All credit to the Lib Dems in the Bromley and Chislehurst by-election. We came within 650 votes of winning the 17th safest Consevative seat in the country.
Our share of the vote was up by 18 percent. The Tory share was down by 11 percent and the Labour vote by 15 percent. If this happened in the UK at the next general election, the result would be :
Lib Dems 572 seats
Labour 30
Conservatives 11
We would win Rochford and Southend East from the Conservatives by about 2 per cent.
In Rayleigh, Mark Francois would be one of the few Tories to be re-elected, winning by about 1 percent. He might then become the next Tory leader!
…and back in the real world!
Oh, I take your point absolutely … it’s not going to happen like this. But it does illustrate just how massive the swing was in Bromley and Chippenham.
And don’t rule out Mark Francois as Tory leader yet!
The Liberal Democrat vote increased from 9,368 to 10,988 hardly a news story!
The tories vote dropped from 25,538 to 11,621.
The New Labour vote dropped from 10,241 to 1,925.
The massive drop in people voting is the real news story.
So why didn’t these stay at home tories and Labour voters vote for your man? Hardly a ‘massive’ swing to the LibDems?
I think most voters were put off from voting becasue of the vitriolic asnd abusive LibDem/UKIP campaigns – pure and simple.
Come the next General Election the tories vote would have increased to 20-22,000 votes.
The Lib Dem may well overtake Labour as the 2nd party but with perhaps 10-12,000 votes
And Labour will be 8,000 votes.