Previewing the Hackney mayoral by-election and the five local by-elections of 9th November 2023
“All the right votes, but not necessarily in the right order”
Six by-elections, for seven seats, on 9th November 2023. And we start with the biggest by-election of the year:
Mayor of Hackney
Hackney council, London; caused by the resignation of Labour Mayor Philip Glanville.
Never mind Uxbridge or all those Labour parliamentary gains we’ve seen this year. With an electorate of 177,671 on the December 2022 register, the Hackney mayoral by-election is the biggest of 2023. The winner of this poll will get to run one of the UK’s larger local government units, covering two whole parliamentary seats.
The London Borough of Hackney was formed in 1965 when London was the first part of the UK to have its local government reorganised on modern lines. It was formed by a merger of the former metropolitan boroughs of Hackney, Shoreditch and Stoke Newington, a series of working-class areas running north from the edge of the City to the edge of Tottenham.
In Hackney’s history Labour have usually been the largest party, and in the first borough elections in 1964 they won all 60 seats. Unfortunately the next election was the notorious Wilson nadir of 1968, which saw the Tories win overall control of the council with a group of neophytes and paper candidates who then proceeded to run the council about as well as you’d expect from a group of neophytes and paper candidates. Labour regained overall control in the 1971 election.
By the 1990s the Labour group had descended into infighting and the council’s finances were in a bad way, with Hackney having borrowed heavily in the 1960s and 1970s to build tower blocks which subsequently became uninhabitable or were demolished. The political crisis came out in the open in 1996 when the Labour group split down the middle. In that year the party also lost two by-elections to the Lib Dems in Wick and Dalston wards; the Wick by-election winner was Neil Hughes, who now sits on Westmorland and Furness council in Cumbria but is probably better known as one of the 7 Up children.
The 1998 election returned a hung council, and then Hackney’s financial and political crisis came to a head. With no-one in political control, the administration was in a mess: as well as the council’s debts, a failed social security outsourcing contract had cost the council £36 million, and £100,000 was lost with the collapse of Railtrack in which the council had invested part of its pension fund. A damning OFSTED report in 1999 led to central government investigating the council’s finances and effectively taking control of its expenditure.
The political crisis eventually led to a coalition agreement between the moderate Labour group leader, Jules Pipe, and the Conservative group leader, Eric Ollerenshaw (who would later lead the Tory group on the London Assembly and serve one term as MP for Lancaster), in which Pipe and Ollerenshaw became joint leaders of the council.
Somehow from all this chaos normality returned to the borough very swiftly. The coalition ended in June 2001 when a by-election gain gave Labour an overall majority. By the 2002 elections the borough’s finances had been stabilised (at the cost of forcing worse pay and conditions on the council’s staff which led to a small fortune being paid out in unfair dismissal claims).
The 2002 elections returned a large, and this time unified, Labour majority on Hackney council which has not been seriously challenged since. On the same day a referendum on the establishment of an elected mayor for the borough resulted in a 70% Yes vote, and in October 2002 Pipe rose from the council leadership to win the borough’s inaugural Mayoral election. Pipe went on to serve as mayor for fourteen years, being re-elected three times with increased Labour shares on occasion; he was appointed CBE for his political service.
In 2016 Jules Pipe left Hackney to join the administration of the newly-elected Labour Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, who appointed Pipe as a deputy mayor with the planning, regeneration and skills portfolio — a position he still holds. The position of Deputy Mayor of London is a politically-restricted post, meaning that Pipe had to resign as Mayor of Hackney. The resulting by-election in September 2016 (Andrew’s Previews 2016, page 186) returned Pipe’s former deputy mayor Councillor Philip Glanville with 69% of the vote. Glanville went on to win re-election in 2018 and 2022.
Since the 1970s Hackney borough has formed two parliamentary seats, both of which have always elected Labour MPs; however, South and Shoreditch MP Ronald Brown defected to the SDP in 1981, and the veteran North and Stoke Newington MP Diane Abbott is currently suspended from the Labour Party for comments on race. South and Shoreditch has been represented since 2005 by Labour’s Dame Meg Hillier, who chairs the Commons Public Accounts committee. Abbott and Hillier were both re-elected with over 70% of the vote in December 2019. From the next general election there will be a parliamentary seat crossing the borough boundary for the first time in many years: Brownswood and Woodberry Down wards will transfer into the Tottenham constituency.
