Results just in:
Labour Party: 12,528 (45%) -14% compared to 2005
Greg Stone, Liberal Democrat: 5,572 (20%) +8%
Conservative Party: 4,082 (15%)
British National Party: 2,494 (9%)
Independent: 1,885 (7%)
Huge congratulations to Greg Stone, the Sedgefield Lib Dems, and all those who helped the campaign, on achieving a double-figure swing from Labour, and knocking David Cameron’s Tories back into third place.
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16 Comments
Although of course, they weren’t “Cameron’s Conservatives” in Sedgefield . . . Perhaps they would have done better if they had been!
The Tory candidate is on News 24 playing up that his share of the vote went up – not mentioning that it went up from 14.4% to 14.6%
Anyone else sense that the BBC is underplaying our success and overplaying the Tories’ performance?
Grant Shapps is claiming that the Tories will have had the biggest increase in vote in Southall.
The BBC enhanced its reputaion for journalistic accuracy by at first flashing up a ‘Labour Majority’ figure that was in fact the margin between Labour and the 3rd place Tories.
Shapps just claimed the 3rd placed Party ALWAYS gets squeezed in By elections – looks like no-one s told him the Sedgefild result!!!!!!!!!
Nice point, Greenfield (at 1.41am)!!!
How the Sky News website is reporting Sedgefield:
“But the result in the rock-solid Labour safe seat in county Durham was also a boost for Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell, who saw his party overtake the Conservatives to take second place.”
Well done to the Lib Dem crew.
Ruth Milburn the agent is probably the star here. To run a strong campaign when the national focus was down south and grab second place from the Tories was pretty impressive. She is an impressive organiser who knows her onions. She’ll go far I suspect.
Well done to our Lib Dem team in Sedgefield for putting up such a strong fight and improving so well from third to second.
It was always going to be a tough campaign, particularly given the contemporarous campaign in Ealing, but this gives us a strong result to build on in coming years.
I have to say well done to our campaign teams in Sedgefield and Ealing but with only a few weeks a win was never on the cards. I wonder if Labour and the Tories will learn the lesson from this about timing.
Also I think when you take into account the fact that Reg Keys got about 5,000 votes last time and he wasn’t standing the Lib Dem increse in vote in sedgefield (indeed in both constituencies) was adequate nothing more. The by-elections confirm my opinion that the Tories haven’t moved on at all in the real world and will struggle to pick up seats outside of their heartlands in any future elections.
If you look at the figures, Blair’s majority over the Tories went UP in 2005 so most of his votes were probably Tory ones.
I think that the increase in the Lib Dem vote came from those who voted for anti-war campaigner Reg Keys in 2005. Where else would such votes go?
I am much more concerned by the massive 10 fold increase in the extreme Right’s vote from a couple of hundred for the NF in 2005, to nearly 2 1/2 thousand on Thursday. What are the percentage of ethnic majorities in Sedgefield? Is there a problem with asylum seekers or migrant workers?
“What are the percentage of ethnic majorities in Sedgefield?”
According to 2001 census, Sedgefield constituency is 99% white
“I think that the increase in the Lib Dem vote came from those who voted for anti-war campaigner Reg Keys in 2005. Where else would such votes go?”
PWEI34 (if that is your real name), you just keep finding excuses. You just keep reassuring yourself that actually “Dave” Cameron is the answer to all your problems. You just keep telling yourself this stuff… because then you will wake up the morning after the next General Election and you lot will have messed up again – and the rest of us will be laughing our socks off.