Previewing the 14 council by-elections of 9th July 2026

It’s yet another Super Thursday for Andrew’s Previews, with 14 council by-elections taking place across all three nations of Great Britain. We have a wide political spread to match that wide geographical spread, with the Green Party, the Liberal Democrats and Plaid Cymru defending three seats each, independents and Labour two, and Reform UK one. Let’s start with the three Green defences, which are all in London:

Lambeth council, London; caused respectively by the resignations of Green Party councillors Joanna Eaves and Saiqa Ali.

We’ll start in a London borough which took rather a long time to settle its administration following May’s local elections. The Labour Party lost control of Lambeth council two months ago and fell into second place on the council: the Green Party won 29 seats in the election, Labour fell to 26 and the Lib Dems ended up with eight seats and the balance of power. A Green Party mayor was installed - Paul Valentine, who had won a by-election in Herne Hill and Loughborough Junction ward last year - but the AGM was delayed while the Green and Lib Dem groups attempted to set up an old-fashioned committee system to run the council. Eventually this was found to be legally impossible, and a minority Green Party cabinet was installed in June. Perhaps it says something that one of Cllr Valentine’s mayoral charities for 2026-27 is the Bureau of Silly Ideas.

Lambeth was by no means the last council to finish coalition-building this year. In fact there are still two councils which have yet to even agree on a leader more than two months after May’s elections, Kirklees and Oldham. Oldham council is deeply split between the Labour group of 18, the Reform UK group of 16 and a 20-strong alliance of Oldham Group (mostly Asian independents), Lib Dem and Conservative councillors; none of these blocs is anywhere near the 31 votes required for a majority, and nobody appears to be prepared to do a deal with anyone else. The failure of Kirklees to elect a leader is more curious, because the Reform UK and Conservative groups there have a majority between them and similar arithmetic in neighbouring Bradford quickly led to a Reform UK minority administration being installed; the sticking point here appears to be that the Reform UK group leader in Kirklees is unacceptable to all the other parties. Oldham and Kirklees have both had multiple previous failed attempts to elect a new leader over the last two months, and they will both be trying again on 15th July.

The Green minority administration in Lambeth might well be in some trouble before then, because they already have two by-elections to defend as a result of newly-elected councillors submitting their resignations. If Labour gain both of these seats, they will take over from the Greens as the largest party on Lambeth council.

And one of the by-elections is in a very marginal ward. Clapham Park split its three seats in May, with the Labour slate polling 36% of the vote and winning two seats; the Green Party polling 32% and winning one seat; and the Lib Dems finishing best of the rest on 10%. The Green Party councillor Joanna Eaves, who defeated the third Labour candidate Louie Somerville-Sutherland by 37 votes, stood down within two weeks of her election on health grounds.

Those who come to Clapham Park ward looking for open space will be disappointed: apart from the small Agnes Riley Gardens, the ward is entirely built up with flats and houses either side of the South Circular Road. Brixton Hill, the A23 towards Croydon, is the ward’s eastern boundary; the La Retraite Catholic girls’ school is at the western end. Clapham Park is in the top 100 wards for residents born in the Americas and the Caribbean (9.9%) or in Africa (11.8%), for black (27.1%) and mixed-race (8.1%) residents, and for residents working in administrative or support services (9.3%).

The vast majority of Clapham Park ward is included in the Clapham and Brixton Hill parliamentary seat represented by Labour backbencher Bell Ribeiro-Addy, who was first elected in 2019 for the predecessor seat of Streatham. That constituency was broken up in the 2024 boundary review, and Streatham itself is now part of the Streatham and Croydon North constituency represented by Steve Reed, who currently sits in Cabinet as the Housing, Communities and Local Government secretary.

The Streatham and Croydon North constituency includes Streatham St Leonard’s ward, located a mile or two south along the A23 from Clapham Park. This ward is the core of Streatham, which is named after the road: the A23 was originally a Roman road (or Streat) running from Londinium to a port on the south coast. St Leonard’s church has been located next to the road since Saxon times, although the oldest part of the present-day structure is the tower which dates from the Tudor era. The ward has rail links to central London from Streatham Hill, Streatham and Streatham Common railway stations.

