My analysis of British local by-elections in the first three weeks of January 2022 and also the Barbados general election of 2022

 Readers, the results of British local by-elections from the first three weeks of January 2022 were as follows:

(06/01/2022):

Gedling DC, Cavendish: Liberal Democrats 344 (35.1%, +15.5%), Labour 303 (30.9%, -25.7%), Conservative 250 (25.5%, +1.8%), Fran Loi 56 (5.7%), Green 26 (2.7%). Liberal Democrat gain from Labour.

(13/01/2022):

Wychavon DC, The Littletons: Green 291 (39.1%, -6.3%), Conservative 274 (36.8%, -17.8%), Liberal Democrats 179 (24.1%). Green gain from Conservative.

(20/01/2022):

Charnwood DC, Loughborough Skelthorpe (double by-election): Labour 709/654 (50.3%, +16.9%), Conservative 311 (22.9%, +1.2%), Independent (Hayes)* 149 (11.0%), Liberal Democrats 136/104 (8.8%, -1.2%), Green 108/81 (7.0%, -7.6%). 

East Lindsey DC, Chapel St Leonards: Conservative 436 (62.0%, -4.2%), Independent (Fenton) 267 (38.0%).

East Lothian UA, Preston, Seton & Gosford (1st preference votes): Labour 1,793 (38.5%, -4.2%), SNP 1,217 (26.2%, -1.4%), Conservative 1,154 (24.8%, +0.7%), Green 231 (5.0%, +1.9%), Liberal Democrats 136 (2.9%, +0.5%), Independent (Miller) 122 (2.6%). Labour elected at stage 5.

Selby DC, Byram & Brotherton: Conservative 215 (48.1%, +13.4%), Labour 207 (46.3%, +23.2%), Green 25 (5.4%). Conservative gain from Yorkshire Party, who did not defend the seat.

*Mr Hayes was formerly a Conservative councillor in Charnwood, the local Conservatives endorsed him and thus only fielded one candidate in this double by-election.

With the "six month rule" in place there will once again be fewer local by-elections in the run up to this May's election. Furthermore, since there is insufficient information to draw from just one local by-election, I delayed this analysis until sufficient numbers of local by-elections had occurred during January 2022.

That said, the first two weeks produced interesting results, namely a Liberal Democrat gain in the Nottingham exurbs, where they are not particularly strong, and a Green gain in Wychavon despite the Liberal Democrats fielding a candidate and achieving a respectable result; in recent by-elections Greens have rarely done well where the Liberal Democrats have and vice versa. 

With the recent defection of Bury South's MP Christian Wakeford to Labour, combined with allegations of blackmail against Conservative whips, the Conservatives have had a remarkably strong performance so far this month, with them easily holding off an Independent challenge in Chapel St Leonard's and their surprise gain of Byram & Brotherton, which was expected to be a Labour gain; the defection of Yorkshire Party councillors to the Conservatives partly explains the reason why they did not defend that by-election. Although Labour failed to gain Byrom & Brotherton by only 8 votes, they achieved a significant swing in Loughborough Skelthorpe and held off a notable SNP challenge just outside Prestonpans. 

Just two days ago, Barbados held the first parliamentary election of this year worldwide, which was also its first election since it became a republic in November 2021. Surprisingly, the Barbados Labour Party repeated its 2018 feat of winning every available constituency in the country, and only in St Phillip North and St Phillip West did the primary opposition, the Democratic Labour Party, come close to winning seats. It is clear that the voters rewarded Mia Mottley strongly for her progressive shift in Barbados and her handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in Barbados.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My analysis of local by-elections from 22/11/18

Readers, the results of this week's British local by-elections were as follows: Enfield LBC, Bush Hill Park: Conservative 1540 (52.4%, +12.7%), Labour 828 (28.2%, -8.3%), Liberal Democrats 313 (10.7%, -0.8%), Green 127 (4.3%, -6.6%), WEP 79 (2.7%), Independent (Oyaloyu) 50 (1.7%). [UKIP did not stand] Westminster LBC, Lancaster Gate: Conservative 913 (47.2%, -1.5%), Labour 684 (35.4%, -1.0%), Liberal Democrats 275 (14.2%, -0.7%), Green 62 (3.2%). Windsor & Maidenhead UA, Datchet: Conservative 525 (56.0%, -3.1%), National Flood Prevention Party 223 (23.8%), Labour 121 (12.9%, -9.1%), Liberal Democrats 48 (5.1%,-13.8%), Green 21 (2.2%). Wirral MBC, Upton: Labour 1490 (61.3%, +3.1%), Conservative 705 (29.0%, +0.4%), Green 151 (6.2%, -0.5%), Liberal Democrats 83 (3.4%, -0.8%). [TUSC did not stand] All changes are since May. The open divisions in the Conservatives, which resulted in a failed attempt to call for a vote of no confidence in Theresa May by the European Researc...
Read more

On the 2020 Serbian election: Why a boycott will only worsen things there

First of all, I apologise for the recent hiatus; however elections are still postponed or on hold in many countries, including the UK. Serbia, however, was able to proceed with its 2020 general election amidst this crisis. Its overall result proved reminiscent of Hungarian elections under Viktor Orban's tenure (2010-present), since the leading national-conservative coalition, the SNS (Progressive Party of Serbia) coalition led by Serbian President Aleksander Vucic (Ana Brnabic is the Serbian Prime Minister, and the first woman and openly homosexual person to hold that position), polled 61.6% of the vote, giving them as many as 191 seats out of 250 and a majority of as high as 132, almost unheard of in any country with proportional representation. Press freedom has endured significant curbs since President Vucic first came into power as Serbian PM in 2012 (he became President of Serbia in 2017), as have civil liberties of Serbs in general. Nepotism and corruption in the Serbian ...
Read more

On the French local elections of 2020: Vive le surge de vert!

The French local elections finally concluded yesterday, having been originally scheduled to take place on 15 March; they were postponed due to the effects of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.  The most sensational story of these elections was the many triumphs by the main French Green Party, Europe Ecologie-Les Verts (EELV). In major French cities (those with more than 100,000 people), EELV captured the mayoralties of Annecy, Besancon, Bordeaux, Lyon, Marseille, Strasbourg, and Tours. They also performed impressively in the munciipal elections for those cities as well. However, in the midst of all this triumph there was one notable setback for them: Eric Pollie, the first Green Mayor of a major French city, decided to contest the mayoral election there as an "Independent Left" (divers gauche) candidate instead. Furthermore they narrowly missed out on unseating former PS leader Martine Aubry from her post as Mayor of Lille; in the second round she held on by 227 votes, a sig...
Read more