May Spring Board for Lib Dems

9.50.43pm UTC (GMT +0000) Sun 24th Jun 2007

The Liberal Democrats scored some notable successes in the local elections in May.

Extrapolating the results across the whole country, the Lib Dems would have got 26% in a general election. As usual, the Lib Dems got much higher support when votes are cast than their support in opinion polls would suggest.

The modest Tory bandwagon shows signs of grinding to a halt, with their gains concentrated in areas of the country where they are already strong. The Tories still have NO COUNCILLORS AT ALL in cities such as Manchester, Newcastle, Gateshead, Sheffield and Liverpool (where they came FIFTH!)

Encouragingly for the Lib Dems, they gained hundreds of council wards, mainly in constituencies where either they already enjoy a Liberal Democrat MP, or which are amongst the Lib Dems' top targets at the next general election.

It was a woeful night for Labour, who lost 500 councillors. Gordon Brown is inheriting a party with a plummeting membership and low morale.

Locally, there were no elections in Croydon, but in the Bensham Manor by-election on February 8th, the Lib Dems came fourth in an uneventful election in which Labour held on with ease. In a turn-out of just 26%, the result was as follows:

1st: Labour - 1,683

2nd: Tory - 617

3rd: Green - 240

4th: Lib Dem - 126

5th: UKIP - 40

others - 24

Lib Dem candidate Christina Tyree fought a valiant campaign, though was unlucky to be fighting in one of the very few wards in which the Lib Dems did not stand a candidate in the full council elections the previous May.