Labour gains in local by-elections

Although the opinion polls are looking good, in local by-elections on Thursday No Labour gained the marginal Labour ward Brandwood in Birmingham on a swing from May 2007 of 6.7%. This ward elected Tory councillors in 2004,2005 and 2006, it's an historic marginal ward and the by-election has significance in terms of trends but also as a ward that swing between the parties generally only favouring Labour in good years.Birmingham is also a city where the Conservatives still have a significance presence unlike in many other big cities. The by-election also has had no Ming bounce from their conference and they polled only a dismal 6% of the vote.

The result was as follows
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Lab 1998 42.74% +9.16%
Con 1663 35.57% -4.26%
BNP 290 6.2% -2.65%
Lib Dem 285 6.1% -4.89%
Green 193 4.13% -2.61%
Ind 157 3.36% N/A
UKIP 64 1.37% N/A
NNP 25 0.53% N/A

The Conservatives also lost a seat to Labour in Worcester with a swing of over 10%, they also lost overall control of the council. This is another marginal constituency where the Conservatives have made no progress. Labour also gained a seat in Nuneaton off the Liberal Democrats. In Southend the Conservatives also lost a seat in Shoeburyness to Independents and nearly lost 2nd place to Labour.

All in all a disastrous night for the Conservatives, they must be praying that Gordon does not call an election next week(I still think he won't though can understand the temptation given the encouraging results) all the signs are is that they are in deep trouble and support for Labour is been replicated now in real votes.