Previewing the three council by-elections of 2nd February 2023
“All the right votes, but not necessarily in the right order”
Well, it’s Groundhog Day, again. And because it’s Thursday, that means it’s time for council by-elections, again. We have a fascinating set of three by-elections on 2nd February 2023 in the cities and towns of England and Wales, with one defence each for the Conservatives, the Lib Dems and independents. Read on…
Hotwells and Harbourside
Bristol council; caused by the resignation of Liberal Democrat councillor Alex Alex Hartley.
Our three polls today are in very different areas. Let’s start our voyage around England and Wales by getting shipshape and Bristol fashion in the city of that name.
Water has always been important to Bristol. The city lies on the River Avon, which enters a deep gorge a mile or so to the west of the city centre. From the steep slopes on the north side of the gorge bubbled up warm water — the so-called Hotwells. This was seriously developed and marketed as a spa in the eighteenth century, but Hotwells never took off in the same way that Bath did. The hot spring’s temperature has fallen over the centuries, and it’s no longer exploited commercially. Today the spring can be seen discharging its warm water into the Avon, but only at low tide: it reaches the surface below the high-tide mark.
Instead, the Hotwells area is now important for later developments which also involved water. Bristol has always been an important port, and sailing ships once passed up the gorge and beyond Hotwells into the harbour. The Severn estuary has one of the highest tidal ranges in the world, and this also affected its tributary the Avon: twice a day at low tide the Avon through Bristol harbour would empty down to a muddy trickle, stranding any ships which happened to be there. This is the origin of the phrase “shipshape and Bristol fashion”: ships which used the port of Bristol had to be built to handle the stresses of being repeatedly left high and dry.
That all changed at the start of the nineteenth century. The tidal River Avon was diverted into a “New Cut” to the south of the city centre, and a large lock (the Cumberland Basin) was built at Hotwells to give the wharves on the old river a consistent high water level. Thus was born the “Floating Harbour”, which revitalised the old port of Bristol. Here was built the SS Great Britain, a Brunel design which at the time of its launch in 1843 was the largest ship ever built; in 1970 the Great Britain returned to her Bristol birthplace, and she is now open to the public as a museum.
The SS Great Britain is located in a dry dock on the south, Somerset, side of the Floating Harbour. This is Spike Island, so-called because it is surrounded by the Floating Harbour and the New Cut. Historically Spike Island was a seriously industrial area, but the decline of the city centre harbour has led to other industries moving in. A former tea-packing factory on the island has been turned into a collective of artists’ studios; the B Bond Warehouse next to the Cumberland Basin once housed imported tobacco and is now home to the archives of Bristol city council; and one of Bristol’s most successful exports of recent years, Aardman Animations, has its studio on Spike Island.
Similar regeneration has been going on along the northern, Gloucestershire, side of the Floating Harbour. Here we find the Canons Marsh area at the western end of the city centre. Canons Marsh is filled with trendy bars and restaurants in very new buildings, but its religious name is derived from Bristol Cathedral which has tended to the souls of locals and others since 1140. Overlooking all this are the steep slopes and parkland of Brandon Hill, whose summit has a sticky-up thing on top: this is the Cabot Tower, built to commemorate the 400th anniversary of John Cabot’s 1497 voyage from Bristol to Newfoundland.
We shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that many of the cargoes handled by Bristol’s sailors and merchants were human. Until the nineteenth century Bristol was a major centre for the transatlantic slave trade, and one of the figures who made a fortune out of that in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries was one Edward Colston. He applied this fortune partly to a political career — he was an MP for Bristol from 1710 to 1713 — but mostly to philanthropy and good works in the city.
Edward Colston’s first modern biography, written in 1920, made it quite clear exactly where his money had come from. In recent decades public opinion within the city had become increasingly uneasy about the large number of buildings and institutions in Bristol with Colston’s name on them, and matters came to a head in June 2020 following the murder of George Floyd in the USA. A mob of demonstrators toppled Colston’s statue from its plinth in Bristol city centre, dragged it into this ward and threw it into the Floating Harbour, from where the council fished it out a few days later. Edward Colston’s statue now lies on its side in a Bristol museum, still bearing the scars and graffiti from its toppling.
