Winning here!
Out canvassing over the weekend with Liberal Democrat candidate, Ian Dowling, in the Temple Newsam ward in Leeds. In a couple of weeks time, the voters there face a by-election caused by the well-publicised resignation of one of the Labour councillors in the ward. The demographics of the community in the ward suggest no reason why the Liberal Democrats could not do well there. The party picked up over 500 votes last time with a pretty minimal campaign.
There have been several local council by-elections on principal local authorities since last summer and I thought it would be useful to do an analysis of the results. Over 20,000 votes were cast in total, in a range of wards from inner city Leeds to rural North Yorkshire. Interestingly, the Liberal Democrats, along with the Conservatives were the only party to field a candidate in each of the seats. The Liberal Democrats quite comfortably held the three seats they were defending but perhaps most importantly the Liberal Democrats won the overall popular share of the vote: (Liberal Democrat: 6260; Con: 5120, Lab: 5069, BNP: 1948; Green 1416). As an indication of the way the 6 seats in this region would split in June’s European Parliament elections, the results suggest: Liberal Democrat 2, Conservative 2, Labour 2. Overall this would mean that Liberal Democrats would gain a seat from UKIP compared to 2004. I’ll drink to that Nigel!
Tags: Ian Dowling, Leeds, Temple Newsam
March 19, 2009 at 3:29 pm |
Fingers crossed.