Election results in Hackney since December 2019 have not been quite so emphatic for Labour. The London mayoral polls in May 2021 saw Labour’s Sadiq Khan lead the Tories’ Shaun Bailey by 57–16 across Hackney, while the London Members ballot for the Assembly gave 52% to Labour, 19% to the Greens and 13% to the Conservatives. Unlike some other GLA voting figures quoted by this column, these figures include postal votes because those are tallied at borough level. Hackney is part of the safe-Labour North East constituency for the London Assembly, which is represented by Hackney Labour councillor Sem Moema.
The most recent Hackney mayor and council elections were in 2022 when Mayor Glanville was re-elected with 59% of the first preference votes; the Green Party candidate Zoë Garbett was best of the rest on 17%. Vote shares in the simultaneous council election were not significantly different, with 53% for Labour and 23% for the Greens across the borough’s wards. England’s first-past-the-post electoral system meant that those vote shares translated into 50 councillors for Labour and just two Greens; the official opposition on the council is in fact the Conservative group of five councillors, because their third-place 11% of the vote was concentrated in Stamford Hill where there is a very large Jewish community.
Almost immediately, Labour found themselves a man down on the council as Tom Dewey, newly-elected councillor for De Beauvoir ward, resigned less than two weeks after his election. I wrote in this column at the time (Andrew’s Previews 2022, page 319) that “Dewey had previously been an important figure for Hackney Labour, as the election agent for the local MP Dame Meg Hillier”. The resulting by-election in a ward with similar voting figures to the borough as a whole turned out to be very close: the Greens had a go at the by-election, and they came up 27 votes short of the Labour total.
The reason for Tom Dewey’s resignation was not disclosed at the time, which is not unusual in and of itself. Your columnist had no reason to believe that anything was untoward. But it turned out something was untoward. On 29th April 2022, during the May election campaign, Dewey had been arrested by the National Crime Agency on suspicion of possessing indecent images of children. In August 2023 he pleaded guilty to five charges at Wood Green Crown Court and was given a twelve-month suspended prison sentence.
There is no suggestion that Mayor Philip Glanville or anyone in Hackney Labour had any involvement with or knowledge of what Dewey had been doing on his computer. And it is necessary for me to emphasise that because Glanville and Dewey went back a long way. Tom Dewey had previously worked for Mayor Glanville as an adviser, had drafted Glanville’s 2018 election manifesto, and was well-known in the Hackney branch of the Labour party. At the time of Dewey’s arrest on 29th April 2022, he and Glanville were sharing a house; but Glanville was out when the NCA raided the property, and on his return he had no suspicion that anything was untoward.
The National Crime Agency contacted Hackney council on Friday 13th May 2023 to inform them of Councillor Dewey’s arrest. The following day, a Saturday, Mayor Glanville was informed in a private phone call from Hackney council’s chief executive. That evening, Glanville — now knowing what his friend was accused of — attended a Eurovision party at which Dewey was present, and they were photographed together. It was that error of judgement that eventually ended Glanville’s political career. When the photograph was published in September 2023 Glanville’s position became untenable, and he resigned as mayor.
So, at great expense we now have a boroughwide by-election to elect a new Mayor of Hackney, who will serve until the next mayoral election in May 2026. The task of picking up the pieces for Hackney Labour falls to their defending candidate Caroline Woodley, who is a Hackney councillor for Cazenove ward and the council’s cabinet member for families, parks and leisure.
The Greens have reselected their candidate from last time Zoë Garbett, who is a councillor for Dalston ward and one of the Greens’ most high-profile figures in the capital. She had already been selected in February as the party’s prospective candidate for the next London Mayor election in 2024, so this will be a dry run for her citywide campaign.
Third here last time were the Conservatives, who polled 13%. They had to change their candidate at the last moment and put in a fresh set of nomination papers for Simche Steinberger, a long-serving councillor for Springfield ward in Stamford Hill. He is campaigning to remove the Low Traffic Neighbourhood at Mount Pleasant in his ward.
The Lib Dems will be hoping to improve on their 7% and fourth place from last time with their candidate Simon de Deney, an actor who was previously their mayoral candidate in 2014. Fifth and last place in 2022 went to a local left-wing group, and the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition’s Annoesjka Valent might be hoping to pick those votes up. And another anti-LTN candidate on the ballot paper is independent Peter Smorthit, who completes this ballot paper of six candidates. Don’t wait up all night for this result, because the count will start on Friday morning.
