Just over a week to go until the Riverside Ward by-election, and Labour councillors and members have been out working hard on behalf of our strong local candidate, Cormac Hollingsworth. This is an interesting election as it will be the first test of the LibDem/Tory coalition since it took office in May 2006. Riverside ward is also one of those areas where the demographics of the population continue to change significantly, so no party can take its vote for granted - although it should be a safe LibDem seat.
I have not seen as much LibDem activity as I would have expected, although they are specialists in "under the radar" campaigning, and I know that they will be working hard. What has surprised me is the fact that despite being in power for 5 1/2 years in Southwark they have not been able to offer a positive vision for the area. Every leaflet I have seen has contained numerous Labour "scare" stories about our secret plans for everything from our council housing stock to local post offices. The approach seems to be to try and throw everything at Labour and hope that some of it sticks! The problem for the LibDems is that people who meet our candidate Cormac, know that his real ambition is to work hard as a local representative for the residents of Riverside ward. And the second problem for the LibDems is that people know that this election will not change who runs the Council - so the daft scare stories are simply irrelevant!
I do know that if Riverside Ward wants the best local candidate who will serve his community and stand up for their interests they need look no further than Cormac. I hope that they will give him their support next week!
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For info. The result of the Riverside bye election
• Anood Al-Samerai – Liberal Democrat – 1,114
• Cormac Hollingsworth – Labour – 691
• Rahoul Bhansali – Conservative – 260
• Amanda Penfold – Green – 122
• Fernando Grace – UKIP – 49
Majority 423. 1.3% swing from Labour to Lib Dem
Thanks for posting the result although not sure that your comment about swing from Labour to LibDem can be right! My calculations suggest that there was a very small swing to Labour. Given that the LibDem vote increased by 34 from the top result in 2006 and Labour increased by 39 from the top result in 2006, it is difficult to see that the LibDems can have achieved a swing from Labour. Perhaps Peter Snow can help?!
Is actually a bit complicated. I am deliberately using the Rallings and Thrasher Method of top candidate as you say. The issue being that the turnout is down so a majority 5 smaller is actually a bigger percentage. Quite limited in effect I accept which is why the swing is small.
The positive news for Southwark is that our turnout held up relatively well. I understand that 8 byelections in England yesterday the turnout compared to the previous election averaged 68% with a low of 51% and Southwark topping the list with a 90% retention rate. So a hard fought campaign got voters out despite the weather.
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