Previewing the 12 local by-elections of 14th November 2024
"All the right votes, but not necessarily in the right order"
Twelve by-elections on 14th November 2024:
Wanstead Park
Redbridge council, London; caused by the resignation of Labour councillor Bayo Alaba.
Today's set of by-elections is going to be very much a left-wing special. We have twelve seats up for election today, of which nine are defended by Labour, two by the Liberal Democrats and one by the Green Party. If you happen to be on the right of UK politics, the only way is up - and that will pretty much be the case for the rest of the year, because there are now no Conservative defences in the diary for another month.
Five of today's nine Labour defences are to replace MPs who were elected to Parliament for the first time in July, including our first London poll today. Which brings us to Wanstead Park, which was once the deer park of Wanstead Manor and is now a remnant of the ancient Epping Forest. Wanstead Park and the neighbouring Wanstead Flats are owned and run by the City of London Corporation as a public park, with Wanstead underground station (on the Hainault Loop of the Central Line) providing easy access to central London.
Wanstead Park, Wanstead Flats and the City of London Cemetery (which is part of Newham borough) all border the Aldersbrook estate, which is the main housing area in Wanstead Park ward and is one of the few parts of Greater London to be completely surrounded by green space. Aldersbrook is now a conservation area for its Edwardian architecture, and its demographic is noticeably more upmarket than the surrounding areas of London. Wanstead Park ward also includes an area of housing along Eastern Avenue to the north of the park, including the underground station and Wanstead High School.
Former pupils of Wanstead High School include the former Conservative MP Angela Watkinson as well as such left-wing figures as Sir Tony Robinson and the snooker player Ronnie O'Sullivan. And it's left-wing politics which dominates this area today. The local authority is the London Borough of Redbridge, which has swung hard to the left in the last fifteen years: Redbridge returned a Labour majority for the first time only in 2014, but the party went on to win a 58-5 lead over the Conservatives at the 2022 borough elections. Wanstead Park ward is part of the Labour majority, with the 2022 polls here giving the Labour slate 52% of the vote against 19% each for the Conservatives and Greens.
Following Redbridge's Labour takeover in 2014 the leader of the council for ten years was Jas Athwal, who was elected to Parliament in July as MP for Ilford South after successfully getting the previous Corbynite Labour MP Sam Tarry deselected. Athwal and the Ilford North MP Wes Streeting both faced strong independent challenges at the last general election, and Athwal hasn't had his troubles to seek since then. Wanstead Park ward, however, is part of the Leyton and Wanstead parliamentary constituency which is safely Labour. Calvin Bailey, who was elected here for the first time in July, came to Parliament straight from a 24-year career in the Royal Air Force which he left with the rank of Wing Commander and a military MBE.
This by-election is to replace a different new MP with a Forces link. Bayo Alaba is a former paratrooper who was elected in July as the first Labour MP for the Essex constituency of Southend East and Rochford. He took time off from the general election campaign to be airdropped into Normandy, as part of commemorations for the 80th anniversary of D-Day; this came to national prominence following an ill-advised tweet from a Southend Conservative councillor asking whether Alaba was "still in France". Alaba was first elected to Redbridge council in 2022, and he is reportedly one of the Commons' biggest landlords with a rental portfolio of seven properties.
Defending this seat for Labour is Emma Shepherd-Mallinson, a communications specialist who has recently been working in the office of the Labour hereditary peer Lord Grantchester. The Conservative candidate is Daniel Moraru, who contested Barkingside ward at the 2022 Redbridge council elections; Moraru works for an employment agency, and he has also been associated in Romanian politics with the Partidul Național Liberal. The Greens have selected Syed Siddiqi, a former Labour figure who fell out with the party over the deselection of the former Redbridge MP Sam Tarry; Siddiqi was the Green candidate for Tarry's old Ilford South seat at the last general election, finishing in fifth place and saving his deposit. Also standing are Neil Hepworth for the Lib Dems, Raj Forhad for Reform UK and Sharula Kangle, who is associated with the independent campaigns in the two Ilford constituencies at the last general election: they have now registered as a political party under the name of the Ilford Independents, and Kangle is their candidate.
Parliamentary constituency: Leyton and Wanstead
London Assembly constituency: Havering and Redbridge
ONS Travel to Work Area: London
Postcode districts: E7, E11, E12, IG1, IG4
Raj Forhad (RUK)
Neil Hepworth (LD)
Sharula Kangle (Ilford Ind)
Daniel Moraru (C)
Emma Shepherd-Mallinson (Lab)
Syed Siddiqi (Grn)
May 2022 result Lab 1541/1463 C 560/490 Grn 548 LD 296/200
May 2018 result Lab 1766/1641 C 976/919 LD 322
Previous results in detail
Shooters Hill
Greenwich council, London; caused by the resignation of Labour councillor Danny Thorpe.
Our second London poll today is south of the river. Shooters Hill is one of the highest parts of Greater London and it is the last piece of high ground traversed by the old Roman road from the Kent ports to London, topping out at 132 metres above sea level. As such it was expected to be London's last line of defence if Operation Sealion - the proposed Second World War German invasion of Britain - had ever come to pass: Shooters Hill was heavily defended with anti-aircraft guns in the 1940s.
The military have, in fact, been here for a long time. Shooters Hill ward includes the former site of the Royal Military Academy, which opened in 1806 to train and educate prospective Royal Artillery and Royal Engineers officers. Education for this purpose involved a lot of science and mathematics, and professors here included a number of notable nineteenth-century British mathematicians including Sir George Greenhill, who was knighted for his work at the Academy: in 1879 Greenhill derived a formula for the optimal twist rate for rifled bullets, which is still used today in designing arms and ammunition. The Royal Military Academy merged with the Royal Military College at Sandhurst after the Second World War and the cadets were moved there, after which the Academy buildings became part of the large Woolwich garrison. The government finally sold the site off in the 21st century, and the Academy has been converted into new housing. Another military link with Shooters Hill is the Memorial Hospital, opened in 1927 as a First World War memorial.
