There were four principal council by-elections that took place on Thursday 18th October.
The best bits first, we held both of our defences in Maidstone with marginal dips in our share of the vote but still comfortably ahead of our nearest challengers. In the Kent county division of Maidstone Central, Rob Bird and the local Focus team won with an impressive majority of 868. In the corresponding borough election, the Allington ward of Maidstone BC, Belinda Janet Watson took an absolute majority – just over 52 per cent of the vote – a great result and a nice shot in the arm after a few weeks with nothing much to report on! Our congratulations to Rob, Belinda and the Maidstone Lib Dem team for a very welcome set of results.
Elsewhere, the results in Brighton and Hove’s East Brighton ward was predictable enough. A Labour hold with 56 per cent of the vote and the local Lib Dems back in fourth. It is interesting to see the Green Party also post a drop in vote-share, which seems to indicate a swing towards Labour in some of their support. Whether this is down to local factors, or might be an indicator of a wider trend, remains to be seen. Finally, not much to report on in Boston’s Frampton and Holme where two Independents duked it out for the win, whilst the back of the pack didn’t include a Liberal Democrat at all.
That’s all the news from this week. We’ll be keeping a special eye out for the Todmorden Town Council result on 25th, where our candidate Joe Rez is the only opposition to a far-right (ex-British Peoples’ Party) candidate posing as an Independent. The best of luck to Joe and the team, and all of our candidates and campaigners across the country.
Craig Whittall
craig.whittall@aldc.org