Streatham was an attractive middle-class suburb of south London for most of the 20th century, and it elected Conservative MPs up to and including the Thatcher years and Conservative local councillors into the 1990s. John Bercow, the future Speaker of the House of Commons, was a Conservative Lambeth councillor for St Leonard’s ward for one term from 1986 to 1990. But by the 1990s urban decay had set in, and the present-day Streatham St Leonard’s ward has very similar demographics to Clapham Park.

Its politics, however, remain significantly different. This is one of London’s longest-standing Green wards, with the Green Party’s Scott Ainslie - who was an MEP for London from 2019 to 2020 - having been a councillor here continuously since 2014. From 2018 to 2022 one of his ward colleagues was Jonathan Bartley, who was co-leader of the Green Party of England and Wales for most of that period.

The Greens haven’t had it all their own way in Streatham St Leonard’s ward, and in 2022 Labour gained one of the ward’s three seats with their top candidate Martin Abrams benefitting from being at the top of the alphabetical ballot paper. Ironically, Abrams subsequently defected from Labour to the Greens and he is now the leader of Lambeth council, having been re-elected in a different ward in May.

So this meant that the Green Party needed to gain a seat from Labour in Streatham St Leonard’s ward this year. In retrospect, their selection of Saiqa Ali was not a good one. The Labour campaign quickly drew attention to Ali’s social media, which turned out to have all sorts of nasty anti-Semitic stuff on it. The police then got involved, and a week before polling day Ali was one of two Lambeth Green candidates who were arrested by the Met on suspicion of stirring up racial hatred. By this point it was far too late for the Greens to take her off the ballot paper.

When polling day came, the Green Party won all three seats in Streatham St Leonard’s ward with 47% of the vote, against 23% for Labour and 15% for the Liberal Democrats. Ali finished in third place a very long way behind her running-mates Scott Ainslie and Alice Weavers, but she was still elected with a majority of 353 votes over Labour. Saiqa Ali was not admitted to the Green group on Lambeth council, and she quickly handed in her notice.

That unforced selection error means that the Greens have a by-election to defend in Streatham St Leonard’s ward. This time they have gone for Dario Goodwin, an author who is a fairly recent recruit to the party from Labour; he was an unsuccessful Green candidate in May in Brixton Acre Lane ward, and at the previous London borough elections in 2022 he was a Labour candidate in Westminster. Labour have reselected Jade Albás, who was runner-up here two months ago. Hoping to return to Lambeth council after some years away is the Lib Dems’ Alex Davies, who represented Streatham Wells ward from 2010 to 2014. Also on the ballot here are Chris Cousins for the Conservatives, Mark McKee for Reform UK and Yemi Awolola for the Christian Peoples Alliance.

Meanwhile the more marginal Clapham Park ward is defended for the Greens by Michael Ball. No, not that one: this Michael Ball has run a community charity in Waterloo for 25 years, he was a major opponent of the junked Garden Bridge project over the Thames, and he was runner-up in Kennington ward in May. Labour’s Louie Somerville-Sutherland is back for another go after he narrowly missed out on a seat here in May. Also returning from May’s election here is the Lib Dems’ Ben Amos. The Clapham Park ballot paper is completed by Joshua Forrester for the Conservatives, Martin Reed for Reform UK, Susanna Jehwo for the Christian People’s Alliance and Anya Krycek for the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

Parliamentary constituency: Clapham and Brixton Hill (nearly all), Streatham and Croydon North (small corner south of Streatham Place and New Park Road)
London Assembly constituency: Lambeth and Southwark
Postcode districts: SW2, SW4, SW12

Ben Amos (LD)
Michael Ball (Grn)
Joshua Forrester (C)
Susanna Jehwo (CPA)
Anya Krycek (Socialist Party of GB)
Martin Reed (RUK)
Louie Somerville-Sutherland (Lab)

May 2026 result Lab 1285/1158/1117 Grn 1154/1033/938 LD 364/312/262 C 308/259/205 RUK 235 Ind 202 SDP 38
May 2022 result Lab 1545/1416/1361 Grn 574/424/405 C 303/286/231 LD 239/207/186
Previous results in detail

