You could be forgiven for having a sense of déjà vu with this week’s by-elections, as two of them have had multiple by-elections in recent years.
The by-election in the Spitalfields and Banglatown Ward of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets took the political headlines following the defeat of Labour’s candidate by an Independent aligned to the directly-elected mayor, Lutfur Rahman. This was the second by-election in this ward in 18 months and a second defeat for Labour. The ward is now represented by one Labour councillor, one from Respect and now one Independent.
For Liberal Democrats the best result of the night was in the Plaistow Ward of Chichester District Council in West Sussex. This was the fifth by-election in this ward in nine years following successive resignations of Conservative councillors. Plaistow is a large rural ward – 19 miles from one end to the other – in the far north of the district on the Surrey border. However despite the scale of the job we ran a strong campaign with a number of leaflets very much focusing on the reasons for the by-election and the local credentials of our candidate. Polling day saw torrential downpours all day and so postal voters ended up making up a large percentage of the turnout in parts of the ward. As a result this group became incredibly important to the final result, which is a lesson to take back for those with elections on 3rd May. If you haven’t run a ‘get out the vote’ operation amongst your postal voters there is still time. Despite our efforts we ended up 47 votes from victory. Perhaps it will be 6th time lucky for our regular candidate Ray Cooper.
The Watlington by-election in Oxfordshire County Council (Henley Constituency) kept up the theme of large electoral divisions being around 12 miles from end to end. We managed a modest increase in our vote and a small swing from the Conservatives. There was also a by-election in the Goresbrook Ward of the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham.
This is the last by-election column before the local elections on 3rd May and so ALDC would like to wish the best of luck to all of our candidates. Like last year it’s going to be another hard fight, but those places who’ve been putting in the work are generally getting a good response. Don’t forget that ALDC is here to support you with artwork templates and best practice on our website, as well as advice articles online or by phone.