The name of Shooters Hill harks back to an earlier era, when archery was practised here and criminals' bodies hung from the local gibbet. Going further into prehistory, a Bronze Age tumulus can still be found here in the open space of Shrewsbury Park: this is the only survivor of a group of ancient tumuli which were mostly destroyed when the area was developed for housing the inter-war years.
One young boy who grew up in those houses and played on the Shrewsbury Tumulus as a child was Douglas Jay, who would grow up to become a long-serving Labour MP and served in Harold Wilson's first Cabinet as President of the Board of Trade. Modern residents here are also likely to be of a Labour persuasion. Shooters Hill is a safe Labour ward of Greenwich council, with a much larger majority than the two Greenwich wards which Labour have previously lost to the Conservatives in by-elections this year; at the last London council elections in 2022, Labour enjoyed a 59-15 lead over the Green Party here. This year's Parliamentary boundary changes moved most of the ward from the marginal Eltham seat into the safe-Labour Erith and Thamesmead constituency, which re-elected its Labour MP Abena Oppong-Asare in July; the Academy estate is part of the equally-safe Greenwich and Woolwich constituency, represented by junior housing minister Matthew Pennycook. In the 2021 census Shooters Hill made the top 25 wards in England and Wales for residents born in Africa (14.6%), the top 60 for black residents (29.0%) and the top 80 for Buddhism (1.7%).
This by-election is to replace long-serving and high-profile Labour councillor Danny Thorpe, who had represented Shooters Hill ward since winning a by-election in July 2004. Thorpe was leader of Greenwich council in the 2018-22 term, and he came to national prominence in December 2020 by unilaterally closing the borough's schools in response to a rise in coronavirus cases - a move which caught both the borough's teachers and the Department for Education somewhat off-guard. Despite his long council service Thorpe is still only 42 and he has much of his career ahead of him: he is leaving politics to concentrate on his job with the Clarion housing association.
Defending this seat for Labour is Raja Zeeshan, who was an unsuccessful candidate in 2022 for Eltham Town and Avery Hill ward - one of the Greenwich wards which Labour have lost in a previous by-election this year. The Greens have reselected Tamasin Rhymes who was runner-up here in 2022 and chairs the Greener Greenwich Community Network. Also standing are Ezra Aydin for the Conservatives, Kirstie Shedden for the Lib Dems and Alan Cecil for Reform UK - Cecil gives an address in Dartford, but this is one of the few London wards which Reform contested in 2022 so they might have some campaign data to build on here.
Parliamentary constituency: Erith and Thamesmead (most), Greenwich and Woolwich (Academy estate)
London Assembly constituency: Greenwich and Lewisham
ONS Travel to Work Area: London
Postcode districts: DA16, SE18
Ezra Aydin (C)
Alan Cecil (RUK)
Tamasin Rhymes (Grn)
Kirstie Shedden (LD)
Raja Zeeshan (Lab)
May 2022 result Lab 1878/1757 Grn 475 C 440/413 LD 275 RUK 89
Previous results in detail
Bradwell; and
Broughton
Milton Keynes council, Buckinghamshire; caused respectively by the death of Robin Bradburn and the resignation of Kerrie Bradburn. Both were Liberal Democrat councillors.
Both of today's Liberal Democrat defences are for wards in the New City of Milton Keynes. Although Bradwell, a neighbourhood about a mile north of Central Milton Keynes, is a bit older than that: its history goes back to 1154, when Bradwell Priory (or Bradwell Abbey) was established. This religious institution never really recovered from the Black Death, which killed the prior, and it was suppressed in 1524 some years before the main Dissolution. One chapel still remains of the old Abbey, while other buildings on the site house the Milton Keynes City Discovery Centre which charts the planning and development of the New City.
The Abbey gives its name to Bradwell ward, which takes in Bradwell proper to the east of the railway line along with the Abbey, industrial areas at Wymbush and Kiln Farm and residential areas at Hodge Lea and Stacey Bushes. Just outside the ward boundary, grazing next to the railway line, we find the notorious Concrete Cows.
Broughton ward lies on the north-eastern edge of the New City, adjoining the motorway. Here we can find some more old villages which have been swallowed up by the masterplan, including the original Milton Keynes village (now often known as Middleton to avoid confusion with the New City). Also here is Willen Lake, a park set around a pair of balancing lakes which manage any potential flood events in Milton Keynes.
The New City's explosive and continuing population growth has historically led to frequent ward boundary reviews. The current Milton Keynes ward boundaries date from 2014, and the Local Government Boundary Commission for England has started working on a new ward map which should, all being well, come in from 2026. Unlike Parliamentary boundary reviews, the LGBCE seeks to draw its wards based on estimates of what the population is going to be in five years' time. This process generally works well but it is only as good as the estimates the Commission receive. If a ward is drawn to take account of a new housing development which fails to materialise, or if a proposed new housing estate is missing from the estimates, then the result can be wards whose populations remain seriously out of shape rather than converging to the mean.
In the case of Milton Keynes, the council's 1976 ward boundaries were drawn up at a time when the housebuilding was in full swing. Strenuous efforts were made to create wards with room for future population growth, leading to a situation where Wolverton ward and Woughton ward both had three councillors - but Wolverton (a pre-existing railway town) had 5,747 electors on the roll whereas Woughton (new development in progress) only had 652. The most extreme example of this was the single-member Wolverton Stacey Bushes ward, part of the modern Bradwell ward, which was drawn to cover new housing which had clearly barely started being built as of 1976. Labour's F Holroyd ended up beating the Conservatives' W Stanton in Wolverton Stacey Bushes by 31 votes to 18, which remains to this day a record low winning score for a contested principal council election in England. It's unlikely ever to be beaten. There were only 84 voters on the roll, so the turnout was a very respectable 58%.
