did in the last few years.
In particular some of our weaker supporters are more willing to come out and third party supporters are more willing to be squeezed.
All that doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot of work to do, but it is encouraging.