Three centuries on from Colston’s death in 1721, Bristol city council is run by an elected mayor of Black African descent, Marvin Rees of the Labour Party. However, this corner of the city centre is not an area where Labour have any recent track record in local council elections. Hotwells and Harbourside ward was created by a boundary review in 2016, and its two elections to date have both returned a Liberal Democrat councillor with the Green Party in second place and Labour in third. The most recent poll in 2021 was marginal three ways, with the Lib Dems winning on just 33% of the vote ahead of the Greens on 32% and Labour on 25%.
Before 2016 Hotwells was part of the Clifton ward while Spike Island and Canons Marsh were covered by the city-centre Cabot ward: both of those wards voted Green in 2015 but had previously had a long Lib Dem track record in this century. Normally at this point I quote census figures, but there doesn’t seem much point in this case. Cabot ward’s 2011 census return is skewed by the fact that that ward included the main University of Bristol buildings and a large student population, while quoting census figures for the former Clifton ward would probably tell you more about Clifton — which is traditionally one of the most affluent parts of Bristol — than it would about Hotwells. Ward-level results for the 2021 census became available on Monday; that publication came too late for this piece, but I hope to incorporate 2021 census figures into future Previews very soon.
This area is part of the Bristol West parliamentary seat, which — taking its cue from Clifton — used to be a Tory stronghold but has swung a mile to the left in recent decades. As recently as 1992 Bristol West had little trouble electing the Conservatives’ William Waldegrave, who at the time was Health Secretary; perhaps because of this, the comedian, doctor and Private Eye medical columnist Phil Hammond stood against him in that election with the ballot paper description “Struck Off and Die Doctors Alliance”.
After being a cabinet minister throughout the Major administration, Waldegrave lost his seat in 1997 to Valerie Davey of Labour; and since then the Conservative vote in Bristol West has fallen off a cliff. Davey was defeated in 2005 by the Liberal Democrats’ Stephen Williams, who lost his seat back to Labour and indeed finished in third place in 2015. He fell to fourth in 2017, only just saving his deposit, and for the 2019 election the Bristol West Lib Dems stood down and endorsed the Green Party candidate Carla Denyer. Denyer is a Bristol city councillor who has been co-leader of the England and Wales Green Party since 2021.
Since 2015 the Labour MP for Bristol West has been Thangam Debbonaire. She had to spend the first year of her parliamentary career overcoming breast cancer, but she has now built up a massive majority in this oversized seat, polling over 47,000 votes at both the 2017 and 2019 general elections. Debbonaire has served in the Shadow Cabinet since 2020, and she currently holds the position of shadow Leader of the Commons.
The Lib Dems, who are defending this by-election, lie in fourth place on Bristol city council. The latest council composition shows Labour and the Greens tied for first place on 24 councillors each, with the Conservatives on 14, the Lib Dems on five plus this vacancy and two seats for the Knowle Community Party, a localist group. There were no local elections here last year, but there was a referendum in Bristol at which voters decided to abolish the city’s elected mayoralty. Labour’s Marvin Rees will not be replaced when his term of office expires in 2024.
This by-election follows the resignation of Lib Dem councillor Alex Hartley, who was one of the prime movers behind last year’s mayoral referendum. He was first elected in May 2021, and stood down just before Christmas citing mental health concerns.