Parliamentary constituencies: Hackney North and Stoke Newington; Hackney South and Shoreditch
London Assembly constituency: North East
ONS Travel to Work Area: London
Postcode districts: E1, E2, E5, E8, E9, E15, E20, EC1V, EC2A, EC2M, N1, N4, N5, N15, N16
Simon de Deney (LD)
Zoë Garbett (Grn)
Peter Smorthit (Ind)
Simche Steinberger (C)
Annoesjka Valent (TUSC)
Caroline Woodley (Lab)
May 2022 result Lab 36049 Grn 10373 C 8160 LD 4320 Hackney People Before Profit 2105
May 2018 result Lab 42645 C 7183 Grn 6774 LD 4848 Women’s Equality Party 2659 Ind 577
September 2016 by-election Lab 22595 Grn 4338 C 3533 LD 1818 One Love Party 494
May 2014 election Lab 40858 Grn 11849 C 7853 LD 3840 Putting Hackney First 3265
May 2010 election Lab 48363 LD 15818 C 12405 Grn 10100 Communist 2033 Christian 1084
May 2006 election Lab 20830 C 7454 LD 4882 Grn 4683 Ind 2907 Respect 2800 Communist 896; runoff Lab 24233 C 8785
Oct 2002 election Lab 13813 C 4502 Socialist Alliance 4187 LD 4185 Grn 3002 Hackney First 1543 Ind 1253 Ind 441; runoff Lab 16234 C 5629
Previous results in detail
May 2021 GLA elections (includes postal voters)
Mayor: Lab 40289 C 11370 Grn 8814 LD 1746 Omilana 1372 Women’s Equality 968 London Real Party 872 Count Binface 775 Reclaim 737 Let London Live 699 Farah London 560 Rejoin EU 546 Animal Welfare 433 Obunge 330 Burning Pink 260 SDP 220 Heritage Party 208 Renew 202 UKIP 177 Fosh 136
London Members: Lab 38082 Grn 13606 C 9298 Women’s Equality 2961 LD 2745 Rejoin EU 1109 Animal Welfare 1009 CPA 619 TUSC 585 London Real 565 Let London Live 440 Reform UK 413 Comm 366 UKIP 349 Heritage Party 277 SDP 213 Londonpendence 209 National Liberal 73
Notices
It is now the second week of November, and long-term readers of Andrew’s Previews will know that it is now time for your columnist to climb into the pulpit and read out the following notice.
The six-month rule is now in effect ahead of the next set of ordinary local elections, which will be on 2nd May 2024. From now on, if any councillors or other elected officials who were due for re-election on that date resign their seats, pass away or get disqualified, then there will be no by-election to replace them and their seats will be left vacant until next May.
2024 is the year when the Police and Crime Commissioners, most of the regional/combined authority mayors, and the Mayor and Assembly in London are up for election. Between them, those categories cover the whole of England and Wales. We will also have elections for the English metropolitan, unitary and second-tier councils which elect by thirds or halves (these are generally the more urban parts of England), together with all-out elections in a few councils which have non-standard electoral cycles: Bristol, Dorset, Gloucester, Rotherham, Stroud and Warrington.
Innovations for next year are new regional mayors for North Yorkshire, the East Midlands (covering Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire), and the North East (covering the Durham council area, Northumberland, and Tyne and Wear); the new North East mayor will replace the current North of Tyne mayor, whose remit does not extend to County Durham, Gateshead, South Tyneside or Sunderland. Now, whenever anybody thinks they have finally got to grips with the structure of English local government it gets replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable: thus we now also have direct elections for county council leaders in Norfolk and Suffolk. The main precedent for this idea — prime ministerial elections in Israel in 1996–2001 — is not a particularly happy one.
Speaking of Israel, one theme in UK local government since the current outbreak of Middle East nastiness started a month ago is that a number of councillors — mostly, but not all, from the Labour Party — have gone independent in protest at their party leader’s stance on the Israel-Hamas war. Your columnist is not aware of this leading to any actual by-elections to date, but if that does happen it will be covered here in due course. The defections have been concentrated in some areas more than others, and have led to Labour losing their majority on Oxford city council for the first time in some years. This column is not here to talk about the war, but what I will say is that social media comments such as the one I saw last week to the effect that a Labour candidate who won a council by-election was a “genocide enabler” are not an acceptable way to behave. Whatever side of the argument you’re on, play nicely with the other kids.
