Byelections 6th April 2017

[Deleted]

6th April

Aylesbury Vale
Elmhurst
UKIP resigned


Nigel FOSTER (Green Party candidate)
Phil GOMM (UKIP)
Susan MORGAN (Liberal Democrat)
Gary PAXTON (Labour Party)
Ammer RAHEEL (Conservative Party Candidate)
2015: LD 729/652, UKIP 666/567, Lab 632/516, Con 604/496, Green 220/131
2011 (Elmhurst and Watermead ward): LD 945/880, Con 794/714,

 
Bath & North East Somerset
Walcot
Liberal Democrat resigned



Richard SAMUEL (Liberal Democrats)
Tim STONEMAN (Green Party)
Brain WEBBER (The Conservative Party Candidate)
Amber WESTON (Labour Party)

2015: LD 1,323/768, Con 795/695, Green 772/765, Lab 516/492, Ind 132
2011: LD 1,114/914, Green 755, Lab 599, Con 459/383
2007: LD 723/706, Con 605/572, Green 475, Lab 189/170
2003: LD 556/546, Con 488/457, Green 206/152, Lab 198/189, Ind 143/50
2002by: LD 478, Con 386, Lab 276, Green 116, Ind 39

 
Calderdale
Hipperholme & Lightcliffe
Conservative died (“Graham will be sorely missed, he was an excellent councillor.”)



Elaine HEY (Green Party)
Alisdair McGREGOR (Liberal Democrats)
George ROBINSON (The Conservative Party Candidate)
Oliver WILLOWS (Labour Party)

2016: Con (dec) 1,998, Lab 526, LD 319, Green 249
2015: Con 3,878, Lab 1,254, Green 510, LD 473
2014: Ind 1,861, Con 888, Lab 445, LD 106
2012: Con (dec) 1,322, Ind 930, Lab 722, LD 106
2011: Con 1,628, Ind 1,256, Lab 710, LD 188
2010: Ind 2,213, Con 1,971, Lab 933, LD 860
2008: Con (dec) 2,209, LD 578, Lab 438
 
Tendring
St James
UKIP (sitting as Coastal Independent) died (“He was always happy to help anyone if he could, always very friendly.”)


Maurice ALEXANDER (Conservative Party Candidate)
Wendy BROWN (Labour Party)
Rosemary DODDS (Green Party)
Sean DUFFY (Liberal Democrats)
Teresa O’HARA (UK Independence Party (UKIP))

2015: UKIP 933/741, Con 848/770, Lab 385, Ind 244
2013by: Con 445, UKIP 196, Lab 135, Tendring 82, LD 35
2011: Con 766/718, Tendring 276/191, Lab 256/207, Green 87, LD 79/44
2007: Con 727/671, Tendring 280/250, Lab 195, LD 166

[Rutlander]

"sitting as Costal Independent" that typo deserves a ribbing!
:-)

[peterl]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say we will probably hold Tendring.

[Deleted]

Mar 29, 2017 10:28:25 GMT peterl said:

I'm going to go out on a limb and say we will probably hold Tendring.

Ill bet you don't!

[peterl]

Well we have gained a seat in Tendring as recently as February so I'm reasonably confident we will hold this one.

[Davıd Boothroyd]

Has there been anything that has happened in Clacton recently which might affect the local branch of the UK Independence Party? I haven't been paying close attention to the news.

[peterl]

Well there was this complete loser who never played well with others who stormed off, but who really cares about him?

[iain]

Mar 29, 2017 12:02:38 GMT peterl said:

Well there was this complete loser who never played well with others who stormed off, but who really cares about him?

Quite a lot of people in Clacton.

[John Chanin]

Mar 29, 2017 11:59:56 GMT Davıd Boothroyd said:

Has there been anything that has happened in Clacton recently which might affect the local branch of the UK Independence Party? I haven't been paying close attention to the news.

Nothing has happened in 40 years in Clacton, which is why the town is in such a godawful state, and why people vote UKIP in desperation. Neglected seaside resorts left to rot by their Conservative councils are a disgrace to Britain.

[marksenior]

Mar 29, 2017 12:24:10 GMT John Chanin said:

Mar 29, 2017 11:59:56 GMT Davıd Boothroyd said:

Has there been anything that has happened in Clacton recently which might affect the local branch of the UK Independence Party? I haven't been paying close attention to the news.

Nothing has happened in 40 years in Clacton, which is why the town is in such a godawful state, and why people vote UKIP in desperation. Neglected seaside resorts left to rot by their Conservative councils are a disgrace to Britain.

You mean like Blackpool and its Labour council .