Defending this marginal seat for the Liberal Democrats is the former Bristol West MP Stephen Williams, who has made a number of previous attempts at a political comeback since losing his parliamentary seat in 2015: most recently, in May 2021, he was the Lib Dem candidate for the West of England mayoralty. To date all those attempts have ended in failure, but Williams does have a bit of a track record in this corner of Bristol: he represented the former Cabot ward on Avon county council and then Bristol city council from 1993 to 1999. A gain for the Greens, who were not far off winning here in 2021, will see them become the largest party on Bristol council: they have selected Patrick McAllister, who works in legal services. Labour are also in a position to become the largest party on the council with a gain here: their candidate is Beryl Means, who has previously been a Bristol councillor for Brislington West ward from 2015 to 2016. Also standing are Eliana Barbosa for the Conservatives and independent candidate Martin Booth, the editor of the local website Bristol 24/7, who has apparently given up on his campaign but will still be listed on the ballot paper.
Parliamentary constituency: Bristol West
ONS Travel to Work Area: Bristol
Postcode districts: BS1, BS8
Eliana Barbosa (C)
Martin Booth (Ind)
Patrick McAllister (Grn)
Beryl Means (Lab)
Stephen Williams (LD)
May 2021 result LD 651 Grn 625 Lab 496 C 182
May 2016 result LD 609 Grn 441 Lab 400 C 284 Ind 47 TUSC 28
Previous results in detail
Voter ID
From May, you will need photo ID to vote in person at a parliamentary election in Great Britain or a local election in England. If you don’t have one of the accepted forms of photo ID, you can apply for a free Voter Authority Certificate or a postal vote from your local council elections office. Do it now and beat the rush.
For more information and to apply for a VAC or postal vote, go to electoralcommission.org.uk/voterid.
Llantarnam
Torfaen council, Gwent; caused by the resignation of independent councillor Nick Jones.
This is the GLC we’re talking about here, so let’s get one thing out of the way immediately: some of the lyrics might be construed as not safe for work. You knows it.
Yes, that’s former Newport Labour councillor Rhys Hutchings and his band Goldie Lookin Chain’s take on the Welsh New Town of Cwmbran, which was designated in 1949 to cover a site in the Lwyd valley between Pontypool and Newport. We’re in the South Wales coalfield here, so by 1949 there was plenty of industry here already with two railway lines and the Monmouthshire Canal to serve it. But the point of the New Town was to provide new employment which wasn’t completely dependent on the coal industry.
And that’s been reasonably successful. You saw in the video the large Burtons biscuit factory in Llantarnam, which has been making the UK’s entire supply of Jammy Dodgers and Wagon Wheels since 1939. That’s at the southern end of Llantarnam ward; at the northern end is the covered shopping of the Cwmbran Centre, the second-largest shopping mall in Wales. In between is the former village of Old Cwmbran.
Cwmbran is one of the two major towns which make up the Torfaen county borough (the other being Pontypool further up the valley). Torfaen council has had a Labour majority at every election since 1974 with the exception of 2008, which returned a hung council. At last year’s Welsh council elections Labour increased their majority in Torfaen: the current council has 30 Labour seats and 10 independents, with the Conservatives being wiped out here last year. As with Bristol West above, Torfaen’s Labour MP was first elected in 2015 and is currently in the Shadow Cabinet: he is Nick Thomas-Symonds, who was Shadow Home Secretary in 2020–21 and currently shadows the international trade portfolio.
Labour may have increased their majority in Torfaen last year, but Llantarnam ward went the other way: after voting for Labour in 2017, it returned an independent slate in 2022. Shares of the vote were 44% for the independents, 27% for Labour and 18% for Plaid Cymru. In common with all Welsh councils, there was a new set of ward boundaries in Torfaen for the 2022 elections: the boundary review left the boundaries of Llantarnam ward untouched but increased its representation from two councillors to three, reflecting recent population growth.
Previous elections in Llantarnam hadn’t been particularly good for Labour either. The ward split its (then) two seats between an independent and a Labour councillor in both 2004 and 2012; the independent in 2012 had also topped the poll here in 2008 with the Plaid Cymru nomination. The Conservatives won the other seat here in 2008, but lost it to Labour in 2012 by a margin of just one vote.