Deptford
Lewisham council, London; caused by the resignation of Labour councillor Stephen Hayes.
We stay in London for our first council by-election of the week, which is south of the river. We’ve come to Deptford, which started off life as the location of a deep ford where Watling Street crosses the River Ravensbourne, close to the modern-day Deptford Bridge. This was the site of a major battle in 1497: a rebellion against Henry VII’s rule, led by the Cornishman Michael an Gof, was put down here by the King’s forces who crossed the bridge to attack the rebel camp at Blackheath. A later victim of death by violence here was the Elizabethan poet Christopher Marlowe, who was killed in Deptford in 1593 and is buried here in an unmarked grave.
By Marlowe’s day Deptford had grown to prosperity as a major port around the Thames-side fishing village of Deptford Strond. There are no docks here now, but there is one modern survivor of that era in the form of the Master, Wardens and Assistants of the Guild Fraternity or Brotherhood of the most glorious and undivided Trinity and of St Clement in the Parish of Deptford Strond in the County of Kent. This organisation, which was founded in 1514 and is now generally known as Trinity House, runs every lighthouse in England and Wales.
Deptford is home to London’s oldest railway station still in use, which opened in 1836 on the London Bridge to Greenwich railway. This is elevated on a viaduct for almost its entire length and originally had three intermediate stations, of which Deptford is the only survivor. The present station buildings date from a 2012 refurbishment, and passengers from here can catch four trains to central London every hour. The Deptford ward also takes in the larger railway station at New Cross, which is served by Southestern trains to Cannon Street and is a branch terminus for London Overground trains on the East London Line.
The old Metropolitan Borough of Deptford had an unusual practice of naming its electoral wards not after geographical features but after famous people associated with the area. There is still an Evelyn ward, named after the diarist John Evelyn and covering the Deptford riverside area. The present Deptford ward is very similar to the pre-2002 ward named after the famous wood carver Grinling Gibbons, who was born in Rotterdam to English parents in 1648 but moved to Deptford in 1667; at that point, he was a tenant of John Evelyn. Grinling Gibbons ward was dissolved by boundary changes in 2002, with most of its area going into New Cross ward — for which the LGBCE had originally recommended the name “Marlowe”, before the Secretary of State overruled them. The 2022 boundary changes basically reversed that decision, but Gibbons didn’t get his ward name back.
Deptford ward, as it is now called, is a working-class and racially diverse area of London. It ranks as the 26th highest ward in England and Wales for black population (34.7%), 32nd for Buddhism (2.5%), 40th for residents born in Africa (13.3%), 67th for those working in the arts, entertainment or recreation sector (5.9%), 82nd for residents born in the Americas or the Caribbean (8.2%), and 98th for unemployment (7.0%). Almost three-quarters of households here are rented, mostly on social terms. There is a significant number of full-time students thanks to the presence of Goldsmiths College, which is located in the former Deptford Town Hall just outside the ward boundary, and the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance which has a striking modern building in the ward next to Deptford Creek.
The local authority here is now the London Borough of Lewisham, which is a major stronghold for the Labour party. Labour have held Lewisham’s elected mayoralty since its foundation in 2002 and have held all 54 council seats since 2018. The Lewisham Deptford parliamentary seat has been in Labour hands continuously since 1935, but the Deptford name will disappear from the parliamentary map at the next general election as the seat is to be renamed “Lewisham North”, with revised boundaries. Its MP since 2015 has been Vicky Foxcroft, a Labour junior shadow frontbencher with the Disabled People portfolio.
There’s not much sign of the Labour redwash ending with this by-election. In 2022 Deptford ward gave 53% to the Labour slate, with the Greens’ 19% best of the rest. Elected on the Labour slate that year for the first time was Stephen Hayes, who has recently suffered from some serious mental health problems and came close to taking his own life in September. He has stepped down from the council to seek a recovery away from the public eye.
Defending for Labour is Dawn Atkinson, one of a team of volunteers who run a local community store: Atkinson was one of three such volunteers whose community work was recognised in 2020 with their joint nomination for the ceremonial title of Mayoresses of Lewisham. The Green Party have selected Tim Crossley, who stood in last year’s Lewisham council elections in Ladywell ward. Last time there were 16 candidates here for 3 seats; this by-election has a narrower field of four candidates, with the Conservatives’ Siama Qadar and the Lib Dems’ Alan Harding completing the ballot.