[John Chanin]

Mar 29, 2017 12:41:29 GMT marksenior said:

Mar 29, 2017 12:24:10 GMT John Chanin said:

Nothing has happened in 40 years in Clacton, which is why the town is in such a godawful state, and why people vote UKIP in desperation. Neglected seaside resorts left to rot by their Conservative councils are a disgrace to Britain.

You mean like Blackpool and its Labour council .

I don't have the data to hand, but there is a reason why Blackpool swung heavily from its traditional Conservative status to Labour during the 1990s.  Presumably you can tell me when Labour took over control. 

I know a little about Blackpool because when I worked for Southend (where there was a Conservative council that was concerned about the state of the town, albeit because the old-timers were all turfed out by the Liberals in the 1990s, and the old-timers continued to resist by setting themselves up as independents), I identified Blackpool as our closest comparator in England, and therefore was in contact with them, and did some investigations as to what they were doing.  Their council was nothing like as know-nothing as the unfortunate councils of Tendring, Hastings, Thanet, East Lindsey to give 4 examples.  It's a hard grind, as I knew in Southend, to turn things around, and we had the advantage of being in London commuterland.

[marksenior]

Most seaside towns swung heavily to Labour in the 1990s . I agree that one of the reasons was prior neglect by Conservative run councils . Sadly in Blackpool's case being run by Labour since then has not helped .
Blackpool is my home town , born and bred there . The decline started in the early 60s when a greedy local council with beady eyes on the land persuaded British Rail to close Blackpool Central instead of Blackpool North

[Davıd Boothroyd]

Labour did have a plan to really help Blackpool - the megacasino. It got squashed due to fairly misplaced moral objections.

(BTW I grew up in Scarborough so I do know about seaside resorts)

[marksenior]

Yes the mega casino would have helped though it would not have solved all or even many of the problems Blackpool faced . Interestingly the site of the fated mega casino is the old Blackpool Central station site still not developed after 50 odd years

[finsobruce]

Mar 29, 2017 13:06:49 GMT marksenior said:

Most seaside towns swung heavily to Labour in the 1990s . I agree that one of the reasons was prior neglect by Conservative run councils . Sadly in Blackpool's case being run by Labour since then has not helped .
Blackpool is my home town , born and bred there . The decline started in the early 60s when a greedy local council with beady eyes on the land persuaded British Rail to close Blackpool Central instead of Blackpool North

and the liberals failed very narrowly to win the Blackpool North by-election in 1962?

[peterl]

Casinos help no one, they just lead to addictive behaviour and debt.

[Merseymike]

Mar 29, 2017 14:11:01 GMT peterl said:

Casinos help no one, they just lead to addictive behaviour and debt.

But Blackpool relies on easy entertainment as it's economic base. It's not as if anything else is likely to replace it. In fact the casino on the scale planned would have not been a problem if properly run. If you really want to tackle addiction and debt it's gambling machines in betting shops and online betting which needs tackling.

[tonygreaves]

The "regional casino" fiasco was one of the three or four times in "living memory" when the Lords voted down a statutory instrument. (The peers were - wrongly in my view - in favour of it being in Blackpool.

[Khunanup]

Mar 29, 2017 12:54:44 GMT John Chanin said:

Mar 29, 2017 12:41:29 GMT marksenior said:

You mean like Blackpool and its Labour council .

I don't have the data to hand, but there is a reason why Blackpool swung heavily from its traditional Conservative status to Labour during the 1990s.  Presumably you can tell me when Labour took over control. 

I know a little about Blackpool because when I worked for Southend (where there was a Conservative council that was concerned about the state of the town, albeit because the old-timers were all turfed out by the Liberals in the 1990s, and the old-timers continued to resist by setting themselves up as independents), I identified Blackpool as our closest comparator in England, and therefore was in contact with them, and did some investigations as to what they were doing.  Their council was nothing like as know-nothing as the unfortunate councils of Tendring, Hastings, Thanet, East Lindsey to give 4 examples.  It's a hard grind, as I knew in Southend, to turn things around, and we had the advantage of being in London commuterland.

Yeah the Tories paid for it in Hastings by getting completely wiped out in '96 when we took a majority for two years until we were replaced by Labour. Barring a brief period of Tory control resulting from the dying embers of the last Labour government, they've been pretty woeful ever since (though at parliamentary level they probably won Hastings Borough in 2015 for the first time since '92, but that had little to do with their local party).

[Khunanup]

Mar 29, 2017 16:22:19 GMT tonygreaves said:

The "regional casino" fiasco was one of the three or four times in "living memory" when the Lords voted down a statutory instrument. (The peers were - wrongly in my view - in favour of it being in Blackpool.

It was sold as a panacea for Blackpool, I was never convinced (Labour's love of gambling was one of the odder obsessions of the party 'for Working People').

Not much Methodism or Marx in that area of decision making.