Parliamentary constituency: Streatham and Croydon North
London Assembly constituency: Lambeth and Southwark
Postcode districts: SW2, SW16

Jade Albas (Lab)
Yemi Awolola (CPA)
Chris Cousins (C)
Alex Davies (LD)
Dario Goodwin (Grn)
Mark McKee (RUK)

May 2026 result Grn 2242/2037/1437 Lab 1084/953/833 LD 726/492/458 C 349/338/295 RUK 320/287/263
May 2022 result Grn 1727/1683/1428 Lab 1525/1353/1336 C 337/312/290 LD 237/227/198
Previous results in detail

Camden council, London; caused by the disqualification of Green Party councillor Mohammed Abu Naser.

Today’s other London by-election is also a Green Party defence, in one of the few Zone 1 wards which contains a significant amount of green space. Regent’s Park is one of the Royal Parks of central London, and administratively it is split between the City of Westminster and the London Borough of Camden which, for the purposes of confusion, both have wards called Regent’s Park. It’s the Camden ward we’re concerned with today, lying to the east of the arrow-straight Broad Walk which continues the line of Portland Place all the way through the park.

But before we go there, I need to put my military band hat on and cross over to the Westminster side of the park for a moment to pay my respects. The above piece - a selection of songs from the musical Oliver!, arranged by Norman Leyden - is a bit of a concert band staple and I first played it decades ago, but many Army musical directors will think twice before getting it out of the band library. That’s because this piece is was what the band of the Royal Green Jackets were playing on the Regent’s Park bandstand when the IRA bombed it in 1982.

It’s only by the grace of God that that plaque isn’t somewhere else with our own name on it.

The Regent’s Park ward of Camden covers the eastern fringe of the park itself, while its southern boundary is Euston Road. The ward includes the massive Euston railway station, which is the southern terminus of the West Coast Main Line and is the main arrival point into London for future Prime Ministers from the North. Euston hosts intercity, commuter and sleeper trains to and from the West Midlands, North Wales, North West England and Scotland, and it is also the southern end of the Lioness line of the London Overground. To the west of Euston station is a large building site which will hopefully end up as the southern terminus of High Speed 2. The London Underground has its own station below the mainline terminus, while Regent’s Park is also served by Underground stations at Euston Square and Mornington Crescent. (I win!)

Between the park and the station is the housing of Regent’s Park ward, which is dominated by flats and apartments: these make up 92% of the ward’s households, placing Regent’s Park in the top 50 wards in England and Wales for that statistic. The ward ranks in the top 40 for households without access to a car (70.5%) and for social renting (51.4%). It is a strongly multicultural area with a student population large enough to show up in the 2021 census - which, because it was taken in the middle of the pandemic, was generally very poor at recording what areas students live in.

Since 2015 the Labour MP for this area has been Sir Keir Starmer, who hopefully needs no introduction to readers of this column. He is one of only two MPs to have represented the Holborn and St Pancras constituency since its creation in 1983. The other was Frank Dobson, who was health secretary in the first Blair government and was the losing Labour candidate in the first London mayoral election.

The local authority here is Camden council, where the Labour party suffered heavy losses in May but did manage to retain overall control. The 2026 Camden election returned 30 Labour councillors against 11 Greens, 10 Lib Dems, 3 Conservatives and one councillor for the Camden People’s Alliance, which had an electoral pact with the Greens. One of the wards where Labour lost seats was Regent’s Park, which returned the Green Party slate with 38% of the vote against 33% for Labour and 12% for Reform UK.

The Green slate here included Mohammed Abu Naser, who was elected while ineligible. He is disqualified from being a Camden councillor because he works for the council as a secondary school teacher. Drawing a wage from a council which you sit on is an obvious conflict of interest.

It’s fair to say that Naser has not taken this well. He has flounced out of the Green Party in a huff, and since the election several letters from him have appeared in the Camden New Journal setting out his side of the story and calling on the Camden branch of the Greens to apologise for putting him in this position. A rather bizarre leaflet distributed to the electors of Regent’s Park ward during this election campaign, which is in Naser’s name but does not bear the required imprint, makes similar points.