This by-election is to replace independent councillor Nick Jones, who tendered his resignation from the council in November after just six months in office. This seems to have set off a round of musical chairs on Torfaen council. Jones was a member of the council’s main independent group, which fell apart after his resignation; its six remaining councillors are now listed by the council as “Individual Independents”, effectively being non-aligned. The other independent group, the “Torfaen Independent Group”, is now the official opposition with three councillors.
One independent candidate has come forward to replace Jones: he is Jason O’Connell, who was an independent councillor for Greenmeadow ward on the western edge of Cwmbran from 2017 to 2022; the boundary review cut Greenmeadow ward from two councillors to one, and O’Connell lost out in a shootout with the ward’s other (Labour) councillor. Labour have reselected David Bolton, who was runner-up in this ward last year. Also returning from 2022 is a candidate who has appeared in this column before. We last met Plaid Cymru’s Matthew Woolfall Jones in July 2019, when he won the Llanbadarn Fawr Sulien by-election to Ceredigion council (Andrew’s Previews 2019, page 208); Woolfall Jones now lives in this ward, and after standing down from Ceredigion council last year he is making his second attempt to transfer to Torfaen council as a Plaid candidate. Completing an all-male ballot paper in Llantarnam are Philip Davies for the Green Party, Miles Cook for the Lib Dems and Stephen Senior for the Conservatives.
Westminster and Senedd constituency: Torfaen
ONS Travel to Work Area: Newport
Postcode districts: BS1, BS8
David Bolton (Lab)
Miles Cook (LD)
Philip Davies (Grn)
Jason O’Connell (Ind)
Stephen Senior (C)
Matthew Woolfall Jones (PC)
May 2022 result Ind 1081/996/950 Lab 667/550/481 PC 432 Grn 268
May 2017 result Lab 838/701 Ind 691 C 501/376 Communist 62
May 2012 result Ind 609/363/261 Lab 496/455 C 495
May 2008 result PC 735 C 569 Lab 422/364 Ind 271 People’s Voice 224
June 2004 result Ind 638/450 Lab 518/374 LD 356 C 208 PC 179
Previous results in detail
Northall
North Northamptonshire council; caused by the death of Conservative councillor Kevin Thurland.
Do you like Kettering? I don’t know, I’ve never Kettered. But maybe we’re about to find out, because Kettering is the location of our final by-election today. And it looks set to be a close one.
Kettering is one of the three major towns in eastern Northamptonshire which have a rail link to London. As with much of Northamptonshire the traditional industry here is boot and shoemaking, but this has gone into decline. Logistics and distribution are now major sectors in Kettering’s economy, thanks to its location on the east-west A14 road.
Since 2021 the local authority for Kettering has been North Northamptonshire council, which was one of two unitary councils for Northamptonshire which emerged following the bankruptcy of the county council. North Northamptonshire took in the areas of four former district councils, those based on the towns of Corby, Kettering and Wellingborough together with the rural East Northamptonshire district. All of this area is represented by Conservative MPs — Kettering’s MP since 2005 has been the right-winger Philip Hollobone — and the inaugural 2021 elections returned a large Conservative majority. 60 Conservative councillors were elected, against 14 Labour, 3 Greens and an independent. Twelve of the 14 Labour councillors represent wards in the district’s largest town, Corby.
The Green ward on the council is Clover Hill, which is the northern of the four wards covering Kettering. Northall ward borders Clover Hill, covering western Kettering plus the town centre. This means it includes the town’s largest employer, Kettering General Hospital, which is located on the main road west from the town centre.
Northall ward was originally drawn up in May 2013 as a division of the now-abolished Northamptonshire county council, at the time electing one councillor. As such there have three previous elections on these boundaries, all of which have turned in very close results between the Conservative and Labour parties. Labour won the inaugural election in 2013 with a majority of 64 votes, and held the seat in 2017 by 29 votes. For the first North Northamptonshire election the ward returned three councillors: the Conservative slate polled 44% against Labour’s 42%, and all three Conservative candidates were elected with majorities of 83, 81 and 17 votes.
