Firstly, warm welcome back to our readers in Lib Dem News, you haven’t missed a huge amount – there have only been eight by-elections since our last report. Here’s a quick recap of August so-far, and a summary of Thursday’s action.
Of the five that took place on August 2nd we had one piece of good news, where Don Broadbent and the Wealden team held Polegate North against an Independent and a Tory, both of whom took 20% of the vote. Of the four that remained, we took a bit of a beating in Lincoln East where our vote dropped by eighteen per cent and Labour took the seat from the Conservatives. The other three elections didn’t feature a Lib Dem candidate, so a failure rate of sixty per cent on the day courtesy of South Holland (Fleet and Long Sutton) and Vale of Glamorgan (Buttrills).
Thursday 9th August had no by-elections reported to ALDC.
Thursday 16th saw two principal council by-elections and a win for Lib Dems out in the towns. First things first, Central Bedfordshire Lib Dems suffered a twelve-point drop in vote-share in the Stotfold and Langford ward. Our commiserations to candidate Roger Baines. The overall result was a Conservative hold. Elsewhere, there was a straight fight between the Tories and a Residents’ Association in the St Bartholomews ward of Tendring, with the latter romping home to a successful defence with just over eighty-seven per cent of the vote. The best news of the day for Liberal Democrats came from Thatcham town council in West Berkshire, where Robert Morgan and the local Focus team took almost sixty per cent of the popular vote to hold the Thatcham South and Crookham ward. Well done Thatcham!
Things aren’t exactly looking lively for next week, with only one town council by-election reported to ALDC so far for August 23rd. Best of luck to the Westhoughton team in Bolton for their upcoming contest, and our best wishes to all Lib Dem candidates and campaigners fighting across the country.
Craig Whittallcraig.whittall@aldc.org