Here is another great preview of the upcoming by elections by @andrewteale I would like to thank him for letting our blog reproduce his work he runs a fantastic website http://www.andrewteale.me.uk/leap/ if you have an interest in election results like myself you will find it an invaluable source of information.
Four by-elections on Thursday 30th June:
ST MICHAEL'S, Bexley council, South London; caused by the resignation of
Conservative councillor Joe Pollard, who is now working abroad. Pollard
had served since 2006.
Your columnist is writing this on Friday afternoon last week, as the UK
dissolves into political and financial meltdown. In this immediate wake
of Brexit, it's not immediately clear what the impact of the Leave vote
on the UK party system will be (if this is even an important
consideration right now). It's ironic that the first electors to get
the chance to react to Brexit are those of St Michael's ward, covering
the north-eastern corner of Welling. This is a ward populated by
London's aspirant working class: St Michael's is in the top 100 wards in
England and Wales for intermediate-level jobs and Level 1 qualifications
(ie fewer than five GCSEs), but also has high owner-occupation rates.
Not surprisingly given this demographic, Bexley as a whole was 63% Leave
last week - a rebuke to the political legacy of Sir Edward Heath, who
was MP for this area (then part of the Bexley constituency) at the time
he was leading Britain into the Common Market in 1973.
St Michael's election results are now almost unrecognisable from those
in 2002, when Labour won all three seats in a three-way marginal result.
The Conservatives decisively gained the ward in 2006 and held all
three seats until 2014 when they lost a seat to UKIP who only stood one
candidate in the ward; shares of the vote were 35% for the Tories, 33%
for UKIP and 22% for Labour. This is the third time the ward has been
to the polls in two months following the referendum and the London
elections in May, in which the Tories' Zac Goldsmith carried the ward's
ballot boxes with 51% to 25% for Labour's Sadiq Khan and 11% for UKIP's
Peter Whittle; the GLA list vote was closer with 39% for the
Conservatives, 23% for Labour and 20% for UKIP, while further down the
results Britain First had 3% and finished sixth (out of twelve) on both
ballots.
Defending for the Conservatives is Ray Sams, a councillor for this ward
from 2006 until he lost his seat to UKIP in 2014; he was Mayor of Bexley
in 2011-12. The UKIP candidate is Keith Forster, the treasurer of the
party's Bexley branch. Labour have gone for youth in selecting Sam
Marchant, a social media analyst. Also on the ballot paper are Michael
Jones of the BNP (whose head office used to be in Welling), Derek Moran
for the Green Party and the Lib Dems' Simone Reynolds.
Parliamentary constituency: Bexleyheath and Crayford
May 2014 result C 1352/1314/1140 UKIP 1280 Lab 857/769/720 BNP 407
May 2010 result C 2692/2623/2298 Lab 1554/1392/1269 LD 884/724/615 BNP
813 EDP 562
May 2006 result C 2062/1907/1890 Lab 1101/1090/1023 LD 457/450/413
May 2002 result Lab 1023/981/972 C 887/775/766 LD 831/760/752 UKIP 134
May 2016 GLA results (excludes postal voters)
Mayor: C 1402 Lab 701 UKIP 302 LD 119 Grn 80 Britain First 74 BNP 35
Women's Equality 23 Respect 12 Cannabis is Safer than Alcohol 12 One
Love 5 Zylinski 1
List: C 1099 Lab 657 UKIP 546 LD 124 Grn 99 Britain First 91 Women's
Equality 49 BNP 46 Animal Welfare 32 CPA 31 Respect 18 House Party 5
LEATHERHEAD NORTH, Mole Valley council, Surrey; caused by the
resignation of Conservative councillor Santiago Mondejar Flores, an IT
professional, who has served since 2015.
Moving out of London, we come to the market town of Leatherhead, beloved
of radio traffic reporters thanks to its location just off the congested
M25 motorway. The motorway's junction 9 lies within this ward,
prompting several multinational companies to locate their UK offices
here including CGI, Halliburton and Unilever; also here is the
headquarters of the Police Federation. That's not the only police
connection to this ward as it was the former location of Surrey Sound
Studios, where The Police recorded many of their early songs. The ward
also includes the town's railway station (a junction for the
Victoria-Dorking and Waterloo-Epsom-Guildford lines) and its town
centre; Leatherhead High Street came in the top five of a 2002 BBC poll
for the UK's worst shopping street, but Wikipedia suggests it has
improved a bit since then. The ward's census statistics show that
employment is high, with 48% of the workforce being employed full-time.
