Political

Limited Lib Dem progress on balance in this week’s by-elections

Ten council by-elections this week, and mixed signs of Liberal Democrat progress. You won’t find headlines here about the party gaining seats this week in other sorts of elections because of the reasons I’ve explained previously – paying attention to such results is deeply misleading about the party’s prospects.

But back to the principal council by-elections which are worth paying attention to for drawing out more general trends.

Perhaps the most interesting contest from a Lib Dem perspective was in Leicester, taking place in a ward that the party held way back when it ran the city. By 2015, however, the party had slumped to fourth in the ward with one sixth of the voters of the winner.

So the result this week is rather a promising step, leap and jump back towards past glory days:

Various signs of progress in five other wards too:

Three wards, however, saw the party fall back:

And one ward had no Liberal Democrat candidate:

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.

2 responses to “Limited Lib Dem progress on balance in this week’s by-elections”

  1. Watch out next week for a by-election in the Bridgemary North Ward of Gosport BC – a rock-solid Labour seat which has never before seen a Liberal Democrat candidate… until now. 2016 result was Labour 70%, Conservative 30%. It will be very different on 30th November!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

All comments and data you submit with them will be handled in line with the privacy and moderation policies.