Parliamentary constituency: Lewisham Deptford
Parliamentary constituency (from next general election): Lewisham North
ONS Travel to Work Area: London
Postcode districts: SE8, SE14
Dawn Atkinson (Lab)
Tim Crossley (Grn)
Alan Harding (LD)
Siama Qadar (C)
May 2022 result Lab 2095/1791/1632 Grn 742/729 C 323/213/196 TUSC 275 LD 267/241/151 Ind 214/107/103/77
Previous results in detail
Spalding St Paul’s
South Holland council, Lincolnshire; caused by the resignation of South Holland Independents councillor Bailey Boulding.
We now travel to three by-elections in Lincolnshire, all of which are in towns which featured in this column last year. Let’s start by travelling to Spalding, the southern of the only two towns of any size in the former Parts of Holland. As that name might suggest, this is flat land close to or in some cases below sea level, and tulip-growing is a major local industry along with other flowers and vegetables.
The so-called Heart of the Fens, Spalding grew up around the River Welland which flows north through to the town on its way to the Wash. It has maintained a rail link, with trains going south to Peterborough and north to Sleaford and Lincoln. The town’s agricultural links are celebrated with the annual Flower Parade, a carnival of floats decorated with tulips which ran each year from 1959 to 2013, before making a successful comeback last May.
The agricultural landscape of the Fens has led to rather a lot of immigration in recent years, as people from Eastern Europe leave behind their roots and come to work in the UK’s food industry. And it’s not just out in the fields where this provides jobs: Spalding has a number of large food-processing factories. The 2021 census revealed that South Holland district had one of the UK’s largest Lithuanian communities, with 12% of the population overall having been born in an EU state outside the UK.
That proportion is even higher in Spalding St Paul’s ward, which is the town’s north-east corner. This was the 11th-highest ward in England and Wales for those born in the EU 2004 expansion states (19.9%), in 12th place for “process, plant and machine operatives” (24.2%), in 12th place for “routine operations” (31.7%), in the top 40 for those employed in manufacturing (20.4%) and in the top 70 for the White Other ethnic group (26.2%).
Despite all that industry, this is not a place where the Labour Party are well-organised. Spalding is the main population centre in the parliamentary seat of South Holland and the Deepings, which is one of the safest Conservative seats in the land; Sir John Hayes has won that constituency with large majorities at every election since it was created in 1997. His seat has been left unchanged by the boundary review. South Holland council, which covers an area slightly smaller than the parliamentary seat, has been entirely a Conservative versus Independent battle since 2007 with the exception of two UKIP councillors who were elected in 2015, one of them for Spalding St Paul’s ward. The UKIP councillor stood down in 2019 and his seat went to an independent councillor; that independent, Rob Gibson, was re-elected in 2023 under the banner of the South Holland Independents, and his running-mate Bailey Boulding gained the ward’s other seat from the Conservatives. Shares of the vote here in 2023 were 63% for the South Holland Independents and 37% for the Conservatives in a straight fight. Gibson is also the Lincolnshire county councillor for most of the ward, narrowly gaining the Spalding East county division from the Tories in May 2021.
The South Holland Independents made other gains in the district in May 2023, but the Tories are just about still in control. The 2023 elections returned 19 Conservative councillors, 15 South Holland Independents and 3 other independent candidates, giving a Tory majority of one. That majority is not at stake in this by-election, which the South Holland Independents will have to defend following the resignation of Bailey Boulding: he stood down in September, four months after his election, due to family commitments.
Defending for the South Holland Independents is Vanessa Browning, who is described as a hard-working single parent and mental health campaigner. She is one of three independent candidates on the ballot, the other two being Stephen Timewell and Julian Wheeler. Wheeler, who is a businessman, sports coach, military veteran and former championship rugby player, has no ballot paper description. Timewell, the mastermind behind the recent revival of the Spalding Flower Parade, appeared in this column eleven months ago when he won a council by-election for another Spalding ward as a Conservative candidate (Andrew’s Previews 2022, page 576); he lost his seat as a Conservative in May, and in this by-election he is appearing with the ballot paper description “True Independent” which is not currently listed as a description of any party on the Electoral Commission’s register. A mistake for the returning officer to learn from for next time. This split independent vote might provide an opportunity for the Conservatives’ Glynis Scalese, who was a councillor for this ward from 2019 until she lost her seat in May. And despite what I said above about Labour’s lack of organisation in Spalding they have managed to find a candidate for this by-election, who is Aidan Forman.
