Labour secured a narrow victory over Plaid in yesterday's county council by-election, retaining the Kidwelly seat by just 40 votes. The turnout was 31% and the results are are follows;
Ryan Thomas - Labour 288
Dilwyn John-Jones - Plaid Cymru 248
Fran Burke-Lloyd - Independent 177
Stephen Royston-Bowen - People First 58
Stephen Andrew Davies - Conservative 53
Viv Summers - Independent 28
As for the 74 council seats; Plaid remain on 29 and their Independent group colleagues on 21. The Labour group now have 22 seats. There is one People First councillor and one unaffiliated.
Earlier post here.
Ryan Thomas - Labour 288
Dilwyn John-Jones - Plaid Cymru 248
Fran Burke-Lloyd - Independent 177
Stephen Royston-Bowen - People First 58
Stephen Andrew Davies - Conservative 53
Viv Summers - Independent 28
Earlier post here.
4 comments:
The big stat here of course is that Labour lost 10.6% of the vote with Plaid clearly making gains. Plaid didn't have a candidate in 2012 but in 2008 they were 212 votes behind Labour so to come within 40 votes on this occasion is a great achievement and bodes well for next year's election. People's First are down as well.
People First Well Down (11:17)
From 300 down to 58.Probably had a lot to do with them not being able to find a local candidate. Both the PF and the Tory candidates had Llanelli addresses on the nomination papers. Many people in the area and across Carmarthenshire feel that to be able to effectively represent a community you have to live there and don't like it when a political party ships someone in for the election.
Wonder if this will influence Sian Caiach when she decides to go for the assembly seat or not. At the last general election she only gained 407 votes coming below the greens and even the liberals!
Certainly the lack of a local candidate made a big difference as well as our candidate being struck down by pancreatic after a flu jab. Kidwelly is very parochial and I was surprised that we beat the Conservatives. The commonest explanation I got for people voting for the Labour candidate is that they knew and admired his father, being local is important. Last time, with a local candidate we came second with 300 votes.
We are an infant movement with great enthusiasm but little funds and use elections primarily now to try to promote our ideas.It is, in UK and Welsh Assembly elections, the party who spends the most and has access to the most helpers that usually wins.
We are keen on standing in the Assembly elections and are hopeful that we will be able to raise enough funds at least for deposits and a basic leaflet. We have several willing candidates and welcome anyone who wants to help or participate. The free postal distribution in the assembly elections is a big opportunity for publicity and recruitment and we have an important message to spread about democracy. We will be making an announcement on where we might stand next month.
Sian Caiach, not everyone in Kidwelly is parochial in the insulting sense that you meant it. They just didn't want someone who does not have their interests at heart as their representative
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