By-elections spinning

1.11.36pm BST (GMT +0100) Fri 20th Jul 2007

Winning here???

So everyone won apparently. Labour won, the Liberal Democrats won, the Conservatives won and even the BNP won in Sedgefield (they didn't contest Ealing Southall) - don't ya just love spin?

Labour held both seats so they won.

The Liberal Democrats increased their share of the vote in both seats, and moved into second in Sedgefield so they won.

The Conservatives increased their share of the vote so they won.

The BNP kept their deposit in Sedgfield so they won.

So if everyone won, who lost?

Labour saw their majorities slashed in both by-elections so they lost.

The Liberal Democrats failed to win either by-election, though claiming to be close in Ealing (even after polls closed) so they lost.

The Conservatives fell back to third in Sedgefield and only increased their share of the vote but under 1% in both by-election so they lost.

The BNP only bothered standing in one by-election and got well under 10% so they lost.

I guess it depends on how you want to spin it, everyone can take something from this. The only real winners were printers and paper manufacturers I guess!

The actual results were:

Sedgefield results:

Phil Wilson (Lab) 12,528 (44.77%, -14.11%)

Greg Stone (LD) 5,572 (19.91%, +8.02%)

Graham Robb (C) 4,082 (14.59%, +0.19%)

Andrew Spence (BNP) 2,494 (8.91%)

Paul Gittins (Ind) 1,885 (6.74%)

Toby Horton (UKIP) 536 (1.92%, +0.36%)

Chris Haine (Green) 348 (1.24%)

Stephen Gash (Eng Dem) 177 (0.63%)

Tim Grainger (Ch P) 177 (0.63%)

Alan "Howling Laud" Hope (Loony) 147 (0.53%, +0.15%)

Norman Scarth (Anti-Crime) 34 (0.12%)

Lab majority 6,956 (24.86%)

11.06% swing Lab to Lib Dems

Ealing Southall results:

Virendra Sharma (Lab) 15,188 (41.48%, -7.28%)

Nigel Bakhai (LD) 10,118 (27.63%, +3.19%)

Tony Lit (C) 8,230 (22.48%, +0.91%)

Sarah Edwards (Green) 1,135 (3.10%, -1.52%)

Salvinder Dhillon (Respect) 588 (1.61%)

Dr Kunnathur Rajan (UKIP) 285 (0.78%)

Yaqub Masih (Ch P) 280 (0.76%)

Jasdev Rai (Ind) 275 (0.75%)

John Cartwright (Loony) 188 (0.51%)

Sati Chaggar (Eng Dem) 152 (0.42%)

Gulbash Singh (Ind) 92 (0.25%)

Kuldeep Grewal (Ind) 87 (0.24%)

Lab maj 5,070 (13.85%)

5.24% swing Lab to Lib Dems