We can get a good indication of where these votes come from by looking at elections for the former Kettering council. There were three former Kettering wards covering this area, the relatively affluent and Conservative-voting St Peter’s ward in the west of the town which this column profiled in 2016 (Andrew’s Previews 2016, page 65), the small Labour-voting Northfield ward to the north of the town centre, and a seriously deprived and Labour-voting ward covering the town centre and points east of it. This ward took the name of one of its famous sons, a person who really should be better known. His name was William Knibb.
We started this week’s column by considering the dubious legacy of Edward Colston in Bristol. In Colston’s day there was no real anti-slavery movement to speak of; but by the time William Knibb was born in 1803, in Kettering, sentiment in the UK had changed. Knibb was a Baptist missionary, who sailed from Bristol to Jamaica at the age of 21 and spent the rest of his career there.
When Knibb arrived in Jamaica in 1824, the slave trade had been outlawed in the British Empire but slavery itself — and all the abuses which came with it — was still legal. Many Jamaican Baptists were freed slaves, and Knibb was a prominent supporter of them. Following the Baptist War of 1831–32, a major slave rebellion in Jamaica which was brutally put down by the planters, the Baptist slaves and ex-slaves of Jamaica sent Knibb to the UK to speak up on their behalf. Knibb’s testimony to Parliament convinced the MPs and peers who heard it that slavery needed to be abolished.
The following year Parliament passed the Slavery Abolition Act 1833, banning chattel slavery within the British Empire with effect from 1st August 1834 and replacing it with a six-year apprenticeship scheme. Following further abuses by the Jamaican planters towards their now-apprentices and further campaigning by Knibb, Parliament subsequently abolished the apprenticeship scheme on 1st August 1838, finally ending colonial slavery.
William Knibb died of yellow fever in 1845, but he has not been forgotten in Jamaica. In 1988 the Jamaican government marked the 150th anniversary of the end of slavery by posthumously appointing Knibb to the Jamaican Order of Merit. He was the first white man to receive that honour. Edward Colston’s name is now a dirty word in Bristol; William Knibb was commemorated in his home town of Kettering by having a ward named after him in 2007. That ward now only exists for elections to Kettering town council; but if you think there should be a William Knibb ward of North Northamptonshire council in future, the Local Government Boundary Commission have a consultation open at the moment for North Northamptonshire’s future ward boundaries and they would love to hear your views (link).
For now, the Kettering town council ward of William Knibb is part of the Northall ward of North Northamptonshire which, as stated, returned three Conservative councillors in May 2021. Top of the poll, and beating the alphabet, was Kevin Thurland who hadn’t previously been a councillor but was well-known for his voluntary work in the town. He passed away in November.
Defending this highly marginal seat for the Conservatives is Kevin’s widow Lesley Thurland, who represented All Saints ward on Kettering council from 2015 until that council was abolished in 2021. She was one of the Conservative candidates who lost to the Greens in Clover Hill ward two years ago. The Labour candidate is the mayor of Kettering, Keli Watts, who was runner-up here in 2021; she had represented William Knibb ward on Kettering council from 2007 to 2021 and now sits for that ward on the town council. Also standing are Stephen Silver for the Lib Dems, Jehad Aburamadan in a rare local election outing for Reform UK, and Ria Skelton for the Green Party.
Parliamentary constituency: Kettering
ONS Travel to Work Area: Kettering and Wellingborough
Postcode districts: NN14, NN15, NN16
Jehad Aburamadan (Reform UK)
Stephen Silver (LD)
Ria Skelton (Grn)
Lesley Thurland (C)
Keli Watts (Lab)
May 2021 result C 1394/1392/1326 Lab 1309/1249/1107 LD 438
May 2017 county council result Lab 1261 C 1232 UKIP 232 LD 216
May 2013 county council result Lab 1025 C 961 UKIP 597 LD 94
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). You can also support future previews by donating to the Local Elections Archive Project (link).
Andrew Teale