Now Naser was not the only Green London councillor elected in May to be disqualified, and two weeks ago this column covered the case of a Hackney councillor who was in exactly the same position as he was. Naser’s point that the Camden Greens should have realised that his employment was a problem is a valid one, and it does not reflect well on the Green Party that they allowed this clear vetting failure to happen.

But that doesn’t mean that Naser himself is as blameless as he makes out. As part of the nomination process he will have signed a form consenting to his nomination, which contains the following declaration:

“I declare that to the best of my knowledge and belief I am not disqualified for being elected by reason of any disqualification set out in, or decision or order made under, sections 80 or 81A of the Local Government Act 1972, section 34 of the Localism Act 2011, or section 30 of the Elections Act 2022 (copies of which are printed overleaf), and I do not hold a politically restricted post, within the meaning of Part 1 of the Local Government and Housing Act 1989, under a local authority, within the meaning of that Part.”

Naser’s disqualification was under section 80 of the Local Government Act 1972, which was quoted to him on the nominations paperwork that he signed. Most likely he signed the documents without reading them, which is never a good idea because when things go wrong - as they did here - that means it’s your fault and you have to suck up the consequences. It’s not as if the rules were being hidden from the candidates in Regent’s Park ward - and let’s face it, you really need to read up and make sure you know the rules if you’re trying to win Mornington Crescent.

The consequences here mean another by-election in which Alice Brown will have to try and pick up the pieces of this mess for the Green Party. She is an architect who has previously worked on the 2015 refurbishment of the Regent’s Park Children’s Centre in this ward, and she finished as runner-up in Highgate ward in May and also contested a 2024 by-election in Kentish Town South ward. Labour’s Nanouche Umeadi, who was a councillor for Kilburn ward in 2022-26, is trying to get straight back onto the council after losing her seat there in May. Reform UK have reselected Beverley Martin who was on their slate for this ward two months ago. Also standing are Vladimir Chorniy for the Conservatives, Henry Potts for the Lib Dems and independent candidate Mohammad Junayd Khan, a care manager who is running a strong localist campaign.

Parliamentary constituency: Holborn and St Pancras
London Assembly constituency: Barnet and Camden
Postcode district: NW1

Alice Brown (Grn)
Vladimir Chorniy (C)
Mohammad Junayd Khan (Ind)
Beverley Martin (RUK)
Henry Potts (LD)
Nanouche Umeadi (Lab)

May 2026 result Grn 1138/1054/1010 Lab 973/929/905 RUK 354/331/321 C 274/262/240 LD 189/170/113 National Housing Party 46
May 2022 result Lab 1552/1516/1504 Grn 423 C 413/390/355 LD 251/206/188 Let London Live 114
Previous results in detail

North Norfolk council; caused by the resignation of Liberal Democrat councillor Emma Tooke.

Our East Anglian by-election this week is in the self-styled Gem of the Norfolk Coast, the seaside resort of Cromer. Suffield Park ward is the eastern third of Cromer, covering the East Cliff, the lighthouse, the town’s secondary school Cromer Academy and the local hospital. The present lighthouse dates from 1833 and was originally half a mile from the cliff-edge; as a result of coastal erosion, it’s a lot closer now.

The ward name is a reference to the Lords Suffield, who owned a significant amount of land in Cromer back in the day including the stately home of Cromer Hall, which is not in this ward. We should note in particular here Edward Harbord, the third Lord Suffield, who was prominent in the campaign to abolish slavery and piloted the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 through the Lords. His son Charles Harbord, the fifth Lord, was a close friend of Edward VII and briefly held government office under Gladstone in 1886 as Master of the Buckhounds. Now there’s a government job you don’t get any more.

There’s no government job of any kind for the current MP for Cromer, who is a Liberal Democrat: he is Steff Aquarone, who gained the North Norfolk constituency from the Conservatives in 2024. This seat has similar boundaries to North Norfolk council, which is based in Cromer and has had a Lib Dem majority since 2019; the leader of the district council is Tim Adams, who was also re-elected two months ago as the Norfolk county councillor for Cromer. North Norfolk had previously been under Conservative leadership from 2011 to 2019, and its list of former leaders during that period includes a notorious figure. Keith Johnson, who represented the neighbouring Cromer Town ward, killed his wife in December 2012 before turning the gun on himself.

