Lib Dems gain Hinckley & Bosworth and strengthen their hold on Oadby & Wigston

There were two Liberal Democrats triumphs in yesterday's local elections here in Leicestershire.

In Hinckley & Bosworth we gained nine seats from the Conservatives to take control of the council. The balance there is now 21 Lib Dems, 11 Conservatives and 2 Labour.

We previously had control of the authority between 2007 and 2015.

In Oadby & Wigston, which we have held since 1991, we gained five seats - four from the Tories and one from Labour.

The balance now is Lib Dems 24 and Tories 2.

And they are lucky to have two. Oadby & Wigston Conservatives spend their time feuding, joining Ukip and indulging in endless negative campaigning on social media.

It's no wonder that people have become less and less inclined to vote for them over the years.

Since you ask, in Harborough we gained four seats from the Conservatives, who remain in control.

Little support for Tory plan to scrap Leicestershire's district councils

Nick Rushton, the Conservative leader of Leicestershire County Council, has a dream. He wants to abolish all the county's district councils and run everything from County Hall in Glenfield.

But what do the people of the county think of the idea?

Not much, judging by a survey conducted by Oadby and Wigston Borough Council, one of the authorities that Rushton wants to scrap.

Out of the 477 responses received, 424 opposed Rushton's idea. Another plan, which would see two councils covering the whole country, was also decisively rejected.

Oadby and Wigston, which has been run by the Liberal Democrats since 1991, is entitled to take this as a vote of confidence.

But I am pleased at the vote for another reason.

If, when I joined the Liberal Party 40 years ago,  you had asked me why I did not support Labour, I suspect I would have said something about it believing too much in centralisation and the idea that big is beautiful.

Yet, in the years since them, those attitudes have been every bit as much typical of the Conservative Party. I am still enough of a Liberal to be glad when they are rejected by voters.

Harborough would now vote Remain

This evening Channel 4 screened Brexit: What The Nation Really Thinks, suggesting there has been a significant shift in public opinion from Leave to Remain.

So much so that 54 per cent of the population would vote Remain if there were a second referendum.

Of course, before there were a second referendum there would have to be a campaign and Remain would have to make its case far more effectively than it managed to last time. There would be the same problem of outside interests trying to affect the result too.

Still, that is a significant shift in opinion.

The polling was done Survation, who has made the results for each local authority available.

They show that the Leave vote in Harborough has fallen from 50.75 per cent at the referendum to 47.06 per cent now.

A small change, but one, of course, that changes Harborough from a Leave area to a Remain one.

Other local authorities in Leicestershire have shown larger swings.

Up the road in Liberal Democrat Oadby & Wigston, the Leave vote has fallen from 54.58 per cent to 48.61. And in Charnwood (which is centered on Loughborough) it has fallen from 53.81 to 47.62.

Oadby and Wigston councillor resigns the Conservative whip

From Anne Bond's Facebook page:

Just to remind everyone, I resigned the Conservative Whip on Oadby and Wigston Borough Council.I shall be sitting as an Independent Councillor till May 2019. 

This saddens me as I worked over 40yrs for Harborough Conservative Association, unfortunately I had to do this as there are certain people who are part of Association who I do not trust, and I cannot live my life wondering what she will do next, or who he will listen to, its a shame they refused to do the decent thing and meet me to discuss the issues!!

Anne Bond sits for the the Oadby St Peters ward. Her resignation of the Tory whip means Oadby and Wigston Borough Councillor now has 20 Liberal Democrat members, 4 Conservatives and 2 Indpendents.

We gained what had been the only Labour seat in a by-election last September.

The return of Liberal Democrat good third places

Before the general election we all got very excited about the #LibDemFightback,

In a week where there were a dozen local by-elections we would get very excited about a spectacular Liberal Democrat gain and ignore the other 11 contests where there was no Lib Dem candidate or we polled only three per cent.

This summer I suggested this was a classic case of confirmation bias - noticing the evidence that supports our beliefs and disregarding that which does not.

Which is why so many Lib Dems were unpleasantly surprised by our general election result in June.

A couple of years ago I argued that:

we will know the Liberal Democrats are thriving again when we regularly score 20 per cent in wards where we have no history of success.

We haven't reached that happy land yet, but the local by-election results of the last couple of weeks suggest that we are at least getting into double figures in such unpromising territory.

Take yesterday's results, which Mark Pack has helpfully collated for us.

The headlines were that we managed an impressive gain in Redcar and just failed to gain a seat in Hinckley and Bosworth.

But I was more impressed by some of the other results. In wards with no history of Lib Dem success we managed 11 per cent in Warwick, 12 per cent in South Buckinghamshire and 14 per cent in Borehamwood.

There was a sad case where we went backwards in Adur, which was a rare Liberal-run authority in the 1980s, but overall the picture was encouraging.

Let me end by again recommending the by-election previews posted on BritainElects by Andrew Teale.

The other day he spoilt things by calling Oadby and Wigston "one of the UK’s smallest and, it has to be said, more pointless local government districts," but they are usually immaculate.

Liberal Democrats gain Oadby Uplands ward from Labour

Congratulations to Lily Kaufman and the Liberal Democrat team in Oadby and Wigston for winning the Oadby Uplands ward by-election yesterday.

The full result:

Lily Kaufman (Lib Dems)  435
Labour                              384
Conservative                    295

This was the seat held for Labour by Gurpal Atwal until his resignation in the summer.

Oadby Uplands is a two member ward. The Lib Dems already held the other seat.

The result is particularly gratifying because Oadby and Wigston has been run by the Liberal Democrats since 1991.

The Leicester Mercury quotes John Boyce, the leader of the council:

"I’m extremely pleased. We perform well as a council and the residents have recognised that."

The Conservatives put a lot of effort into the by-election but could not improve on their third place from last time.

Help needed for the Oadby Uplands by-election (21 September)

There will be a a by-election in the Uplands ward of Oadby and Wigston Borough Council on 21 September.

This was the seat represented by Gurpal Atwal. He resigned after an unsuccessful court hearing to challenge the finding by his own council that he is not a fit and proper person to drive a taxi.

Uplands is Labour's only seat on Oadby and Wigston, which is run by the Liberal Democrats.

And as you can see from the inevitable bar chart, they beat the Lib Dems by only 30 votes when the seat was last fought.

The local party is looking for help with canvassing, delivering and on polling day. Can you spare some time to help them?

If you can, please email Harborough Liberal Democrats or call 07976 364282.

Labour's only councillor in Oadby and Wigston resigns

The Leicester Mercury reports:

A Labour councillor has quit after being deemed not a fit and proper person to drive a taxi by his own authority. 

Gurpal Atwal has resigned as the member for the Uplands Ward on Oadby and Wigston Borough Council.

The resignation followed the failure of Atwal's court appeal against his council's own finding.

You can read the allegations made against him, all of which Atwal denies, in an earlier Mercury report.

Atwal blames a former business partner for those allegations and, in a statement issued today, blamed others for his resignation too:

"Oadby and Wigston Council officers and one or two local councillors have taken positions in this matter that impact on my ability to concentrate on working effectively as a councillor on behalf of the Uplands Ward constituents. 

"On that basis, I resign my seat as a Borough Councillor for Oadby Uplands Ward forthwith."

Intriguingly, though he doesn't give a source for it, Guido Fawkes claims:

A witness claimed in a statement that Atwal once boasted of having “Keith Vaz in my right pocket”.

Elected in 2015, Gurpal Atwal was the first Labour councillor to win a seat on the Liberal Democrat run authority for some 30 years.