Lib Dems miss out on gain from fourth place by just 15 votes

Four Liberal Democrat candidates for the five principal authority council by-elections this week, which is one up on the last time these seats were up.

The Conservative majority was just 15 votes. So close to a brilliant gain for Caroline Courtney in a ward where the Lib Dems finished fourth last time. With last week’s two near misses, that’s the third seat recently missed for the Lib Dems by a frustratingly small handful of votes.

Another huge increase in the Lib Dem vote, another move up from out of contention to a strong second place. So again congratulations and commiserations to Robbie Cowbury for getting so close.

Thank you to Barry McKinstray for standing where there hadn’t been a Liberal Democrat before.

Leicester continues to be one of the worst performing (perhaps the worst performing?) areas in the whole country for Labour in council by-elections. (See Andrew Teale’s write-up here for details.)

Thank you to Jitesh Dave for standing for the Liberal Democrats.

No Lib Dem candidate, alas, for the fourth time in a row.

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 as it’s only those for which comprehensive results are available.

Understanding the opinion polls

For understanding what is happening in politics, by-elections have the advantage of being real votes in real ballot boxes. But the opinion polls have the advantage of trying to be a representative sample of voters, not just those in the places that happen to have by-elections. To understand the polls properly – and what they do and don’t really tell us – see my book, Polling UnPacked: The History, Uses and Abuses of Political Opinion Polls.

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