Parliamentary constituency: South Holland and the Deepings
Parliamentary constituency (from next general election): South Holland and the Deepings
Lincolnshire county council division: Spalding East (most), Spalding South (small part)
ONS Travel to Work Area: Spalding
Postcode districts: PE11, PE12
Vanessa Browning (South Holland Ind)
Aidan Forman (Lab)
Glynis Scalese (C)
Stephen Timewell (True Ind)
Julian Wheeler (Ind)
May 2023 result South Holland Ind 458/385 C 269/197
May 2019 result Ind 398 C 355/312
May 2015 result C 889/767 UKIP 865
May 2011 result C 542/492 Ind 428 BNP 220
May 2007 result C 469/386 Ind 325/312
Previous results in detail
Grantham North
Lincolnshire county council; and
Grantham St Wulfram’s
South Kesteven council, Lincolnshire; both caused by the death of Conservative councillor Ray Wootten.
Staying within Lincolnshire, we now travel west to the town of Grantham just off the Great North Road. This is a town with a lot of history, notably in the form of the King’s School. A grammar school which is still going today, the King’s School educated the great scientist Isaac Newton during the late 1650s; a signature attributed to Newton is carved into the school wall. This school also has a current MP among its former pupils: Ben Everitt, the Conservative MP for Milton Keynes North.
Isaac Newton was from a village in the area, but another very consequential scientist — and Conservative politician — comes from the town-centre Grantham St Wulfram’s ward. On 13th October 1925, Grantham alderman Alfred Roberts and his wife Beatrice had a baby girl called Margaret, who was born in the family shop on the corner of North Parade and Broad Street. Under her married surname of Thatcher, Margaret went on to serve as Prime Minister for over a decade and transform the UK.
Grantham has recently taken delivery of a statue of Margaret Thatcher, which was erected in the town in May 2022 after Westminster council refused permission for it to stand in Parliament Square. Westminster had worried that a Thatcher statue would be a focus for civil disobedience and vandalism, and their fears would appear to have been well-founded given that the Grantham statue has been subjected to repeated attacks. We’re not talking vandalism on the scale of the Gävle Goat here, but the council have had to put the Bronze Lady under CCTV surveillance.
Grantham is the home of South Kesteven council, and Mrs Thatcher might well be spinning in her grave given what happened here in the May 2023 local elections. This true-blue corner of England now has a council under no overall control; the seats split 24 to the Conservatives, 22 to independent candidates, 4 to the Green Party, 4 to the Lib Dems and 2 to Labour. The independent councillors are split between four groups on the council, but the Tories couldn’t peel enough of them off to keep control; a coalition has been formed to run the council between two of the independent groups, the Greens and the Lib Dems, under an independent leader.
These by-elections follow the passing in August of long-serving Conservative councillor Ray Wootten, who was 71 years old. He sat on and had chaired both South Kesteven council and Lincolnshire county council, and was Mayor of Grantham in 2009–10. Before entering politics Wootten had served in the Royal Air Force before a 22-year career with Bedfordshire Police.
Wootton’s county division and district ward have a lot of overlap. St Wulfram’s ward covers Grantham town centre and the north of the town along the road towards Manthorpe. This column was here almost exactly a year ago (Andrew’s Previews 2022, page 496) for a November 2022 by-election which the Conservatives held; however, the Tory councillor elected then, Mary Whittington, lost her seat in May 2023 to independent candidate Tim Harrison who had finished second in the by-election. Shares of the vote in May were 41% for Harrison, 37% for the Conservatives and 22% for Labour.
The Grantham North county division takes in the eastern half of the town centre, the said housing to the north, the suburb of Gonerby Hill Foot in the north-west of the town, and a rural area to the north of Grantham which extends as far as the village of Ancaster and the RAF base at Barkston Heath, a relief flying ground which is currently used for elementary flying training. It is a very safe Conservative division, and Wootten’s final re-election in May 2021 was by a 71–17 lead over Labour. It’s not really possible to give an estimate of the 2023 votes on the 2021 boundaries, because the ward and county division boundaries fail to match up.
Boundary changes for the next general election will unite the whole area within the constituency of Grantham and Bourne. This is the successor to the Grantham and Stamford seat currently held by first-term Tory MP and junior Treasury minister Gareth Davies; Bourne is already part of his constituency, but Stamford is moving out to become part of a new seat based on Rutland. The current Grantham and Stamford seat is tightly drawn around the northern edge of Grantham, and the parishes to the north of it are presently within the equally-safe Tory seat of Sleaford and North Hykeham.