Former councillor Mondejar's Twitter feed is filled with Remain
retweets, and Mole Valley - perhaps thanks to all those multinationals
and the importance of research to its economy - voted 53% Remain last
week. At council level this ward and the council as a whole tends to be
a close fight between the Lib Dems and Conservatives, the Lib Dems
having won here eight times since 2002 to four times for the
Conservatives and there have been some close majorities (including a
couple of close three-way fights); since 2014 the score is 2-1 in the
Tories' favour, but the Lib Dems won the most recent contest in May's
ordinary election on a low share of the vote, 33% to 29% for the Tories,
18% for UKIP and 16% for Labour. The ward is part of the
Conservative-held county division of Leatherhead and Fetcham East,
although the Tory majority comes from elsewhere in the division.
Defending for the Conservatives is Tracy Keeley, who stood in Fetcham
West ward in May and had a very bad result in what previously had been a
Tory-held ward; a violin teacher, she has previous local government
experience as a town councillor in Yorkshire. The Lib Dem candidate is
Joe Crome, general manager of the Leatherhead Youth Project. UKIP's
Simon Chambers and Labour's Marc Green try again after their third- and
fourth-place finishes here in May, and the Green Party's Vicki Elcoate
completes the ballot paper.
Parliamentary constituency: Mole Valley
Surrey county council division: Leatherhead and Fetcham East
May 2016 result LD 528 C 453 UKIP 279 Lab 255 Grn 66
May 2015 result C 1064 LD 915 UKIP 571 Lab 455 Grn 122
May 2014 result C 525 LD 519 UKIP 512 Lab 248
May 2012 result LD 535 C 495 Lab 270 UKIP 213
May 2011 result LD 820 C 669 Lab 278 UKIP 209
May 2010 result LD 1125 C 1113 Lab 353 Ind 275 UKIP 187
May 2008 result LD 866 C 621 UKIP 170
May 2007 result LD 829 C 577 Lab 190 UKIP 105 Grn 43
May 2006 result C 757 LD 754 Lab 221
June 2004 result C 511 LD 492 Lab 489
May 2003 result LD 517 C 364 Lab 343
May 2002 result LD 721 Lab 438 C 317
HIGH TOWN, Luton council, Bedfordshire; caused by the resignation of
Labour councillor Aysegul Gurbuz. Just 20 years old and having served
since 2015, Gurbuz resigned after a series of anti-Semitic tweets by her
were revealed.
The High Town area of Luton lies immediately to the north of the town
centre, a hilly area dominated by Victorian terraces. The local economy
was originally based on hat-making, and there are still a number of
hatters here. Wardown Park, the home of the minor cricket county of
Bedfordshire, lies within the ward, and High Town's Wikipedia entry
paints a Bohemian picture with a large number of small shops and
businesses. Luton railway station, a major stop on the Midland main
line from St Pancras to Bedford and Leicester, lies on the ward's
southern boundary. Students at Bedfordshire University form a large
part of the population, and High Town is a highly multiracial area (41%
White British, 21% White Other, 18% Asian, 12% Black); the ward is in
the top 100 in England and Wales for population from the new EU states
(13%) and private renting (46% of households).
A ward like this is of course safe Labour, although the Tories came
close to gaining High Town in the 2007 election. At the most recent
poll in 2015 Labour beat the Tories here 53-29, although on the Labour
slate Gurbuz was a long way behind her running-mate Andy Malcolm who was
standing for re-election. In last week's referendum Luton voted 56.5%
Remain.
To replace Gurbuz Labour have selected another young Asian woman, but
this time one whose equality credentials are impeccable: Maahwish Mirza
graduated last year from the University of Warwick, in which she was
Education Officer and Deputy President of the Students' Union in
2014-15. (Declaration of interest: your columnist has honorary life
membership of Warwick Students' Union.) The Tory candidate is Sue
Garrett, who runs the party's Luton branch office. Also standing are
Lyn Bliss for the Green Party, independent candidate John French, UKIP's
Grace Froggatt and Clive Mead for the Lib Dems.
Parliamentary constituency: Luton South
May 2015 result Lab 1442/1039 C 791/748 Grn 479/329
May 2011 result Lab 1008/899 C 491/437 Grn 191 LD 176/126
May 2007 result Lab 672/617 C 592/563 Grn 248 LD 195/191
May 2003 result Lab 647/497 C 462/461 LD 205/149 Grn 175 Ind 114
RHOOSE, Vale of Glamorgan council; caused by the death of independent
councillor Philip Clarke in a motorcycle accident. A former commercial
pilot, he had served since 2012.
Wales' southernmost mainland division, Rhoose is a large rural electoral
unit in the centre of the Vale of Glamorgan. Rhoose itself, just to the
west of Barry, is a fast-growing commuter village for Cardiff with
excellent transport links: it is the location for Cardiff Airport which
takes up a lot of the division's acreage, and its railway station on the
Vale of Glamorgan line reopened in 2005 with the longest name on the
National Rail network: the 33-letter "Rhoose Cardiff International
Airport". Also within the ward is the rural community of Llancarfan,
which in the sixth century was a clas (ecclesiastical community)
associated with St Cadoc.