Since 2019 Suffield Park ward had been represented by Emma Tooke, who was elected in 2019 and re-elected in 2023 (with a big lead of 61-26 over the Conservatives) under her previous surname of Spagnola. Tooke, who is a former mayor of Cromer, had a reputation in the town as the “loo lady” for her campaigning for disabled public toilets in Norfolk; she has two autistic sons who benefited from their installation. She has relocated to Poland for family reasons, and the North Norfolk Lib Dems called the resulting by-election for today. This turned out to be a bad move, because within hours of that timescale being confirmed the Norfolk Police and Crime Commissioner resigned, prompting a county-wide by-election which - thanks to the ridiculously inflexible timetable for PCC by-elections - will take place in seven days’ time. So the voters of Suffield Park ward will get to do this all over again next week.

Defending this week’s by-election here for the Lib Dems is Tyler Wragg, a former pupil of Cromer Academy who is only 19 or 20 but is already fighting his second election campaign: in May he was a Norfolk county council candidate in Stalham division. The Conservatives have selected John Lee, a fisherman who is the son of the late John Lee who was a councillor for this ward from 2007 to 2019: that John Lee had been leader of North Norfolk council when he lost his seat to Tooke in 2019. Also on an all-male ballot are David Russell for Labour, Paul Sutcliff for the Greens and Reform UK’s Benjamin Miles, who was a rather distant runner-up to the Lib Dems in the Cromer county division two months ago.

Parliamentary constituency: North Norfolk
Norfolk county council division: Cromer
Postcode district: NR27

John Lee (C)
Benjamin Miles (RUK)
David Russell (Lab)
Paul Sutcliffe (Grn)
Tyler Wragg (LD)

May 2023 result LD 517 C 220 Lab 62 Grn 47
May 2019 result LD 544 C 285 Lab 88
Previous results in detail

Stratford-on-Avon council, Warwickshire; caused by the resignation of Liberal Democrat councillor Thomas Holmes.

We stay with the Liberal Democrat theme for our next poll in the Warwickshire countryside, to the north-west of Stratford-on-Avon and to the north-east of Alcester. Indeed, Kinwarton parish is mostly a north-eastern part of Alcester which has spilled over the town boundary: the town’s secondary school, Alcester Academy, is part of this ward.

The Kinwarton ward extends along the valley of the River Alne to the village of Aston Cantlow, and then moves south-east to take in the railway junction at Wilmcote. These areas are associated with Mary Arden, the mother of William Shakespeare, who was born in Wilmcote in 1536. Her sixteenth-century farmhouse there still exists and is now in the hands of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, which continues to run the place as a working farm. Unfortunately, it is no longer open to the public.

This area is part of the Lib Dem-controlled Stratford-on-Avon district and it is also covered by the Stratford-on-Avon constituency, which was gained from the Conservatives in 2024 by Lib Dem MP Manuela Perteghella; she defeated Tory candidate Chris Clarkson, who was attempting to do the chicken run from his previous seat of Heywood and Middleton. The most recent poll here was the 2025 Warwickshire county council election; most of Kinwarton ward is in the Lib Dem-held Alcester county division, but Aston Cantlow is included in the Studley county division which voted Reform UK last year in a close three-way finish.

Kinwarton ward was gained by the Lib Dems in 2023, when Thomas Holmes won by 57-33 over the Conservatives; the Tories had won the ward in previous years, although boundary changes confuse the issue. Holmes had stood for the county council the previous year, contesting a by-election in Arden division without success. After working for some time in Manuela Perteghella’s constituency office, Holmes tendered his resignation from Stratford-on-Avon council last month. He has moved to Canberra in Australia to work for David Pocock, whom readers might remember as a fixture of the Australian rugby union team who made 83 appearances for his country between 2008 and 2019; after retiring from the sport Pocock entered politics and he has served since 2022 as an independent member of the Australian Senate, representing the Australian Capital Territory.

Defending the resulting by-election for the Lib Dems is Tina Ballinger, who is a nursery nurse and a Kinwarton parish councillor; she is hoping to join on Stratford-on-Avon council her son Tom, who won a by-election in Alcester West ward last year. The Conservatives have selected Janine Lee, who is chair of Wilmcote parish council. Also standing here are Andrew Foster for Labour, Lizzee Leedham for the Greens and Reform UK candidate Rachael Chadwick-Harrison, who runs her own accountancy firm.

