With just one Council left to declare, the Lib Dems will end the local election second to Labour in terms of Councillors, with 105 gains and 2 more Councils. The last time this happened was in 1996. Second place and a 25% gain is not a bad result for us at all.
The Tories have lost more than half of the seats they were defending and are languishing in 3rd place. The only consolation for them so far is that Ben Houchen held on as Tees Valley Mayor. Even if Andy Street clings on in the West Midlands, it looks as though the result will be pretty close.
Ed Davey had this to say about our success:
Up and down the country Conservative MPs will be looking over their shoulder terrified of the Liberal Democrats who have won more seats than them in this election.
This was the final test before the General Election and it’s clear Conservative MPs are on notice.
We’ve moved forward in blue wall battlegrounds and we’ve seen a real collapse in support for Rishi Sunak and his out of touch Government.
The choice for millions of people at the General Election is clear – they can get a fair deal with the Liberal Democrats or have 4 more years of Conservative chaos.
Just for the hell of it, we need to see those dinosaurs from yesterday again:
The Mayoral elections around the country have seen wins for Labour in most places except Tees Valley. Our best performing candidates have been Felicity Cunliffe-Lister who won 16.9% in York and North Yorkshire and Hannah Kitching in South Yorkshire who won 11.1%. We are otherwise performing round about the deposit mark with some being won, some being lost.
The party will be generally pleased with the results. Where we hope to make gains in the General Election, the Tories pulled out all the stops and threw them at us with menaces and we still gained. We didn’t win every target we were going for and that is always upsetting for the candidates and teams who had worked their backsides off.
A massive thank you to everyone who has flown the Lib Dem flag in this huge set of elections and to all who have pounded the pavements, stuffed envelopes, bundled leaflets and supported the campaigns.
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings
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2 Comments
May I mention a result which would no doubt have achieved prominence on this site in any week other than one when there were elections up and down the country and much else to celebrate?
On Thursday there was a by-election for a seat on Waverley Borough Council: Milford and Witley Ward in the heart of Jeremy Hunt’s constituency. It was caused by the sad death of Andrew Law who , a year ago, won the seat by a margin of just seven votes. On this occasion the LibDem candidate, Laura Cavaliere, held the seat with a majority of 250.
The figures:
Liberal Democrat (Laura Cavaliere) 1152 (44.7%)
Con 902 (35.0%)
Ind 536 (20.4%)
Congratulations to Laura Cavaliere and the local LibDem team: another brick in the Blue Wall dislodged.
That’s a brilliant result Nick.