Both MK wards up for election today are in parliamentary seats gained by Labour in July. Bradwell is part of the Milton Keynes North constituency represented by Chris Curtis, a former pollster who worked for YouGov and Opinium before entering Parliament. Emily Darlington, who at the time was deputy leader of Milton Keynes council, gained the open seat of Milton Keynes Central which includes Broughton ward; she subsequently resigned from the council and Labour held the resulting by-election in Bletchley East ward in September. That preserved the Labour majority on the city council, which stands at 30 councillors against 18 Lib Dems and 9 Conservatives; Labour won an overall majority here in May 2024, and they were able to dump their previous Lib Dem coalition partners.
The Liberal Democrats are defending both of these by-elections in a game of political musical chairs which was set off by the death in September of Robin Bradburn, who passed away suddenly and unexpectedly while he was attending this year's Lib Dem party conference in Brighton. Robin was first elected for Bradwell ward in 2010 and had continuous service since 2015; he was leader of the Lib Dem group and deputy leader of the council from 2021 to 2024, and held the economy and culture portfolio in the council's cabinet. His widow Marie is the current mayor of Milton Keynes.
Robin Bradburn's daughter Kerrie was also a Milton Keynes councillor who had represented Broughton ward since 2019, and in an unusual move she has resigned her seat in Broughton ward to contest the by-election in Bradwell ward caused by the death of her father. Bradwell is a ward where the Lib Dems had a 54-25 lead over Labour in May; the Labour candidate here is Christian Durugo, who is a West Bletchley parish councillor and contested Tattenhoe ward in May. Also standing here are Krishna Panthula for the Conservatives, Alan Francis for the Greens and Chrissy Dingsdale for Reform UK.
The Lib Dems have also made a curious choice of defending candidate for Broughton ward, which they won in May with 46% against 26% for the Conservatives and 21% for Labour. Clare Tevlin gives an address in the ward and she was the Lib Dems' parliamentary candidate for Milton Keynes North in July, but she is also a Huntingdonshire district councillor representing Fenstanton ward. Maybe we will see a further by-election there (probably in the new year) if she wins a seat in the New City? The Conservatives have reselected Rishi Sharda who was runner-up here in May: he is a business consultant and used to sit on Broughton and Milton Keynes parish council. Labour have gone for youth in selecting Ellis Archer, who is a student reading politics and international relations at Nottingham; he also did some work on the recent Democratic campaign for the US Presidential election, which should be a good learning experience. Also standing here are Gary Lloyd for the Greens and Alfred Saint-Clair for the Heritage Party.
Bradwell
Parliamentary constituency: Milton Keynes North
ONS Travel to Work Area: Milton Keynes
Postcode districts: MK8, MK11, MK12, MK13, MK19
Kerrie Bradburn (LD)
Chrissy Dingsdale (RUK)
Christian Durugo (Lab)
Alan Francis (Grn)
Krishna Panthula (C)
May 2024 result LD 1532 Lab 709 C 392 Grn 213
May 2023 result LD 1652 Lab 755 C 476
May 2022 result LD 1769 Lab 761 C 535
May 2021 result LD 1813 Lab 740 C 722 Grn 218
May 2019 result LD 1670 Lab 854 C 350 Grn 196
May 2018 result LD 1666 Lab 1214 C 529 Grn 97
May 2016 result LD 1852 Lab 1362 C 462
May 2015 result LD 2032 Lab 1779 C 1262 UKIP 801 Grn 253 TUSC 64
May 2014 result LD 1259/1071/1061 Lab 1253/1081/950 UKIP 737/690 C 561/545/534 Ind 225 TUSC 124
Previous results in detail
Broughton
Parliamentary constituency: Milton Keynes Central
ONS Travel to Work Area: Milton Keynes
Postcode districts: MK10, MK15, MK16, MK17
Ellis Archer (Lab)
Gary Lloyd (Grn)
Alfred Saint-Clair (Heritage Party)
Rishi Sharda (C)
Clare Tevlin (LD)
May 2024 result LD 1652 C 938 Lab 767 Grn 174 Heritage Party 64
May 2023 result LD 2093 C 818 Lab 561 Heritage Party 87
May 2022 result LD 1971 C 1269 Lab 615
May 2021 result LD 1688 C 1578 Lab 673
May 2019 result LD 1624 C 1131 Lab 396 Grn 173
May 2018 result LD 1398 C 1202 Lab 620 Grn 171
May 2016 result C 1208 LD 1003 Lab 397
May 2015 result C 2497 LD 1652 Lab 993 Grn 296
May 2014 result LD 1276/931/890 C 1206/1009/956 UKIP 469 Lab 442/369/331
Previous results in detail
Chipping Norton
West Oxfordshire council; caused by the resignation of Labour councillor Rizvana Poole.
We now travel west into the gorgeous countryside of the Costwolds. The "Chipping" in the name of Chipping Norton refers to a market, and this has been a prosperous town for centuries originally thanks to the wool trade: the hills and fields around here were perfect for sheep farming in the mediaeval era. To this day Chipping Norton is full of beautiful buildings like the town hall below.
However, the Industrial Revolution more or less passed Chipping Norton by and the town lost its borough status in 1974. In the latter part of the 20th century the town's greatest contribution to the UK was possibly musical, thanks to the Chipping Norton Recording Studios in the town centre; tracks from Gerry Rafferty and Bob Holness Raphael Ravenscroft's Baker Street to Radiohead's Creep were all recorded here. As was the song which was number 3 in the charts in the week that your columnist was born, Too Shy by Kajagoogoo.
Now, you might be dimly aware of the so-called "Chipping Norton Set", a certain social circle which includes or has included such figures as the former Prime Minister David Cameron (who represented the town in Parliament from 2001 to 2016), the former Sun and News of the World editor Rebekah Brooks, her News UK colleague Elisabeth Murdoch, the businessmen Sir Charles Dunstone and Sir Tony Gallagher, the Blur musician Alex James and the farmer Jeremy Clarkson. What all these people have in common is that they do not, in fact, live in Chipping Norton: they are all based in villages outside the town.
If you have the Chipping Norton Set in your mind then you're going to get completely the wrong impression of the town's local politics. This is actually a seriously left-wing town, and Labour have won Chipping Norton ward (which has the same boundaries as the town council) at every West Oxfordshire council election since 2011 with the exception of 2015. Your columnist passed through Chipping Norton in April during the most recent local election campaign, and the number of Labour stakeboards in the town was something to behold. Stakeboards and posters, of course, don't vote, but the Labour result here in May was exceptionally good: 61% for Labour against 21% for the Conservatives. In 2021 Labour gained the Chipping Norton division of Oxfordshire county council, which also covers some of the nearby villages, from the Conservatives. Labour participate in a traffic-light coalition which runs West Oxfordshire council; a similar arrangement at the county level has fallen apart and the county council is run by a minority coalition of the Lib Dems and Greens.
Boundary changes for the 2024 general election added Chipping Norton to the Banbury constituency, and this may well have helped Banbury to return a Labour MP for the very first time. The new Labour MP Sean Woodcock unseated the Attorney General, Victoria Prentis, in July by 3,256 votes to be elected as MP for Banbury at his third attempt. He is still a Cherwell councillor for the time being.
Woodcock had defeated West Oxfordshire councillor Rizvana Poole for the Labour nomination in Banbury. Poole runs a community food hub in Chipping Norton, and in March 2022 she drove to Poland - sharing the driving duties with none other than David Cameron - to deliver food and supplies to Ukrainian refugees. Two months later, Poole was elected for her first term on West Oxfordshire council. She stood down from the council in September for unspecified reasons.
Defending this by-election for Labour is Kate England, who contested Stonesfield and Tackley ward at the 2023 and 2024 West Oxfordshire council elections. The Conservatives have selected Caspar Morris, who contested Chadlington and Churchill (the ward which includes Clarkson's farm) in May and lost that seat to the Lib Dems. Also standing are Claire Lasko for the Green Party and Mike Baggaley for the Liberal Democrats.
Parliamentary constituency: Banbury
Oxfordshire county council division: Chipping Norton
ONS Travel to Work Area: Oxford
Postcode district: OX7
Mike Baggaley (LD)
Kate England (Lab)
Claire Lasko (Grn)
Caspar Morris (C)
May 2024 result Lab 1071 C 362 Grn 197 LD 116
May 2023 result Lab 672 C 393 Ind 370 Grn 181 LD 133
May 2022 result Lab 1237 C 607 LD 185
May 2021 result Lab 1201 C 616 Grn 263 LD 113
May 2019 result Lab 766 C 631 LD 495
May 2018 result Lab 1116 C 490 LD 284
May 2016 result Lab 1008 C 856 UKIP 109 Grn 59 LD 58
May 2015 result C 1782 Lab 807 UKIP 309 Grn 273 LD 181
May 2014 result Lab 927 C 836 UKIP 287
November 2013 by-election Lab 810 C 500 Grn 58 LD 53
May 2012 result Lab 966 C 644
May 2011 result Lab 881 C 833 Ind 537 Grn 94 LD 59
May 2010 result C 1673 Lab 1394 LD 467
May 2008 result C 1006 Lab 620 Ind 304 Grn 105
May 2007 result Lab 958 C 795 Ind 272
May 2006 result C 1198 Lab 533 LD 138 Grn 94
June 2004 result C 964 Lab 478 LD 363 Grn 163
May 2003 result Lab 744 C 631 LD 223
May 2002 result Ind 1000 C 813/608 Lab 797/610/547 LD 209/197
Previous results in detail
Hadley and Leegomery; and
The Nedge
Telford and Wrekin council, Shropshire; caused respectively by the resignation of Gemma Offland and the death of Chris Turley. Both were Labour councillors.
Back to the New Towns now, as we come to two Labour Party defences on Telford and Wrekin council. Hadley and Leegomery ward lies in the north of the New Town, and takes in the pre-existing village of Hadley along with a lot of New Town development. Its economy is dominated by Hadley Castle Works, which started in the 19th century as an ironworks and has been manufacturing vehicles since 1910: Hadley Castle Works is currently run by a joint venture of BAE Systems and Rheinmetall, making armoured cars for military use. In the 2021 census Hadley and Leegomery ward (which then had slightly different boundaries) made the top 100 wards in England and Wales for residents employed in manufacturing.
This column was previously in The Nedge ward in June. This ward is named after Nedge Hill, a summit which lies on the eastern boundary of the ward and the borough. It takes in the pre-existing village of Stirchley and a lot of New Town development: Hollinswood immediately to the east of Telford town centre, Stirchley to the south, Randlay in between, and the massive industrial estate of Stafford Park to the south of the M54 motorway.
These wards are in two different Parliamentary seats. The Nedge is part of the Telford constituency, where Labour's Shaun Davies made the step up from leader of Telford and Wrekin council (a job he originally took on in 2016 at the age of just 30) and chair of the Local Government Association to become MP for Telford. He took the seat over from Conservative MP Lucy Allen, who retired after three terms. The New Town area is too large for one constituency, and Hadley and Leegomery is part of The Wrekin seat where long-serving Conservative backbencher Mark Pritchard was narrowly re-elected in July for his sixth term of office.
Labour have a large majority on Telford and Wrekin council, and both wards up for election today are part of that majority. In 2023 Labour led an independent slate 57-21 in Hadley and Leegomery ward, while The Nedge ward gave 52% to Labour, 20% to the Conservatives and 12% to independent candidates. The June 2024 by-election in The Nedge ward resulted in a 54-26 win for Labour over the Conservatives. The Tories are capable of winning a seat in both of these wards in a good year, but 2023 and (to date) 2024 were not good years for them.
The voters of The Nedge are now being called out for their second by-election in five months following the death of long-serving Labour councillor Chris Turley in August. He had served the ward since 2011. In Hadley and Leegomery today's poll is to replace Labour councillor Gemma Offland, who was first elected here in 2019 and tendered her resignation from the council in September.
The Nedge by-election has attracted a field of six candidates. This time the Labour defence is led by Nathalie Page, who appears to be fighting her first election campaign. The Conservatives have selected Tom Wust, who previously stood in this ward in 2019 when the boundaries were slightly different. Also on the ballot are independent candidate Sophia Vaughan-Hodkinson who tied with the Lib Dems for third and fourth place in June's by-election, Lib Dem candidate Milan Thakur, the Green Party's John Adams, and Reform UK's Greg Sinclair who was an independent candidate for this ward in 2019.
In Hadley and Leegomery ward Labour have neutralised the independent threat because their defending candidate is Julie Kaur, a Hadley and Leegomery parish councillor who was runner-up here in 2023 as an independent candidate. There are no independents standing in this by-election, so Kaur's competition comes from the Conservatives' Stuart Parr, the Green Party's Mark Webster, the Lib Dems' Tarlochan Singh Aujla and Reform UK's Robert Leah.
Hadley and Leegomery
Parliamentary constituency: The Wrekin
ONS Travel to Work Area: Telford
Postcode district: TF1
Tarlochan Singh Aujla (LD)
Julie Kaur (Lab)
Robert Leah (RUK)
Stuart Parr (C)
Mark Webster (Grn)
May 2023 result Lab 1337/1305/1242 Ind 487/402/384 C 343/328/298 Grn 175
Previous results in detail
The Nedge
Parliamentary constituency: Telford
ONS Travel to Work Area: Telford
Postcode districts: TF3, TF7, TF11
John Adams (Grn)
Nathalie Page (Lab)
Greg Sinclair (RUK)
Milan Thakur (LD)
Sophia Vaughan-Hodkinson (Ind)
Tom Wust (C)
June 2024 by-election Lab 971 C 464 LD 175 Ind 175
May 2023 result Lab 1375/1280/1224 C 532/513/423 Ind 318/286/270/147 Grn 224 LD 215
Previous results in detail
Calver and Longstone
Derbyshire Dales council; caused by the resignation of Green Party councillor Kelda Boothroyd.
The only truly rural ward up for election this week in England can be found within the Peak District National Park. Calver and Longstone is a ward of two parts. Calver itself and the nearby villages of Curbar and Froggatt are within the Derwent Valley on the main road from Chesterfield to Buxton, while Great and Little Longstone lie on the White Peak limestone plateau to the north of Bakewell. The Derwent Valley Mills are recognised by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site for their contributions to the Industrial Revolution: but Richard Arkwright's mill at Calver is not part of the World Heritage Site, perhaps because it has now been converted into apartments. The Calver Mill has in fact had a number of roles over the centuries, including being used for exterior shots in the 1970s TV series Colditz.
The redevelopment of the Calver Mill for housing is a welcome development in the National Park, not least because Calver is within commuting distance of Sheffield and the jobs which that city can provide. The Longstone area of the ward has a rather older age profile and its economy is dominated by farming and quarrying.
This area is part of the Derbyshire Dales parliamentary seat, which elected a Labour MP in 2024 for the first time since the Attlee landslide. John Whitby is a foster carer and (for the time being) a Derby city councillor who was previously lead singer of The Beyond, a prog rock band which occasionally troubled the lower reaches of the UK charts in the 1980s and 1990s. He defeated one-term Conservative MP Sarah Dines in July by 350 votes. Previous Tory MPs for Derbyshire Dales and its predecessor West Derbyshire have included the long-serving Cabinet minister Lord McLoughlin and the journalist Matthew Parris.
A look at recent local elections in this area indicates that that Tory defeat was coming. The Conservatives increased their majority on Derbyshire county council in 2021, but the two county divisions covering this area (Bakewell and Derwent Valley) both swung away from the Conservatives and Bakewell in particular was only narrowly held. The local authority is Derbyshire Dales council, where the Liberal Democrats had gained Litton and Longstone ward (a predecessor to this ward) from the Conservatives in 2019, although the Lib Dem councillor subsequently fell out with the party and didn't seek re-election four years later. In the 2023 Derbyshire Dales elections the Conservatives lost control of the council after 24 years, and one of the seats they lost was the newly-drawn Calver and Longstone ward: this returned Green Party councillor Kelda Boothroyd, who defeated the Conservatives 55-45 in a straight fight. Boothroyd was the Green candidate for Derbyshire Dales in the recent general election, finishing in fifth place and saving her deposit. The Greens are part of the ruling traffic-light coalition on Derbyshire Dales council, where the Lib Dems are now the largest party and provide the council leader.
Kelda Boothroyd tendered her resignation from the council in September, so the Green Party have a by-election to defend. Their candidate is Sheelagh Handy, a retired teacher who lives in Tideswell and contested Hartington and Taddington ward in the 2023 elections. The Conservatives have again selected Helen Froggatt, who was the councillor for the former Calver ward from 2019 to 2023 and lost re-election here last year. This time there will not be a straight fight, with Pam Ashley standing for Labour.
Parliamentary constituency: Derbyshire Dales
Derbyshire county council division: Bakewell (Great Longstone, Hassop, Little Longstone and Rowland parishes); Derwent Valley (Calver, Curbar and Froggatt parishes)
ONS Travel to Work Area: Chesterfield
Postcode districts: DE45, S32, SK17
Pam Ashley (Lab)
Helen Froggatt (C)
Sheelagh Handy (Grn)
May 2023 result Grn 441 C 367
Previous results in detail
Doon Valley; and
Kilmarnock West and Crosshouse
East Ayrshire council, Scotland; caused respectively by the resignations of Labour councillors Elaine Stewart and Lillian Jones.
We now come to four polls north of the Border, all of which are to replace Labour councillors who were elected to Westminster in July. Two of them were previously on East Ayrshire council: Lillian Jones is now the MP for Kilmarnock and Loudoun, while Elaine Stewart represents the Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock constituency. They both defeated SNP MPs in May: Jones enjoyed a majority of 5,119 over Alan Brown, while Stewart defeated Allan Dorans by 4,154 votes in a constituency which has voted for five different MPs from three different parties at its last five general elections.
We see similar instability at Holyrood level in the Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley Scottish Parliament constituency which has returned four different MSPs at the last four Holyrood elections: despite this, the seat has been in SNP hands since 2011 and is currently held by Elena Whitham. The Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley seat is more politically stable, and it and its predecessor has been in the hands of the SNP's Willie Coffey since 2007. Both of them had safe seats at the last Scottish Parliament election in 2021.
The Scottish National Party also run East Ayrshire council, as a minority administration: in the 2022 election they won 14 seats against 10 for Labour, 4 Conservatives, 3 independents and 1 councillor for the Rubbish Party. (What you think of it so far?) So these by-elections are not crucial for council control, but it would be nice for Labour to hold them.
New Labour MP Lillian Jones had served for Kilmarnock West and Crosshouse ward since 2012. This ward does what it says on the tin: it takes in the western part of Kilmarnock town, including the railway station and part of the town centre, together with the village of Crosshouse which is home to the main general hospital for eastern and northern Ayrshire, University Hospital Crosshouse. The ward was created in 2007, and it has consistently returned 2 SNP councillors, 1 Labour and 1 Conservative since then; first preferences here in 2022 were 42% for the SNP, 26% for Labour and 21% for the Conservatives.
Elaine Stewart had sat since 2002 for Doon Valley ward, a large rural ward which extends into the Southern Uplands. The only town here of any size is Dalmellington, an old coalmining centre on the road between Ayr and Newton Stewart. Dalmellington has the dubious distinction of being the place where the bug in the Post Office's Horizon computer system was discovered in 2015. We should also mention the town's brass band, which is ranked in the Championship section of British brass banding and has won the Scottish Championship three times.
Doon Valley ward returns three South Ayrshire councillors, and at its first election in 2007 its seats went to the SNP's Drew Filson, Labour's Elaine Dinwoodie and independent Jim Sutherland. Labour had actually gone for all three seats here, and Elaine Stewart was one of the losing candidates on that occasion: having started the count in second place, she was overtaken first by Sutherland on Conservative transfers, then by her running-mate Elaine Dinwoodie when the third Labour candidate was eliminated. If Labour had only had two candidates here in 2007 they would probably have got both of them elected; as it was, Labour did eventually get two seats in Doon Valley ward when Sutherland died in 2009 and Labour won the resulting by-election on the first count.
SNP councillor Drew Filson then fell out with the party and stood for re-election in 2012 as an independent, without success. He tried again in 2017, and this time he was successful as the Labour vote fell to just 34%, too low for two Labour seats; the Labour surplus enabled Filson to overtake the Conservatives and win the final seat. The balance of Filson, Labour and SNP was maintained in 2022, with first preferences being 28% for Filson, 23% for Labour, 21% for the SNP and 17% for the Conservatives; as in 2012, the outgoing SNP councillor lost re-election as an independent candidate. Elaine Stewart finally became Doon Valley's Labour councillor in 2022, after unsuccessful runs in 2007 and 2017.
If we rerun the 2022 count in Doon Valley for one seat, then it goes to independent Drew Filson who has a 55-45 lead over Stewart after transfers. He won't be on the ballot for this by-election, and if we redistribute his preferences then Stewart would have enjoyed a 61-39 lead over the SNP after transfers. Labour might not win Doon Valley in the first count, as they did in the 2009 by-election, but they are certainly favoured here given that lead and the recent SNP trend in Scottish local by-elections. Despite the SNP's large first preference lead in Kilmarnock West and Crosshouse ward, there is a Unionist majority in that ward as well: recounting the 2022 votes for one seat gives a two-party preferred vote of 52-48 for Labour over the SNP.
In Kilmarnock West and Crosshouse the defending Labour candidate is Jayne Sangster, who appears to be fighting her first election campaign. The SNP's Marie Robertson, who has a background in the NHS, is also a first-time candidate. The Conservatives have selected Allan MacDonald, who contested Kilmarnock North ward in 2022. Also standing are independent Stephen McNamara, who was an independent candidate for Kilmarnock and Loudoun in the recent Westminster election and has previously been associated with the Libertarian Party and (reportedly) Reform UK, and Lee Manley for the Lib Dems.
We have a longer ballot paper in Doon Valley ward where the defending Labour candidate is Jim Kyle, another first-time candidate. There are two independents standing, Jim Ireland (who gives an address in Dalmellington) and Stef McNamara (who was the Libertarian candidate for Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley in the 2021 Holyrood election under her previous surname of Johnstone, and is presumably the wife of Kilmarnock West and Crosshouse candidate Stephen McNamara). The SNP candidate is Lorraine Pollock. The Conservatives' Tracey Clark has refused to let her disability (she is a wheelchair user) get in the way of her standing for public office. Also on the ballot are Trevor Grant for the Lib Dems and Korin Vallance for the Greens.
Doon Valley
Westminster constituency: Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock
Holyrood constituency: Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley
ONS Travel to Work Area: Ayr
Postcode districts: KA5, KA6, KA18, KA19
Tracey Clark (C)
Trevor Grant (LD)
Jim Ireland (Ind)
Jim Kyle (Lab)
Stef McNamara (Ind)
Lorraine Pollock (SNP)
Korin Vallance (Grn)
May 2022 first preferences Ind 1077 Lab 894 SNP 803 C 644 Ind 311 Ind 137
May 2017 first preferences Lab 1297 SNP 958 C 698 Ind 590 Ind 207 Grn 53 Libertarian 4
Previous results in detail
Kilmarnock West and Crosshouse
Westminster constituency: Kilmarnock and Loudoun
Holyrood constituency: Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley
ONS Travel to Work Area: Kilmarnock and Irvine
Postcode districts: KA1, KA2, KA3
Allan MacDonald (C)
Lee Manley (LD)
Stephen McNamara (Ind)
Marie Robertson (SNP)
Jayne Sangster (Lab)
May 2022 first preferences SNP 2261 Lab 1662 C 1297 Ind 369 Grn 228 Alba 71
May 2017 first preferences SNP 2323 C 1789 Lab 1344 Grn 220 Libertarian 45
Previous results in detail
Whitburn and Blackburn
West Lothian council, Scotland; caused by the resignation of Labour councillor Kirsteen Sullivan.
We now travel east for the latest in a series of local by-elections in the sparsely-populated part of the Central Belt, between the New Town of Livingston to the east and the Lanarkshire conurbation to the west. In August this column was in West Lothian, covering a by-election in Armadale and Blackridge ward, while last month we previewed (yet another) by-election in the Fortissat ward of North Lanarkshire centred on Shotts. Both of those were Labour wins. Today we'll cross back into West Lothian to cover a ward which borders both of those.
The towns of Whitburn and Blackburn both lie off the M8 motorway, between Edinburgh and Glasgow, and they both boomed in population during the 1960s as a result of Glasgow overspill. They were both coalmining centres, while Blackburn also had a British Leyland plant and the Levi's factory in Whitburn turned out up to four million pairs of jeans each year. All of this has gone now, but some other industrial parks have sprung up next to the motorway and both towns are within commuting distance of both Edinburgh and Glasgow. In music, Blackburn was the home town of Susan Boyle while the Whitburn Band is one of Scotland's premier brass bands, with 22 Scottish Championship wins under their belt to date. And they can still have some fun, as this Laurel and Hardy-themed video shows.
The words "another fine mess" often come to mind in examining Whitburn and Blackburn ward's previous election results, which are usually close affairs. In 2007 Labour won two seats here, and the SNP had enough votes for two but ended up losing their second seat to "Action to Save St John's Hospital", a now-defunct group which won three seats on West Lothian council that year; here they benefited from the SNP failing to balance their candidates and from friendly transfers from the Conservatives in the last count to defeat the second SNP candidate by 116 votes. St John's Hospital in Livingston was, and still is, the main general hospital for West Lothian.
Action to Save St John's Hospital lost all their seats in 2012, with the SNP making the gain here. In 2017 the Conservatives polled enough votes to win a seat, and this should have come from Labour; but again the SNP screwed up by ambitiously going for three seats. If the SNP had stood only two candidates then they would have won two seats; but when the third SNP candidate was eliminated enough votes leaked out of the SNP ticket to hand the final seat to Labour's Kirsteen Sullivan by 80 votes.
The 2022 result in Whitburn and Blackburn was even closer. On first preferences the SNP polled 39%, Labour 37% and the Conservatives 18%. The SNP's Jim Dickson and Labour's George Paul were both elected with over the required 20% on the first count, setting up a three-way race for the final two seats between the second SNP candidate Mary Dickson, the second Labour candidate Kirsteen Sullivan and the outgoing Conservative councillor Bruce Fairbairn. At the penultimate stage Fairbairn was on 1,175 votes, Sullivan on 1,121 and Dickson on 1,095; but the final count saw the redistribution of 231 votes from the Scottish Green candidate, and once those votes were transferred the SNP's Mary Dickson won the third seat with 1,195 votes, Kirsteen Sullivan won the final seat with 1,189 votes and Bruce Fairbairn, despite starting with 92% of the required quota, finished on 1,187 votes and lost his seat.
This gain helped the Scottish National Party to consolidate their position as the largest party on West Lothian council, with the 2022 elections returning 15 SNP councillors, 12 Labour, 4 Conservatives, 1 independent and 1 Lib Dem. The independent councillor died earlier this year and Labour gained the resulting by-election in the neighbouring Armadale and Blackridge ward.
Overall there is a Unionist majority on the council, and Labour run a minority administration in which Kirsteen Sullivan was depute leader - until she was elected in July as the Labour MP for Bathgate and Linlithgow, the constituency which includes this ward. Her majority on that occasion was rather more comfortable than the 2-vote lead she squeaked in by in 2022. Sullivan had also contested the 2021 Holyrood election as the Labour candidate for Linlithgow, which covers most of this ward and has been represented since 2011 by the SNP's Fiona Hyslop. A corner of Whitburn and Blackburn ward is included in the Almond Valley Scottish Parliament constituency, whose MSP Angela Constance is the Scottish cabinet secretary for justice and home affairs together with being chairman and business convenor of the Scottish National Party.
The Unionist majority on the council also extends to Whitburn and Blackburn ward, where a single-seat count in 2022 would have resulted in a 53-47 lead for Labour over the SNP. So the Labour candidate David Russell should probably be confident that he can defend this seat. The SNP have selected Aileen Brown. Standing for the Conservatives is Charles Kennedy, who was previously a West Lothian councillor for Bathgate ward in 2017-22: he was the Conservative candidate for Linlithgow and East Falkirk in the 2017 and 2019 Westminster elections and for Linlithgow in the 2016 and 2021 Scottish Parliament elections. Also on the ballot here are Cameron Glasgow for the Greens, Douglas Butler for the Lib Dems, independent candidate Thomas Lynch who is the chair of Whitburn community council, and David McLennan for Reform UK who comes here hotfoot from a decent performance in August's Armadale and Blackridge by-election.
Westminster constituency: Bathgate and Linlithgow
Holyrood constituency: Linlithgow (most), Almond Valley (Seafield area)
ONS Travel to Work Area: Livingston
Postcode districts: EH28, EH47, EH48, EH52, EH54, EH55, ML7
Aileen Brown (SNP)
Douglas Butler (LD)
Cameron Glasgow (Grn)
Charles Kennedy (C)
Thomas Lynch (Ind)
David McLennan (RUK)
David Russell (Lab)
May 2022 first preferences SNP 2370 Lab 2293 C 1135 Grn 190 LD 148
May 2017 first preferences SNP 2509 Lab 2379 C 1427 LD 174
May 2012 first preferences Lab 2592 SNP 2172 Action to Save St John's Hospital 619 C 271 National Front 95 LD 68
May 2007 first preferences Lab 2895 SNP 2488 Action to Save St John's Hospital 851 C 435 Ind 309 LD 222 SSP 98
Previous results in detail
Colinton/Fairmilehead
Edinburgh council, Scotland; caused by the resignation of Labour councillor Scott Arthur.
We finish up for the week on the southern edge of Edinburgh. Fairmilehead is a very expensive suburb of the city which is the first part of Edinburgh that those driving along the road from Biggar will see. To the west of this lies Oxgangs and Colinton itself, which lies on the Water of Leith, while to the south of Edinburgh City Bypass the land rises steeply into the Pentland Hills. Allermuir Hill, a summit of 493 metres, lies on the ward and city boundary. The ward includes the Merchiston Castle boys' boarding school and two large military barracks, Dreghorn and Redford - although these are scheduled for closure later this decade. Redford Barracks is home among other things to the British Army's smallest unit, the Army School of Bagpipe Music and Highland Drumming, while troops stationed at Dreghorn include the Band of the Royal Regiment of Scotland.
Almost all of this ward is part of the Edinburgh Pentlands constituency in the Scottish Parliament, whose previous MSPs include the former Scottish Labour leader Iain Gray and the former Scottish Conservative leader David McLetchie. Since 2011 the MSP here has been Gordon MacDonald of the SNP. But at Westminster level Colinton/Fairmilehead has Labour MPs. Fairmilehead is part of the Edinburgh South constituency which has been in Labour hands continuously since 1987, and whose MP Ian Murray now sits in Cabinet as the Scottish secretary. Colinton and Oxgangs are covered by Edinburgh South West, where Labour candidate Scott Arthur defeated the SNP's Joanna Cherry in July.
Scott Arthur was previously a professor at Heriot-Watt University as well as being an Edinburgh city councillor, where he had represented Colinton/Fairmilehead ward since 2017. He won his seat narrowly in 2017, needing Lib Dem transfers to overtake the SNP in the final count, but he was re-elected in 2022 at the top of the poll with 33% of the first preferences. The Conservatives had 30%, the SNP 17% and the Lib Dems 12%, with the ward's three seats splitting evenly between the top three parties - a poor return for the Conservatives, who had won two out of three in 2007-17 but lost their second seat to former SNP MSP Marco Biagi.
Edinburgh's local politics is very fragmented, with all five Holyrood parties having large council groups. The 2022 elections returned 19 SNP councillors, 13 Labour, 12 Lib Dems, 10 Greens and 9 Conservatives; in a 2023 by-election the Lib Dems gained an SNP seat in Corstorphine/Murrayfield ward. Labour run the city as a very precarious minority administration, so holding this by-election would be helpful for them.
Rerunning the 2022 count for one seat results in a big win for Scott Arthur, who ends up with a 62-38 lead over the Conservatives after transfers. So Labour should be favoured in this by-election, which has an extremely large field of twelve candidates. The defending Labour candidate is a high-profile one: Sheila Gilmore was the Labour MP for Edinburgh East in the 2010-15 term and previously served on Edinburgh council from 1991 to 2007, representing the old single-member Moredun ward in the south-east of the city. The Conservatives have reselected Neil Cuthbert, who was their second candidate here in 2022 and was eliminated in fifth place. The SNP candidate is Mairianna Clyde, who contested Morningside ward in 2022: she has recently retired from being an academic at the Open University and sits on Merchiston community council. The Lib Dem candidate is Louise Spence who was runner-up here in 2022, finishing 284 votes behind the SNP's Marco Biagi. Also standing are (deep breath, here we go): Daniel Milligan for the Greens; Richard Lucas for the Scottish Family Party; four independent candidates who are Bonnie Prince Bob, Mev Brown, David Henry and Marc Wilkinson; Tam Laird for the Libertarian Party and Grant Lidster for Reform UK.
Westminster constituency: Edinburgh South West (most), Edinburgh South (eastern part)
Holyrood cosntituency: Edinburgh Pentlands (nearly all), Edinburgh Southern (Firrhill High School and Bradburn School)
ONS Travel to Work Area: Edinburgh
Postcode districts: EH10, EH13, EH14
Bonnie Prince Bob (Ind)
Mev Brown (Ind)
Mairianna Clyde (SNP)
Neil Cuthbert (C)
Sheila Gilmore (Lab)
David Henry (Ind)
Tam Laird (Libertarian)
Grant Lidster (RUK)
Richard Lucas (Scottish Family Party)
Daniel Milligan (Grn)
Louise Spence (LD)
Marc Wilkinson (Ind)
May 2022 first preferences Lab 3812 C 3417 SNP 1969 LD 1416 Grn 621 Scottish Family Party 179
May 2017 first preferences C 5662 SNP 2359 Lab 2343 LD 528 Grn 487
Previous results in detail
If you enjoyed these previews, there are many more like them - going back to 2016 - in the Andrew's Previews books, which are available to buy now (link). You can also support future previews by donating to the Local Elections Archive Project (link).
Andrew Teale