Parliamentary constituency: Stratford-on-Avon
Warwickshire county council division: Alcester (part: Kiwarton and Wilmcote parishes), Studley (part: Aston Cantlow and Great Alne parishes)
Postcode districts: B49, B95, CV37

Tina Ballinger (LD)
Rachael Chadwick-Harrison (RUK)
Andrew Foster (Lab)
Janine Lee (C)
Lizzee Leedham (Grn)

May 2023 result LD 739 C 437 Lab 88 Grn 41
Previous results in detail

Cardiff council, Glamorgan; caused by the resignation of Labour councillor Huw Thomas.

Our ongoing series of by-elections in Wales now resumes, and the Principality accounts for half of today’s 14 polls. Four of today’s Welsh elections are to replace councillors who were elected to Senedd Cymru in May, and who under Welsh local government law were obliged to resign their council seats in order to take up their new positions in Cardiff Bay. A total of 19 of the 96 MSs were previously councillors, and once today’s polls are over 18 of the resulting council vacancies will be filled: the remaining one, to replace Plaid Cymru MS and former Caerphilly councillor Donna Cushing, will take place in August.

The only newly-elected Labour MS who was previously a councillor was Huw Thomas, who had been leader of Cardiff council for 9 years until May - taking up that role at the age of just 31. Thomas had stood for higher office once before, as in the 2015 Westminster election he was the Labour candidate for Ceredigion - he is originally from Aberystwyth. Two months ago he was top of the Labour list for the Caerdydd Penarth constituency, where he scraped into the sixth and last seat. Vote shares here were 41% for Plaid Cymru, 18% for Reform UK, 14% for the Greens and 12% for Labour, with Plaid winning three seats and the other three listed parties one each.

Thomas leaves behind a seat in a ward which Andrew’s Previews has already visited once in this Cardiff council term. Lying in the east of the city, Splott was a steelworking centre created by the industrial revolution, and even today nearly the entire housing stock is late-Victorian terracing. The Splott division also includes the severely deprived Tremorfa area, further out of town, and the newer housing of Pengam Green. This was the area where Dame Shirley Bassey grew up and it was also the birthplace of John Humphrys, the former Mastermind and Today programme presenter.

In the Westminster parliament, Splott has been represented since a 2012 by-election by Stephen Doughty as part of the Cardiff South and Penarth constituency. Doughty has been a junior Foreign Office minister throughout the Starmer administration, with responsibility for Europe, North America and the UK’s overseas territories.

This column has covered Splott ward for two previous by-elections in 2013 and 2024 - coincidentally both of those polls took place on the same date, 5th December. The ward has had a full slate of three Labour councillors since Huw Thomas’ first election win in 2012, making it part of the Labour majority on Cardiff council. In the 2022 Cardiff council election Labour had a big lead of 65-14 in Splott over a joint slate of Plaid Cymru and Green candidates.

Labour ward councillor Jane Henshaw died in 2024, and the resulting by-election returned her daughter Anny Anderson as the Labour candidate on a much lower vote share: Anderson won with 34% of the vote against 17% for the Greens (their alliance with Plaid Cymru in the capital having now ended), 15% for the minor Welsh nationalist party Propel, 14% for the Lib Dems and 13% for Reform UK. Huw Thomas’ resignation means that of the three Labour councillors elected here in May 2022, only Ed Stubbs remains.

We have a fresh ballot this time with none of the defeated candidates from the 2024 by-election returning for another go - in fact, all five names on the ballot paper appear to be first-time candidates. Defending Splott ward for Labour this time is James Caruana, who wants to open a railway station at Tremorfa to serve the ward. The Greens have selected Simran Patel; she has a background in law and sociology. This time there is no Propel candidate so a fair number of votes are up for grabs. Standing for the Lib Dems is Rhys Husband who is a professional transport planner. Reform UK’s David Cook is retired from a career in manufacturing and consultancy, and Charles Agbakahi for the Conservatives completes the candidate list; curiously, there is no Plaid Cymru candidate. One of Splott ward’s eight polling stations is in a slightly unusual venue: electors in polling district SD08 are invited to cast their votes in the Tesco Extra supermarket at Pengam Green.

