HELSBY & RUNCORN BY-ELECTION, ENGLISH MAYORALTIES & ENGLISH COUNTY COUNCIL ELECTIONS - RESULTS

ALL ELECTIONS WERE HELD ON THURSDAY 01 MAY

 Helsby & Runcorn Parliamentary By-Election

This seat was vacated after the incumbent, Mike Amesbury of Labour, got in a spot of bother after assaulting a constituent in the street late at night in an altercation following an evening's refreshment.  As a result, he had to resign.  The seat should have been a shoo-in for Labour as it is, (or rather was), their 18th safest seat in the country and new governments win their by-elections for at least the first 18 months following an election.  Blair went 6 years before he lost a by-election, and at this stage (10 months in) BoJo had won two, defending one and taking one - Hartepool, from Labour.

HOWEVER.....This Labour government is not particularly well-liked by the general public, winning its majority on just 33.7% of the vote on the back of a very low turnout, more in anger against the Tories than anything else.   In addition, it had taken extremely unpopular decisions in the budget, turning swathes of what should be it's natural support base against it.  In the mix was a surging Reform Party, so all-in-all, the scene was set for a close run thing, which it subsequently turned out to be, with just 6 votes separating the winner from the runner-up.   

On average, there are around 4 Parliamentary by-elections a year, usually caused by deaths, scandals, illness etc.   With Reform currently surging, Starmer will be dreading things.

Local Magistrate Sarah Pochin, Reform UK Party, elected as MP. 

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Combined Authority Mayoralties

Four Combined Authority Mayoralties took place.   Two were new - North Lincolnshire, and Hull & East Yorkshire.   One was with slightly changed boundaries - West of England, and one was an established Mayoralty, but this time round with a new voting system - Cambridgeshire & Peterborough.   The only things of note were Labour taking the West of England, which was expected to fall to the Greens because of the solid Green vote in Bristol,  and just how well Reform did in all of them.  Right up until polling day, the local Tories expected to push Reform to the post in Hull with East Yorkshire, but finished a very, very poor third.

 

 

Metropolitan Mayoralties

Two Metropolitan Mayoralties took place - one in Doncaster and one in North Tyneside,  both supposedly safe Labour.   Labour narrowly held both, with a significant drop in vote share, and Reform running them a very close second in both.   Of note is the fact that the winning Doncaster Mayor - Labour's Ros Jones, in her acceptance speech, rounded on Party Leader and Prime Minister Keir Starmer and gave him a proper tongue-lashing.

Doncaster Mayoralty

North Tyneside Mayoralty

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English County, Metropolitan & Unitary Council Elections

This particular set of councils was last voted on in 2021.  BoJo had been in Office just over a year, his Tory government was at the height of its popularity, and the Tories made spectacular gains largely at the expense of Labour, who were truly battered on the day.   In theory, Labour should have made gains in this outing, recovering to at least their pre-2021 position, during this part of the cycle - new government, less than a year old, fighting on what should be home turf..  In actual fact, they went even further backwards, losing two-thirds of the seats they were defending to a mix of independents, Reform, LDems & Greens.  Interestingly, back in 2021, Starmer - then  Labour's new leader by a year- offered to resign, taking the defeat personally.   This time, in the same councils, he has done even worse with the worst defeat of any Prime Minister in his first year of a new government for over fifty years.  The Tories took a severe rubbishing, losing every council they were defending, being virtually wiped out by Reform, with the LDems taking a chunk for good measure.

by council

overall

In Lancashire County Council,  Azhar Ali, expelled by Labour for anti-semitism last year during the Rochdale Parliamentary by-election, has been elected as an Independent councillor for the Nelson East ward.  In nearby Burnley, also in Lancashire County Council, an 18-year-old medical student, Maheen Kamran, was elected as a councillor for Burnley Central East.  Unbelievably, she stood on a policy of separating muslim men from muslim women in public spaces (as per Islamic teaching), including workplaces, public transport, schools, hospitals, parks and amenities.  She said, “Muslim women aren’t really comfortable with being involved with Muslim men". (Remember that next time you hear someone in Westminster deny there are integration problems.). Across England, a score of pro-Gaza independents & pro-Gaza radical Greens won seats on councils, but luckily not in sufficient quantity to be able to disrupt things.

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