How did Labour hold in Heath Town or how did the Conservatives fail to gain the seat?‏

1.30.46pm GMT Fri 6th Feb 2009

Heath Town Ward in Wolverhampton City Centre had a by-election yesterday, the result was Labour held the seat, the Conservatives came second and the Liberal Democrats third, I haven't seen any of the literature and took no part in the election but below is some analysis.

The full result:

Milkinder Jaspal Labour 621 49.2%

Madeleine Wilson Conservative 495 39.2%

Stephen Birch Liberal Democrat 147 11.6%

Heath Town has always been an odd ward electorally, it is one of the smaller wards in the city and has one of the lowest turnouts - yesterday's was 17.17%.

First a bit of history and some stats

As you will see there is a Liberal tradition in the ward, but not a Liberal Democrat one - this predates my arrival in Wolverhampton but after I arrived it seems Heath Town was the only ward the Liberals fought on a regular basis. You will also note David Jack fought it as a Liberal Democrat and an Independent, In 2008 I believe the Liberal Democrats did not stand as they thought the Liberals were (in Wolverhampton Ward decisions are taken by the constituency branch/local party)

In 2008 Milkinder Jaspal the sitting Councillor (and winner of this by-election) lost to the Conservative Margaret Findley 1062 votes to 903 votes - there were only two candidates.

In 2007 Labour's Les Turner (his death created the vacancy this by-election was to fill) held with 921 votes, Colin Hallmark and the Liberals were second with 559 votes, Lucie Turner and the Conservatives were third with 514 votes, David Jack as an Independent were fourth with 135 votes.

In 2006 Labour's Caroline Siarkiewicz held the seat with 937 votes, Colin Hallmark and the Liberals were second with 489 votes, Lucie Turner and the Conservatives were third with 484 votes and David Jack and the Liberal Democrat was fourth with 274 votes.

In 2004 the ward was all up with new boundaries, Labour won all seats with Milkinderpal Jaspal on 951 votes, Leslie Turner on 841 votes and Caroline Siarkiewicz on 776 votes. Next was The Liberals with Colin Hallmark on 701 votes - narrowly missing out, David Hallmark on 597 votes and Mark Smith on 541 votes. The Conservatives took places 7,8 and 9 with 510 votes, 443 votes and 427 votes

Labour increased its share of the vote by 5.5% since 2008, 5.9% since 2007 and 6.3% since 2006

The Conservatives actually reduced their share of the vote by 17.1% from 2008 but increased it 15.1% from 2007 and by 17.0% from 2006

The Liberal Democrat share of the vote was down 0.9% since the last time them fought the ward in 2006.

For what it is worth swing Conservative to Labour since 2008 was 11% but Labour to Conservative of circa 5% compared to both 2006 and 2007.

So what happened in this by-election?

Was it the snow, did the Tory machine fail, have Labour started their comeback or is it all the fault of the pesky Liberal Democrats? Maybe a combination of all of this.

The weather was bad granted. According to the Council there were 736 postal votes issued which if all returned (unlikely) just 526 votes were cast on the day. I am told about 370 were returned which still means a turnout of under 900 on the day even with bad weather surely a decent Get The Vote Out operation could have handed victory to the party that tried the hardest - remember Labour has consistently recorded over 900 votes here and got just over two-thirds of that, the Conservatives have well over a 1000 just last May but got under half of that out yesterday - snow or no snow either Labour or the Conservatives could have won this.

I thought the Wolverhampton Conservative machine was very good and should be able to take Heath Town - indeed at least one of their members were confident of victory earlier this week. After the double Wednesfield by-election were the held two seats that could have been difficult defences this should have been easy. I know they had a fair bit of outside help in Wednesfield maybe there wasn't in Heath Town or perhaps the shine is coming off the ruling group's appeal.

Or perhaps Labour has started its comeback, they have been relentless attacking the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats in the local media over the budget (ironically much of it caused by their mismanagement). The selection of a previous Councillor may have paid off in this case.

Or was it those pesky Liberal Democrats. I doubt it, the campaign consisted of one leaflet and their vote share was less then when they last stood. It is true to say there were more Liberal Democrat votes than the new Labour majority but it is a huge assumption to say all the Liberal Democrats would have voted Conservative if there was no Liberal Democrat candidate - there will always be wards where the third party vote is higher than the majority I suspect it is not fair to blame them - an effective campaign should have squeezed the third vote down to an absolute minimum. In 2006 there were 758 non Labour/Conservative votes, in 2007 there were 649 non Labour/Conservative votes, this time there were just 147 so maybe the squeeze has happened.

I suspect the election was won and lost on the day and the respective campaigns Get Out The Vote campaigns.