Why Labour’s loss of Ramsbottom to CON should bring some cheer to the blue team
Bury N, where LAB lost council seat to CON last night, is in LAB GE2015 target #41
http://t.co/ee2w0R3jCF pic.twitter.com/GDGLbL1xFT
— Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) March 7, 2014
CON GAIN from LAB Ramsbottom on Bury
CON 1398
LAB 1033
UKIP 351
GRN 157
LD 38
— Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) March 7, 2014
It is well over a year since PB started its regular Thursday night coverage of local council by-election. Harry Hayfield has done a great job of keeping us all informed.
For me the significant results are those where two of the main parties are going head to head in a ward that’s part of a key marginal.
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That doesn’t happen very often and even more rare is for the opposition party at Westminster to lose a seat this close to a general election.
Ramsbottom, where my mother was born, is part of Bury North which was taken by the Tories off Labour at GE2010. It is a seat that EdM really has to win back at GE2015 if his party has any hope of forming a majority.
It is a ward that has a history of hard-fought contests between CON and LAB. In 2011 the two parties tied and LAB was given the seat after lots were drawn.
A key factor in this latest election was the very high number, 60% or so, of postal votes which is vey good indicator of local party organisation.
So a very good result for the Tories and a very bad one for Labour.