One near-miss and one loss for Lib Dems in by-elections

Nine principal authority council by-elections this week. Although only four had Liberal Democrat candidates, that was two up on the last time these wards were up.

Oh so close for Lib Dem candidate Russell Neal in what was a split Conservative/Lib Dem ward and is now a split Labour/Lib Dem one.

Thank you to Reece Oliver for putting the Lib Dems back on the ballot paper in this ward.

This had been a very tough by-election, as Andrew Teale summarises:

[The Lib Dem] selection of Mahmood Rafiq appears to have prompted some dirty politics. Rafiq is an Ahmadiyya Muslim and head of external affairs for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Association. The Kingston Independent Residents Group have distributed a leaflet making divisive and Islamophobic attacks on Rafiq, an action which has been condemned not just by the Lib Dems but by all the other parties standing in this by-election.

I met Mahmood out campaigning in this ward. He’s a great local community activist, and I’m sure will succeed in future.

Thank you to John Ireland for standing, making him the first Lib Dem candidate since the ward was first up in 2015.

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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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: