In an election they really should have lost, the Tories have held both their seats in Coombe Vale with much increased majorities.
Con 1340 & 1308
Lib Dem 908 & 778
Lab 526 & 502
Green 122 & 108
CPA 94 & 76
UKIP 70
This breaks a 24 year duck for Kingston Conservatives who have failed to win any by-election in Kingston Borough since 1987. Hopefully it will shake the complacency of the local Lib Dems - particularly among the now long in the tooth council group whose presence on the doorstep in this and previous elections has apparently been somewhat intermittent.
If the electorate does not punish the incumbent party for the clearly corrupt behaviour you describe in your previous post, what hope for electoral democracy?
ReplyDeleteYour analysis of this failure is surely incomplete?
Antipathy to the Liberal Democrats on national issues has surely played a role here, no?
[Vote Liberal, Get Tory etc]
I suspect so, but both this as Surbiton Hill were very much local elections about local issues with the national scene not really mentioned. I am however wondering whether the backdrop of the coalition being represented at Westminster in one by moderate Lib Dem, Ed Davey, and at the other by swivel eyed right wing loon, Zac Goldsmith, helped drive previous Lib Dems into the arms of Labour and others to a much greater extent.
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