Winchester Lib Dems win by-election in Oliver's Battery and Badger Farm (From Hampshire Chronicle)
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Winchester Lib Dems win by-election in Oliver's Battery and Badger Farm
10:39am Friday 28th January 2011 in News
By Andrew Napier
Winners: Brian Laming and Lib Dems celebrating their victory
WINCHESTER Liberal Democrats have comfortably won the city council by-election in the Oliver’s Battery and Badger Farm ward.
Brian Laming polled 894 votes, an overall majority over the Tory candidate Leanne Wheeler who polled 604 votes and Labour’s Hum Qureshi with 162.
The election on Thursday, with the result announced late last night, was caused by the death of David Spender last autumn.
It means the Lib Dems now have 28 councillors including independent former Lib Dem Adrian Hicks; the Conservatives have 27, including Alexis Fall, a recent defector from the Lib Dems. The Independents have two.
The Lib Dems have lost their majority but it now appears unlikely that the Tories will ally with the Independents and seek to topple them.
The Tories will be disappointed not to have pushed the Lib Dems harder than a 290-vote majority.
Labour will be pleased with their showing. Their candidate Mr Qureshi, who was until recently a Liberal Democrat supporter, increased their vote five-fold from the last time this seat was contested in 2008.
It will be heartened that it is poised to push the Lib Dems harder than in recent years in key wards such as St Luke (Stanmore) and St John and All Saints (Highcliffe and Winnall).
Comments(5)
Yves1977
says...
10:32am Sat 29 Jan 11
In 2008 Labour polled about 30 votes. This time they got over 160. Clearly their share went up by more than 7.91%.
The Lib Dem vote and share clearly dropped but they still won easily.
winchester resident
says...
11:25am Sat 29 Jan 11
As it was their majority and their share of the vote was very significantly reduced.....very, very far from the LibDem triumph that the article suggests.
Yves1977
says...
1:31pm Sat 29 Jan 11
Methinks 'Winchester resident' is disappointed that even with the Lib Dems languishing in the national opinion polls and the local party in turmoil with the 2 defections, they still can't get anywhere near the LDs in OB and BF!
winchester resident
says...
5:13pm Sun 30 Jan 11
OB and BF WAS the LibDems safest seat.
In this by election caused by his death that majority has shrunk to 290 on a 51% turnout.
The very reverse of disappointing for the Conservatives and, I would think, a great boost to the credibility of Labour locally.
winchester resident says...
4:49pm Fri 28 Jan 11
Here is a more accurate analysis:
Both seats in the ward were held by the Liberal Democrats who received over 60% of the vote when the seats were contested in 2008 and 2010. Yesterday they retained the 2008 seat, though with a greatly reduced majority.
Their vote share dropped by 14.1% representing a swing of 11.75% to the Conservatives whose vote increased by 9.39%. The Labour Party also increased their vote share by 7.91%. The Green Party did not field a candidate giving them a loss of 3.2%.
When compared with the results from May 2010, yesterday’s result shows a continuing decrease in support for the Liberal Democrats in this area. The Conservative vote share has remained steady since last year’s local elections (yesterday’s result was a 1.26% increase on the May 2010 result) and the Labour Party are steadily increasing their vote share (up 5.07% on the 2010 result) though they still remain in a distant third place. The Liberal Democrats, however, have suffered a similar drop in their vote in each election since 2008 (down 7.78% in May 2010 and a further 6.31% in yesterday’s contest).
This could be an interesting ward to watch in May 2012. If the Lib Dem vote share continues to drop at this rate, it could lead to a very close contest indeed.