Political

Lib Dems win seat off Labour with a 26% swing

One Parliamentary by-election and six principal authority local council by-elections this week, with two defences each for Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrats. Five of those six had Lib Dem candidates, the same number as last time around in the wards.

Let’s start with that 26% swing:

Congratulations Alan! The win means the Liberal Democrats are once again the official opposition on Manchester Council.

The Manchester Evening News has more on the circumstances of the by-election and the result.

Next, a third place for Lib Dem Zuffar Haq rather than a win in Leicester, but one that’s important in its own way as it’s an example of those good third places that Jonathan Calder rightly called out a few years ago as being an important part of the party’s recovery:

Topping that though was a stonking first place for Simy Dhyani in a successful defence of a Lib Dem seat:

An impressive hold for Anne Foster too:

Anne also won a town council seat last night – see below.

A huge increase in the vote for Danny Loveridge in what should have been a super-safe Conservative seat with only two candidates this time round:

And finally, a ward without a Lib Dem candidate (for the fifth time in a row, alas):

For what all this means for the running total of council by-election results since the last May elections, see my council by-elections scorecard here.

As for the Parliamentary by-election, it’s notable how poorly each of the extremist candidates did:

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. But this week, this other by-election did come to notice:

And in related news:

Layla Moran quote praising 101 Ways To Win An Election

Get by-election results by email

If you sign up for my daily email with the latest pieces from this site, you’ll also get included as a little bonus the full set of council by-election results each week:

"*" indicates required fields

Email*
Name*
What would you like to receive?*
If you submit this form, your data will be used in line with the privacy policy here to update you on the topic(s) selected. This may including using this data to contact you via a variety of digital channels.
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

2 responses to “Lib Dems win seat off Labour with a 26% swing”

  1. Manchester.What was his campaign message cos it took Votes off ALL other parties to get that plus 31 ? Official opposition,yes, but 2 versus 92 (sort of) is a long way to go.Could his tactics be used in other wards?

    • Best to keep our powder dry in this semi-public blog.

      Two public factors were:
      1: resignation of Lab Councillor for being bullied.
      2: Coverage in the Manchester Evening News of LD community initiatives

      It was also helpful having a good candidate called Good

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.