So far, not a lot of surprises in the local elections, or indeed, in the one By-Election that was held yesterday to replace David Milliband in South Shields. Labour held onto the seat with a reduced majority in terms of votes.
Labour's Emma Lewell-Buck got 12,493 votes, with UKIP's Richard Elvin coming in second with 5,988 votes. Karen Allen for the Conservatives was a distant third with 2,857 votes. Ahmed Khan, who stood as an Independent came in fourth with a respectable 1,331 votes. Hugh Annand for the Liberal Democrats came in a very disappointing 7th with just 352 votes, coming behind the Independent Socialist Party candidate and the BNP candidate, losing their deposit. Overall, an unsurprising result, though the Liberal Democrats coming in only 7th with less votes than an Independent, Independent Socialist and BNP, is a big surprise, I don't think I can ever recall them doing worse in any election ever.
In the Local Elections overnight, Conservatives lost control of 2 councils. Lincolnshire had been strongly Tory with the Conservatives holding 60 out of the 77 seats in the council. Today they are still the largest party in council, but hold on 36 seats, 3 seats short of an overall majority. However, the council maintains a storng right wing slant, with UKIP being the second major party with 16 seats, all gains. Labour came in third with 12 seats, an increase of 8 on last time, with 10 Independents and 3 Liberal Democrats.
The other council they lost was Gloucestershire, where they had previously 34 seats on the 53 seat council. Now they have just 23. Liberal Democrats came second here with 14, gaining 2 seats, in an election where they have so far mostly lost seats, Labour came third with 9 seats, with 3 Indepenents, 3 UKIP and 1 Green. There is no obvious coalition to be made here, with Conservatives and UKIP being 1 seat short of a total majority.
In Somerset the Conservatives just managed to hold onto control of the council by just 1 seat. They won 28 out of the 55 seats available, with 18 Liberal Democrats, 3 Labour, 3 UKIP and 3 Independents. There is 1 seat unfilled currently, the Coker Division, the election for that is being held on May 16th, so we will have two weeks before we know if the Conservatives can win that one and make that council just a little bit safer.
Dorset however remained true blue as the Conservatives only lost 1 seat there, still easily maintaining control with 27 out of the 45 available seats. The remaining seats, 12 have gone to the Liberal Democrats, 5 have gone to Labour, and 1 UKIP.
Today, we will see the remaining councils declare their results, one already has, where they only elected a third of the council, that is Bristol. which remains under No Overall Control, as there have been some unusual gains across the political spectrum, Greens have gained 2 seats in Ashley and Bishopston, Conservatives have gained seats, Labour have gained seats, in fact, out of the 12 seats so far declared in Bristol, only 4 have been held onto by the party that held the seat before. Also going to follow Cornwall and Devon county council results, but already UKIP are showing they have done far better this year, than they have previously done before.
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