Two by-elections, two Lib Dem candidates where there hadn’t been one, one wider electoral lesson
Last night saw two council by-elections, both fairly unremarkable Labour holds. They both did, however, feature a Lib Dem candidate when there hadn’t been one in the ward before, hooray.
They also both featured the Lib Dem candidate finishing a long way back – a reminder of how big the leap is from standing to winning, and hence why targeting is so important in the general election – winning seats is very hard work and needs concentrated effort.
Labour HOLD Enfield Lock (Enfield).
— Britain Elects (@BritainElects) May 18, 2017
Enfield Lock (Enfield) result:
LAB: 63.8% (+12.7)
CON: 28.8% (+13.3)
GRN: 3.1% (-6.4)
UKIP: 2.7% (-15.0)
LDEM: 1.6% (+1.6)— Britain Elects (@BritainElects) May 18, 2017
Newtown (Stockton-on-Tees) result:
LAB: 52.5% (-3.6)
CON: 21.8% (+4.6)
IND: 21.0% (+21.0)
LDEM: 4.7% (+4.7)
No UKIP as previous.— Britain Elects (@BritainElects) May 19, 2017
Labour HOLD Newtown (Stockton-on-Tees).
— Britain Elects (@BritainElects) May 18, 2017
These by-election results round-ups cover principal authority by-elections. See my post The danger in celebrating parish and town council wins for your own party for the reasons to avoid straying too often into covering town, parish or community council by-elections.
Enfield Lock may well have been part of the only seat Labour retained on Enfield Council in the calamitous 1968 local government elections, when I think the borough ended up with 58 Tories to 2 Labour councillors. The Liberal Party had been targeting Ponders End, a ward to the south of Enfield Lock, and watched the votes pass them going from Labour to Tory. The Tory candidate had been told, ‘you are a paper candidate’.
At the moment we seem to be targeting too many seats in the general election, as if we hadn’t learnt anything from the 2015 election. Running intensive campaigns in seats that we’ve won in the past or done very well in is not the same as targeting. It needs to be more ruthless.