Both of these by-elections have a field of six candidates. I’ll take the Grantham North county by-election first, for which the defending Tory candidate is Paul Martin: he was elected in May as a South Kesteven councillor for Grantham Arnoldfield ward, which covers Gonerby Hill Foot. Labour have selected Jonathan Cook, who lives in Grantham. Also standing are Anne Gayfer for the Green Party, the abovementioned South Kesteven councillor Tim Harrison as an independent, Nat Sweet for the Lib Dems and former Mayor of Grantham Dean Ward as an independent.
Three of those candidates are also standing in the Grantham St Wulfram’s district by-election. Here the Tory defence is led by Matt Bailey, who lives in the ward and works in the town. There are two independent candidates: Dean Ward as above, and Susan Swinburn who runs a local charity for blind people and appears to be a supporter of the present independent ward councillor Tim Harrison. Swinburn was runner-up here in May. Labour’s Jonathan Cook is standing at both county and district level. The district ballot paper is completed by the aforementioned Anne Gayfer for the Greens and by James Osborn for the Lib Dems.
Grantham North
Parliamentary constituency: Grantham and Stamford (part: part of Grantham Arnoldfield ward and part of Grantham St Wulfram’s ward), Sleaford and North Hykeham (part: part of Peascliffe and Ridgeway ward)
Parliamentary constituency (from next general election): Grantham and Bourne
South Kesteven council wards: Grantham Arnoldfield (part: Gonerby Hill Foot), Grantham St Wulfram’s (all except western part of town centre), Peascliffe and Ridgeway (part: Ancaster, Barkston, Belton and Manthorpe, Honington and Syston parishes and part of Great Gonerby parish within Grantham Arnoldfield ward)
ONS Travel to Work Area: Grantham
Postcode districts: NG31, NG32, NG33
Jonathan Cook (Lab)
Anne Gayfer (Grn)
Tim Harrison (Ind)
Paul Martin (C)
Nat Sweet (LD)
Dean Ward (Ind)
May 2021 result C 2130 Lab 525 Grn 353
May 2017 result C 2119 Lab 412 LD 168 Grn 152
Previous results in detail
Grantham St Wulfram’s
Parliamentary constituency: Grantham and Stamford (most), Sleaford and North Hykeham (part of Belton and Manthorpe parish)
Parliamentary constituency (from next general election): Grantham and Bourne
Lincolnshire county council division: Grantham North (most), Grantham West (part)
ONS Travel to Work Area: Grantham
Postcode districts: NG31, NG32, NG33
Matt Bailey (C)
Jonathan Cook (Lab)
Anne Gayfer (Grn)
James Osborn (LD)
Susan Swinburn (Ind)
Dean Ward (Ind)
May 2023 result Ind 588/471 C 523/390 Lab 321
November 2022 by-election C 359 Ind 307 Lab 174 Grn 75
May 2019 result C 720/628 Grn 280/266 Lab 204/198
May 2015 result C 1409/1296 UKIP 685 Lab 639/620
Previous results in detail
Crickhowell with Cwmdu and Tretower
Powys council, Wales; a double by-election caused by the resignations of Liberal Democrat councillors Matt and Sarah-Jane Beecham.
Let’s finish up for the week in a very scenic part of Wales, as we make the first of what will be two trips this month to the upper Usk Valley. This is covered by Powys county council and the Bannau Brychneiniog National Park, which may be better known to English-language speakers as the Brecon Beacons.
The ward of Crickhowell with Cwmdu and Tretower lies entirely within the National Park, and covers a large swathe of the Black Mountains. Waun Fach, at 811 metres the highest point in the Black Mountains and the third-highest point in Britain south of Snowdonia, lies on the ward boundary. On clear days, those who make the hike to the top of Waun Fach will be rewarded with views north as far as Snowdon, and south to the hills of Exmoor, Dorset and Wiltshire. (This doesn’t always happen. Sometimes it never stops raining.)
Not surprisingly in this rugged landscape, the low ground of the Usk Valley is the main population centre. Here we find the town of Crickhowell, located on the main road from Abergavenny to Brecon which follows the valley. This is a crossing-point of the Usk, with Wales’ longest stone bridge connecting the town to Llangattock on the far side of the valley; this bridge has an unusual design, with twelve stone arches on the upstream side but thirteen on the downstream side. Cwmdu and Tretower are villages in a side valley, that of the Rhiongoll; this is another major traffic artery, with the road carrying traffic north from Abergavenny running up this valley before reaching a col and descending towards the Wye. Crickhowell and Tretower both had Norman castles, which now lie in ruins.
