October 2011 Local By-election Summary: Votes Cast and Seats Won
| | Votes Cast | % Votes Cast | Seats Won | Change |
| Labour | 13,314 | 35.58% | 11 | +2 |
| Conservatives | 12,544 | 33.52% | 8 | -3 |
| Lib Dems | 5,439 | 14.53% | 2 | Unchanged |
| UKIP | 1,755 | 4.69% | 0 | Unchanged |
| Independents | 1,673 | 4.47% | 1 | +1 |
| SNP | 1,139 | 3.04% | 0 | Unchanged |
| Green Party | 563 | 1.50% | 0 | Unchanged |
| BNP | 505 | 1.35% | 0 | Unchanged |
| Other Parties | 492 | 1.31% | 0 | Unchanged |
GAINS and LOSSES
Labour GAINS: Bloxwich East on Wallsall (from Con), Newchapel on Newcastle under Lyme (from Con)
Independent GAINS: Walton on Stafford (from Con)
It is now 18 months since the last general election and boy, what an 18 months it has been. From the heights of the first coaliton government since 1977 and the first one borne from a general election since February 1974 and the Downing Street Rose Garden love in, through the student riots last year following the Lib Dem U turn on student tuition fees, through the quite frankly disastrous set of elections in May of this year for the Liberal Democrats, the riots of the summer and just last week a massive backbench rebellion by 81 Conservative MP’s and 1 Liberal Democrat MP on the subject of an in/out referendum on Europe. But whilst that has been going up and down the United Kingdom there have been 280 local by-elections where (as the Liberal Democrats like to say) 508,040 real votes in real ballot boxes and overall those real votes are reflecting national opinion quite nicely. Labour and the Conservatives are battling for the lead (both on 32%), the Liberal Democrats are struggling to keep their heads above the Others (Lib Dem 18%, Others 18%) and of the Others, Independents lead with 5%, the SNP on 4%, Greens on 3%, UKIP on 2%, Plaid 1%, BNP 1%, Respect 0% and the myriad Others on 1% which is reflected in a general election would see the two main parties battling for the lead, the Liberal Democrats halved, the SNP winning their highest number of seats ever in a general election with the Greens winning an extra seat and local Independents winning in local battles.
But perhaps what is more interesting is how opinions have changed over the last year. In October 2010, Labour had a 6% lead over the Conservatives in the local by-elections held that month with the Liberal Democrats on a very respectable 20%. Now, the Conservatives have gained 4% on last October, Labour are unchanged and it’s the Liberal Democrats who have suffered (falling 6%) with the Other parties gaining 2% between them indicating a swing from Lib Dem to Con of 5%, Lib Dem to Lab of 3% and a swing from Lab to Con of 2% all of which proves that when it comes to elections of any type you can read what you want!
So what to look forward to in November, well November will be the last month of by-elections in Wales and Scotland as any vacancies created after December 1st will be filled in the local elections next May (as they will in any councils in England also voting) and so as well as reviewing the November elections next month, I will review all the Welsh by-elections over the last four years and see if we can get any indication of what the map of Wales may look like next May.
Harry ,
ReplyDeleteYou cannot simply compare one month's local election votes with another month's local election total votes without looking at where each month's byelections were held . It may be that more of this month's byelections were in Conservative areas and more of October 2010 in Labour areas and Labour are therefore performing better now than in 2010 .
I have not looked at the comparison of where the byelections were held in each month myself but you should certainly have done so before jumping to and proclaiming conclusions that may or may not be justified .