By-Election results : Labour 1, Lib Dem 1, Tory 0

Yesterdays by-elections in Lambeth and Kingston saw Labour and the Lib Dems both comfortably hold their seats.

Labour’s Mark Bennett held Streatham South in Lambeth … with a big increase in majority over the Lib Dems from 70 to 255. This is an impressive result for Labour .., particularly given the loss of former Cllr Tim Sergeant’s personal vote. This builds on a series of good Labour results in by-elections in the Borough … look out for Lambeth as a possible surprise Labour gain in 2006. The Tories fell to a derisory 10% of the vote, in a ward regarded as safe Tory until 1994.

In Kingston David Ryder-Mills held Canbury for the Lib Dems … with a virtually unchanged majority over the Tories of 385. However, both parties increased their share of the vote at the expense of Labour and the absent Greens … despite the Labour candidate Chris Priest having formerly been a Cllr for the ward from 1998 to 2002. In 2002, Ryder–Mills lost the previously safe (under different boundaries) Lib Dem Coombe Vale ward … when he lost by 53 votes to two Tories who tied for third place behind the other two Lib Dems. This was the only tied vote in the 2002 London Borough elections … and the first in London since the 1994 Eel Brook ward election in Hammersmith and Fulham.

In Canbury, the bizarre Scargillite Socialist Labour Party branch in Kingston achieved a hardly revolutionary 21 votes. This brings to mind the gloriously barmy comment of their General Election candidate (and old Stalinist) John Hayball when asked for his solution to teenage pregnancy and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases … “I think the cause of this problem is capitalism...under socialism people would have more loving relationships.” Brings a whole new meaning to bonking mad.