There were four principal council by-elections in the week leading up to December 2nd, one of which was a rare Tuesday election out in Wales.  The trend toward good news for incumbents continued unabated with three out of four contests resulting in holds, none of which were particularly close.  

Tuesday’s match-up in the Ciliau Aeron ward of Ceredigion Council was the second Tuesday by-election of the year, after the famous Lib Dem defence of Whyteleafe in Tandridge on February 2nd (not that you needed to ask, of course).  Out in the valleys, it was Plaid who held on despite a surge of almost 20% to Liberal Democrat candidate Sonia Williams, an encouraging result that we look forward to seeing surpassed by the Ceredigion team next time around.  Of Thursdays two holds, we came out with silver on both occasions.  In the Haydock ward of St Helens, Labour put on 11% to hit mid-60’s in vote-share whilst we slipped 10 points to 27%.  Slightly closer was the 150 vote margin in Rugby’s Dunchurch & Knightlow, where Robert Turner Aird’s 40% of the vote kept the Rugby Lib Dems within touching distance of our Conservative opponents on a day where no party’s vote altered dramatically.  All of Thursday’s excitement was Poole-side, to coin a phrase, where the ‘Poole People – Putting Poole First’ party took both the Poole Town ward from the Tories and the Teacher’s Prize for achievement in alliteration!  Joking aside, the Poole People’s 33% of the vote on a first go is a very interesting development; though it seems mainly at the expense of UKIP and a previous (non-standing) Independent, with Peter David England’s tally for the Poole Lib Dems essentially unaffected.

There will be another three by-elections to report on next week, with the major parties defending one apiece.  Lib Dems will be fighting to keep hold of Bewsey & Whitecross in Warrington, whilst Labour and the Tories will be circling the wagons Truro and Fareham respectively.  The very best of luck to our candidates, councillors, and campaigners across the country.  

Craig Whittall
craig.whittall@aldc.org

November 18th saw a pair of Independence Days, the good people of Latvia and Morocco both celebrating the throwing off of their respective historical yokes, and six principal council by-elections taking place across the UK.  The late-autumn gloom continues with very little to report on, only two of six seats changed hands and both of those went in Labour’s favour.  

A double election in the Croxteth ward of Liverpool City Council was never an appetising prospect given Labour’s post-CSR bounce around Northern England.  In the event, Labour held one and gained one leaving the council composition at fifty Labour, thirty five Lib Dem, three Liberals, and a pair of Greens.  While the headline result looks bad, the local Lib Dem Focus team acquitted themselves well with a share of the vote well above the current trend-line for Metropolitan seats in the North.  The second seat to change hands on the 18th was also a Labour gain, this time from the Tories, in the Wednesbury ward of Sandwell MBC.  Labour put an extra 23% on their vote-share since the ward was last contested in May 2010; Lib Dems fell back by just over 8% to fourth place, sadly outpaced by the National Front and holding the Green Party off by just three votes.  The remaining holds were for the Conservatives in the Baxenden ward of Hyndburn, where the absence of a Green Party candidate wasn’t sufficient to push Labour over the winning line; Plaid held in Eglwysbach on Conway County Borough Council with a disappointing slide to 72% of the vote; and an Independent in Anglesey showing us all how it should be done, keeping hold of Rhosneigr ward with just shy of 85%!  On a serious note, our ‘standing candidates’ average is taking a bit of a beating, with the Bird of Liberty appearing on only three of a possible six ballots this week.  The ALDC refrain remains the same ‘always stand a candidate’, and that means you!

With four principal council by-elections, including a defence in Blaby – site of a handsome defence of the Saxondale ward not so long ago – due up on the 25th, we look forward to a nice winter warmer of results next time around.  Meanwhile, please continue to stock up on this year’s Christmas card and calendar templates from the ALDC website (here), and it’s all hands on deck in Oldham East and Saddleworth for anyone who fancies a fun day out!  The best of luck to all our candidates and campaigners across the country.