Philip Clarke had topped the poll in this two-seat division in the 2012
election with 37% of the vote, gaining his seat from the Conservatives
whose slate had 34% (the other 30% went to Labour); the Tory loss was an
embarrassing one as the councillor who lost his seat was the Leader of
the Council, Gordon Kemp. Clarke had previously fought the division in
2008 as the Plaid Cymru candidate, finishing as a distant runner-up four
votes ahead of the Lib Dems' Eluned Parrott; Parrott would go on to be
elected to the Welsh Assembly in bizarre circumstances in 2011, being
promoted to first on the Lib Dem list for South Wales Central after the
original lead candidate turned out to hold an office which disqualified
him from membership of the Senedd.
Two independent candidates have come forward to succeed Clarke: Rachel
Banner is a long-standing anti-devolution campaigner and was the main
spokesperson for the "no" side in the 2011 referendum on giving
law-making powers to the Senedd, while Adam Riley is campaigning to stop
Vale of Glamorgan council closing Rhoose Library. Former Vale of
Glamorgan council leader Gordon Kemp, having lost his seat in 2012,
wants it back and is the Conservative candidate. The Labour candidate
is Graham Loveluck-Edwards, a digital marketing manager, scrapyard
director and chairman of Rhoose Runners. Completing a crowded ballot
paper are James Fyfe of the Pirate Party, the Lib Dems' Robin Lynn and
the Plaid candidate Ian Perry.
Parliamentary and Assembly constituency: Vale of Glamorgan
May 2012 result Ind 882 C 810/727 Lab 713
May 2008 result C 1169/1143 PC 556 LD 552 Lab 520
June 2004 result C 1240/1085 Lab 729
One by-election on Friday 1st July:
NEWINGTON, Thanet council, Kent; caused by the resignation of UKIP
councillor Mo Leys, who said in a resignation statement that he could no
longer stand under the UKIP banner. A former soldier, he had served
since 2015.
For the second time in six months we return to the Isle of Thanet, but
in a rather different political context to our last visit. We're in the
South Thanet constituency from which Nigel Farage sought election to
Parliament last year; although he didn't get in, UKIP had the
consolation prize of winning an overall majority on Thanet council,
which had previously been evenly split between Labour and the Tories.
The Thanet council term in 2011-15 was very fissiparous, with a long
list of defections and by-election changes which eventually cost the
ruling Tory group their majority and led to Labour taking control
part-way through. The Kipper takeover appears to have made not a jot of
difference to this political culture, with four or five UKIP councillors
wandering off to form a splinter group and wiping out the Kipper
majority; on top of that, a further UKIP councillor emigrated to
Thailand shortly after his election last year, and the resulting
by-election was lost to Labour. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
Judging from the seat count, the UKIP surge in Thanet last year came at
the expense of Labour who now hold just five seats on the council,
following that by-election win. In that context it's unsurprising that
one of the seats to fall was Newington ward, a working-class inland
suburb of Ramsgate off the road to Manston, whose closed airport and the
future thereof is one of the political hot potatoes in this part of the
world. Previously a safe Labour ward, Newington gave 44% to UKIP last
year and just 36% to Labour, the Tories coming in third with 19%.
Labour weren't helped by deselecting their long-serving councillor Mike
Harrison over homophobic comments he had made about former Labour
councillor Ian Driver, who following a dizzying series of defections
ended up in the Green Party. This was the ward where the by-election
was held after a UKIP councillor emigrated; the by-election took place
in January and resulted in a Labour gain with 38% of the vote, to 30%
for UKIP and 20% for the Tories. UKIP hold the ward's county council
seats, with the two-member Ramsgate division being safe for them in 2013
but previously Labour-inclined.
Faced with the prospect of losing their last seat in the ward, UKIP have
selected Roy Potts to defend this by-election. Having got one of their
2015 slate elected in January, Labour are hoping to do the double by
selecting their other candidate from 2015, former Mayor of Ramsgate
David Green, who has sixteen years' services on Thanet council as a
member for Eastcliff ward (1999-2015). The Conservatives have
reselected their January candidate Adam Dark, a law teacher, while the
Lib Dems' Matthew Brown completes the ballot paper, hoping to improve on
the 12 votes his party got in January.
Parliamentary constituency: South Thanet
Kent county council division: Ramsgate
Jan 2016 by-election Lab 288 UKIP 229 C 156 Ind 49 Grn 20 LD 12 Ind 10
May 2015 result UKIP 884/845 Lab 728/713 C 390/363
May 2011 result Lab 705/702 C 370/351
May 2007 result Lab 471/438 Ramsgate First 268/196 C 208/197 UKIP 116
May 2003 result Lab 532/498 Ind 235 C 144/140
