Labour welcomes two more councillors to Liverpool to make it a record 74
As expected Labour won last night's double by-elections in Liverpool easily.
Rachael O'Byrne is now the councillor for Allerton and Hunts Cross, and Hetty Wood will represent Riverside.
The Liberal Democrats were pushed into fourth place (out of five) in the Riverside ward, beaten by the Greens and TUSAC. Only the Tories were less popular than the Lib Dems.
To be fair we are talking about very small margins (Labour - 1,424, Green - 163, TUSAC - 115, Lib Dem 81, Conservative - 70), but still worth pointing out.
The Lib Dems still managed second place in Allerton and Hunts Cross with 564 to Labour's 1,450.
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David Bartlett
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Its TUSC (Trade Union & Socialist Coalition)not TUSAC....lol!
Whilst the Lib Dems did not target Riverside
it does show a continued slide out of existence in working class districts of the city.
They did not make much progress in the Allerton and Hunts Cross ward and got only 22%/ We in the Liberal Party have had sustained and modest growth increasing from less than 3% last year, 5% this May and 6.5% in the by-election campaign where we made a robust attack on Lib Dem sell out
The Liberal Party is slowly getting recognition outside our Tuebrook stronghold and ajoining communities
Cllr Radford (if it is indeed him) is being quite selective in his assertions – which will come as little surprise to those that have followed local politics.
City wide, the achievement of 5.86% of the vote in 2010 (bolstered as were many others by the General Election) was tempered by a drop to 4.13% in 2011 – when Government popularity and Lib Dem disenchantment should have seen his party perform better. 2012 saw the vote share go up to 5.39% leaving his party in fourth place. In fact, just as the Greens are artificially bolstered by St Michaels' results, so too are Liberals by Tuebrook.
Outside of his Tuebrook stronghold, there are effectively three wards he has targeted in any meaningful way - perhaps the "adjoining communities" he refers to above. These are Anfield, Clubmoor and West Derby.
Anfield also dropped between 2010 and 2011 but he has seen a little improvement in 2012. However, Liberals have trailed in behind BNP and others in this seat previously. They received just 95 votes there this year.
In Clubmoor which has arguably closer links to Tuebrook than the other two as one estate is split in two by the boundary, he has seen the Liberal vote drop dramatically and seen no improvement in 2012 - in fact a deterioration. The Liberals are no longer the second place party they once were in this seat.
In West Derby the Liberal 2012 result even outperformed 2010 but remained third. The Liberals appear to be little more than a protest vote it seems.
So whilst Cllr Radford is pleased at seeing his party pick up a small number of votes on his travels across south Liverpool and elsewhere, closer to home his influence is clearly waining.
'interested' is correct. Radford simply got his v low vote out on a lower turnout. I see he didn't even bother standing in the Riverside by-election, as with Warbreck, Fazakerley, Croxteth, Speke-Garston. At least 'interested' can spell adjoining.
But he can't spell waning
They used to call a place where you left the kids while you went to work a creche, now they call it the Labour Group.
Puzzled by claims of low votes on low turnouts:
This May I got 2721 votes
Labour 88o
Green 87
Lib Dem 35
Con 18
The Liberal Vote has increased since boundary changes from 58%, to 62% last May and 73% this year
Tuebrook and Stoneycoft has the highest non Labour Vote anywhere in the city.
We also had one of highest turnouts for any of the traditional terraced working class wards. The oint is we are increasingly fighting outside our key stronghold giving people a constructive