Craig Whittall
craig.whittall@aldc.org

November 11th is, of course, the day on which we all reflect on both the fragility and the price of the freedoms we are lucky enough to enjoy.  It also adds an extra resonance to the act of voting in an election that can often be lost on the other 51 Thursdays of a year.  There were five principal council by-elections that took place on the 11th and ALDC received reports of one election contested out in the towns.  The current political cold snap continues, with very little to cherry pick for Liberal Democrats; of the five elections, we were defending none, we stood candidates in two, and neither of those changed hands.

It was a good day for Independents.  An Independent held the one seat they were defending in the Hunsdon ward of East Hertfordshire District, and another took the Forres seat on Moray Council in Scotland from the Tories, who collapsed into third behind the SNP and the eventual Independent winner on first preferences.  The remaining three seats were all holds for the Conservative Party; a marginal decline in vote-share in the Rushall-Shelfield ward in Walsall wasn’t enough for Labour, who remained 28 votes behind.  The last time the Walsall seat was contested, the local Lib Dem team took a respectable 17.8%, but the absence of a candidate somewhat hampered efforts to build on that this time around.  On the Isle of Wight, Labour’s first attempt to win the Chale, Niton, and Whitwell ward yielded a haul of 76 and our candidate Malcolm Groves kept the Lib Dem vote steady.  Finally, in a three-way thriller in Bury St Edmunds Tower division of Suffolk County Council, the Tories held the second-place Independent off by 55 votes, and the Liberal Democrats placed fifth with a fraction less of the popular vote than in 2009.  There’s a little bit of silver glinting around the November clouds, none of our candidates registered a dramatic decrease in their vote-share and we did pick up a seat in the Pill ward of Saltash Town Council.

As the nights draw in and the air gets brisker, ALDC have rustled up some very fetching Christmas card and calendar templates for those character-building Winter rounds!  They can be accessed at the members-only section of the ALDC site here.  It’s onwards and upwards next week with a further six principal council by-elections, there’s a double election in Croxteth in Liverpool and one of those seats is the week’s only Lib Dem defence.  The very best of luck to all our candidates and campaigners across the country.

Craig Whittall
craig.whittall@aldc.org

The tranquil surroundings of the Wells constituency formed the backdrop to our best result of the day, where a Lib Dem gain from the Conservatives put us only one seat behind the Tories on Mendip D.C. and brought the council into No Overall Control.  Candidate Garfield Kennedy led from the front, knocking on every door in the ward, building on Tessa Munt’s election to parliament in May.  Swiftly acquiring a number of strategic sites on the approach to a popular local supermarket for our superboards and a further forty different stakeboard locations, made it a high visibility campaign.  Our messages were spread, and some new members signed up, by the candidate hiring a stall in town on market day.  The Coalition was generally well-received on the doorstep and we found ourselves on the right side of local planning concerns and a parking charges controversy that were hurting the (Conservative-run) Mendip District Council.  Postal votes arrived before the budget, and the P.V.-targeted blue letter dropped onto doormats on the same day – in the end, the postal vote broke approximately two-thirds in our favour.  The campaign also made good use of ALDC’s Focus and Good Morning templates to help tailor their local literature output, templates for all occasions can be found in the members’ area of www.aldc.org.

 Our second gain of the day was the Clee ward of Shropshire Unitary Authority, where candidate Richard Huffer built on his established reputation as a dedicated community worker to take the ward from a complacent local Tory party.  A range of literature, beginning with the post-General ‘Thank You’ Focus and including letters targeted geographically to capitalise on the range of local issues affecting specific areas.  Richard succeeded in converting a number of disillusioned soft-Conservative votes on the basis of his prodigious door-knocking efforts and his long record of action on local issues.  The prospect of Conservative-run Shropshire cutting funding for ‘Meals on Wheels’ and local mobile library services also helped seal the deal by keeping the focus firmly at local level.

 In other developments, the Tories gained a seat on Fylde Borough Council from an Independent and they held the Huntingdon and Hatherton ward of South Staffordshire District Council by the princely margin of two votes.  It was a reasonable day for Labour, holding the three they were defending.  Finally, the non-principal by-elections saw a Lib Dem loss to an Independent on Chard Town Council in Somerset, and our own Town Councillor Michael Reginald Lock successfully defending a seat on Yeovil T.C.

ALDC By-Elections Team