Martin Tod

We’re all stunned by the great results of the elections last Thursday:

• More votes and more seats in the Winchester District and the new Winchester constituency than the Tories
• Highest Lib Dem share of the vote in Winchester district or county elections since 1998 
• Swing from the Conservatives to the Liberal Democrats for the second year running

We knew that our campaign for a greener, fairer and safer Winchester was getting a strong response - and that people were reacting well to the strong record of our candidates - but getting the highest vote for 10 years was more than we expected!

The picture in the new Winchester Constituency was even better: 49% of the vote, vs only 43% for the Conservatives, and 12 out of 17 seats.  Unfortunately we missed winning Hiltingbury West by only 20 votes or it would have been 13 out of 17 seats.

Even if you include the latest results from the wards which weren’t up this year (which are all Conservative), we still beat the Tories by 48% to 44%.

Overall, a very encouraging night.  And a big thank you owed to all the people who worked so incredibly hard and, most of all, to all the people who voted for us on Thursday.

Post-note: I’ve just checked the County Results.  Our results outperformed those as well - so I’ve updated the post accordingly.

Following the Lib Dem by-election victories in Wickham, Whitchurch, Romsey and Baughurst, another great result in Copnor, Portsmouth earlier this evening with a 28.5% swing from Conservative to Lib Dem.

A very satisfying place to spend the afternoon and a fabulous result for Andy Fraser, Darren Sanders, Gerald Vernon-Jackson and the rest of the local team.

Post-note: now corrected with updated figures…

Congratulations to Michael Bound, his agent Jo Slimin and the team who fought and won the Baughurst by-election. There was a 21.5% swing from the Conservatives to the Lib Dems - giving Michael a majority of 60 - and meaning that the Conservatives no longer have a majority on Basingstoke & Deane Borough Council!  A great result - and particularly encouraging given recent by-election results in Romsey, Wickham and Whitchurch! 

Good news from the Cupernham by-election in Romsey on my friend Len Gates’s blog: a 7% swing from the Conservatives to the Lib Dems and a victory for Karen Dunleavey:

Good news from the Wickham by-election in Liz Leffman’s new Meon Valley constituency (part of Mark’s Winchester constituency and Winchester District Council). Angela Clear wins behind a 1.3% swing from the Conservatives…

What a farce!

It’s a ridiculous system where the Government party can pick the election timing that suits them best – no matter what impact it has on the country as a whole - and then bottle it because they don’t like the result they think they’re going to get.

I’m a long-time supporter of fixed term parliaments so that the Government doesn’t have the option of fixing things in their favour.

Post note: I’ve just signed up to Fixed Term - a campaign for fixed term parliaments which has been set up by a cross-party group of bloggers - including Lib Dem blogger Stephen Tall and Tory blogger Iain Dale.

Thank you to everyone who voted and worked for us on Thursday. It was a very encouraging result.

Overall, in the new Winchester constituency

• We gained three seats - two from Labour and one from the Conservatives
• We doubled or trebled our majorities in most of the seats we held
• We achieved a 4.5% swing in votes cast from the Conservatives towards us

Our ‘Greener, Fairer, Safer’ pledges got us a lot of support.

Highlights included:

• Colden Common & Twyford - Jim Wagner and his team nearly quadrupled the Lib Dem majority from 121 to 442
• Compton & Otterbourne - Eleanor Bell and her team won this ward from the Conservatives with a 7% swing achieving a 128 vote majority
• Littleton & Harestock - Kelsie Learney and her team nearly trebled the Lib Dem majority from 109 to 303
• St Barnabas - Allan Mitchell and his team cut the Conservative majority from 251 to 144
• St Bartholomew - Sue Nelmes and her team more than trebled the Lib Dem majority to 355 behind a 6% swing from the Conservatives
• St John - Adrian Hicks and the St John’s team won this ward from Labour winning a 259 majority
• St Luke - Alexis Fall and her team won this ward from Labour with an 18% swing giving a 308 vote majority
• St Paul - Karen Barratt and her team more than trebled our majority to 383

Our colleagues in Eastleigh (which covers the Chandler’s Ford part of the new constituency) also had a great day, winning 13 out of 14 seats up for election.

Elsewhere in the Winchester City Council area, we won in Wickham, but lost Owslebury & Curdridge and came within 19 votes of winning Whiteley from the Conservatives. If 10 people had voted differently in Whiteley, the Conservatives would have lost their majority and the council would have moved to No Overall Control…

Overall - a good day for the Liberal Democrats in Winchester - and a bad day for the Conservatives and Labour.

Not available yet I’m afraid.

The count starts tomorrow morning at 9.30 a.m.

I’ll post stuff up here or on Twitter as I get it.