Clean sweep for Lib Dems in by-elections, including 20% swing to win seat from Conservatives

A full slate of Liberal Democrat candidates for this week’s principal authority local council by-elections. (Here’s why that is such good news.)

First in, a huge swing to the Liberal Democrats to gain a seat from the Conservatives:

Congratulations Anne Blake-Coggins!

Fun fact: the defeated Conservative candidate fought and lost another by-election to the Liberal Democrats last year.

And another gain:

Congratulations Nicole Hawkins! Especially as it’s a return to the council for her, having won under different boundaries in 2017 and then lost by just 22 votes in 2019 after the boundaries changed.

Amazingly, that’s the seventh by-election victory for the Liberal Democrats since the Somerset West and Taunton Council was created in 2019 (with an eighth for a county council seat during this time too).

Those vote share changes are from the last time this particular seat was up, but the ward elects in thirds and so the last time there was an election in this ward was last May. The changes since then are Lib Dem up 7 and Labour down 5.

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.

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:

Commiserations, Darren.

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