Crickhowell was represented in the Lords from 1987 to 2018 in the title of Lord Crickhowell, taken by the former Conservative MP Nicholas Edwards who served as Welsh Secretary throughout the first two Thatcher governments. In the 1983–87 parliament the delegation of Welsh Conservative MPs included Edwards as MP for Pembrokeshire and Gwylim Jones as MP for Cardiff North; Jones’ daughter Fay is now the Conservative MP for the Brecon and Radnorshire seat which covers Crickhowell, and she lives in the Crickhowell area. Since 2022 she has served in the Conservative Whips office. This column sends its congratulations to Fay, who got married last weekend. Crickhowell also has a Conservative MS in the Senedd, with James Evans winning the Brecon and Radnorshire seat in 2021.
But the Conservatives haven’t always had it their way politically in this area. Evans gained his Senedd seat from the Liberal Democrats in 2021; Fay Jones was elected in December 2019, overturning a Conservative by-election loss to the Liberal Democrats four months previously. The current parliamentary seat is a Tory-Lib Dem battle, but the forthcoming boundary changes may well change this. Brecon and Radnorshire is Wales’ largest constituency by area, but it’s undersized in population terms and the boundary changes for the next election expand it down the Tawe valley towards Swansea, with the new name of “Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe”. This addition is a strongly-Labour area, and might make Labour competitive in the seat.
Rural Welsh local elections are often left uncontested which makes it difficult to assess party strengths, but in this century the predecessor wards (Crickhowell ward, and part of Bwlch ward) were both held on Powys council by long-serving Liberal Democrat councillors. They both stood down in 2022 when Powys got new ward boundaries, and the new ward of Crickhowell with Cwmdu and Tretower returned the Lib Dem slate of Sarah-Jane and Matt Beecham with a 59–41 lead over the Conservative slate.
The Lib Dems were the big winners in the 2022 Powys elections, finishing in first place with 24 councillors against 17 independents, 14 Conservatives, 9 Labour, 3 Plaid and a Green. A Lib Dem-Labour coalition is running the show from the council offices in Llandrindod Wells, but this is short of the 39 seats needed for a majority. And the Lib Dems have three seats to defend in by-elections this month, starting with this double by-election.
The outgoing councillors Matt and Sarah-Jane Beecham, who are a married couple, have relocated to Pembrokeshire. They had previously left the Lib Dem group over a decision by the council administration to close the primary school at Llanbedr, located within the ward in the sparsely-populated Vale of Grwyney: both Beechams had campaigned against this closure in 2022.
Defending for the Lib Dems are Claire Hall and Chloe Masefield. Hall is a Crickhowell town councillor; Masefield runs a food shop in the town which eschews plastic packaging and claims to be Wales’ first zero-waste shop. For the Conservatives, David Lloyd Thomas returns from last year and is joined by Rosemarie Harris, who was an independent Powys councillor for Llangynidr further up the valley from 2012 to 2022. In fact, both Conservative candidates from 2022 are back for another go, but this time Sam Games is an independent candidate as he was in the former Crickhowell ward in 2017; another independent on the ballot is David Markinson, who contested a Montgomeryshire ward of Powys (Llandrinio) in 2022. Completing the ballot paper is Labour candidate Zoe Allan. Votes at 16 are in operation, and since both seats in the ward are up for election, electors here may vote for up to two candidates.
Parliamentary and Senedd constituency: Brecon and Radnorshire
Parliamentary constituency (from next general election): Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe
ONS Travel to Work Area: Brecon (Crickhowell community and part of Cwmdu and District community), Merthyr Tydfil (Vale of Grwyney community)
Postcode districts: NP7, NP8
Zoe Allan (Lab)
Sam Games (Ind)
Claire Hall (LD)
Rosemarie Harris (C)
David Markinson (Ind)
Chloe Masefield (LD)
David Thomas (C)
May 2022 result LD 736/725 C 512/459
Previous results in detail
If you enjoyed these previews, there are many more like them — going back to 2016 — in the Andrew’s Previews books, which are available to buy now (link). The 2022 edition is out now! You can also support future previews by donating to the Local Elections Archive Project (link).
Andrew Teale
