My favourite piece of post-election spinning

Can you spot the person and party in this local newspaper report who:

(a) Slipped back to fourth place for the first time
(b) Saw their vote fall
(c) But say they are “pleased” with the result? and hope to “ride the momentum” into next year’s local elections [Updated: as highlighted by a comment on Lib Dem Voice, the newspaper’s use of paragraph breaks looks to have presented the last part of the quote from someone else as if it were the start of Richard Merrin’s comments.]

(Here’s a clue: his name is Richard Merrin; his political party is the Conservatives.)

And for a final bit of fun, here’s what Richard Merrin said during the election campaign itself: “Do the Lib Dems really think the Euro election in Hornsey is a fight between them and Lab – the electorate don’t given our support”.

Yup, I plead guilty to being a Lib Dem who thinks that; see (a) and (b) above re. what “our support” really amounted to. Of course, the Conservatives do have form for bizarre attempts to spin away inconveniences…