Council Elections - reflections on the results

With Rugby not counting until Friday morning, I took to my bed on Friday evening rather than wait for results. One result I was delighted to hear about was from John Waine, Chairman of Nuneaton Conservatives, where I was Parliamentary Candidate in 2005. Nuneaton is part of Nuneaton & Bedworth Borough Council which was created in 1974 and has only ever had a Labour controlled administration. With 4 straight gains, including John himself ,this Council is now under Conservative control. With this last bastion of socialism in Warwickshire having finally been won, no wonder David Cameron chose to visit on Friday. His visit was enjoyed by all and topped a tremendous effort by Marcus Jones, now Council Leader, and his team.

In Rugby, our gains in terms of numbers of seats were less significant, partly as we were working from a higher base and labour were only defending seats in their strongest areas such as Newbold and New Bilton. This meant that our gains were likely to come from the Lib Dems and this duly happening in Hillmorton which Bill Sewell has turned into a Conservative stronghold. What was more significant within the Rugby results was the magnitude of the Conservative majorities. Take Earl Craven (Binley Woods, Brandon & Wolston). Five years ago the Conservative & Labour votes here were much the same. The Conservative majority has steadily increased over this period and this time Heather Timms majority was around 1000. The move from Labour to Conservative has been progressive and while there was a real mood of dissatisfaction with Labour generally and against Brown in particular at Thursday elections, there has slowly been more acceptance of what we're saying and offering with people seeing us as the party with the vision and ideas to make Britain better.