Westminster constituency: Cardiff South and Penarth
Senedd constituency: Caerdydd Penarth
Postcode districts: CF10, CF24

Charles Agbakahi (C)
James Caruana (Lab)
David Cook (RUK)
Rhys Husband (LD)
Simran Patel (Grn)

December 2024 by-election Lab 711 Grn 362 Propel 305 LD 292 RUK 271 PC 88 C 60
May 2022 result Lab 2079/2058/1984 PC/Grn 437/342/287 C 280/262/256 LD 173/141 Propel 137 TUSC 87
Previous results in detail

Vale of Glamorgan council; Glamorgan; caused by the resignation of Plaid Cymru councillor Mark Hooper.

We now travel south from Cardiff to meet Gavin and Stacey at the seaside resort of Barry Island. Depending which source you consult, this takes its name either from a Welsh word for a hill or from St Baruc, an obscure Welsh saint of the sixth century who lived here as a hermit. Baruc clearly gives his name to this electoral ward.

Barry Island used to be a genuine island in the Severn estuary, but in the late 19th century it was joined to the Welsh mainland by the development of Barry Docks: this was a project of the Barry Railway Company to export coal from the South Wales coalfields, bypassing the congested dock complex in Cardiff. The north side of Barry Island was an industrial area dominated by the docks and by extensive railway yards; the sandy south side of the island became a tourist and entertainment complex, which in time included a Butlin’s holiday camp.

Once coal exports declined much of the area around Barry Docks became Woodham Brothers’ scrapyard, to which railway wagons and steam locomotives were sent for disposal. But the withdrawal of steam by British Railways meant that Woodham’s ended up with more work than it could handle. The scrappers mostly left the locomotives alone because the wagons were easier to cut up and took up more space in the yard, and ultimately 217 of the 297 steam locomotives which had been sent to Barry were saved by being sold to preservationists by Woodham’s at their scrap metal value. Many of these were restored to working order, including the experimental British Railways locomotive Duke of Gloucester which is still pulling charter trains on the main line today, and the Great Western Railway’s Olton Hall which has been seen by millions at the head of the Hogwarts Express in the Harry Potter films.

The former Butlins camp and the Waterfront area around the dock have now been extensively redeveloped for housing, which has led to strong population growth in this century in Baruc ward which covers the whole of Barry Island together with the Knap and the area around Barry railway station on the mainland. The area’s rail link to Cardiff has clearly made the Waterfront an attractive commuter area. Baruc ward was increased from two councillors to three in 2022, but this was not enough to keep pace with demand. A special boundary review has recently taken place for Vale of Glamorgan council, as a result of which Baruc ward will be split into two for the 2027 Welsh local elections: the dockland part of its area will become the basis for a new Waterfront ward, with two councillors of its own, while the rump Baruc ward still retains three councillors.

Barry is the largest town in the Vale of Glamorgan district, which has been under no overall political control since 2012. The 2022 elections here returned 25 Labour councillors against 13 Conservatives, 8 for Plaid Cymru, 4 independents and 4 seats for a Llantwit Major localist party, who are the junior partners to Labour in the ruling coalition. In a by-election last year Reform UK gained a seat in Illtyd ward elsewhere in Barry, but the by-election winner has since jumped ship to Restore Britain.

The district is slightly larger than the Vale of Glamorgan Westminster seat, which has been closely fought between Labour and the Conservatives: the Vale has voted for the government at every election since its creation in 1983 with the exception of a Labour win at a 1989 by-election. The current Labour MP Kanishka Narayan, who was born in India, came to Cardiff at the age of 12 and is one of the many people who have moved house to the Barry Waterfront in recent years: he is a junior minister responsible for artificial intelligence and online safety. Narayan became Wales’ first ethnic minority MP when he gained his seat from the Conservatives in 2024.

For Senedd purposes the Vale is joined with Bridgend in the Pen-y-bont Bro Morgannwg constituency, which returns six MSs. In May Plaid Cymru were top of the poll here, polling 34% of the vote and winning two seats, Reform UK had 30% and also won two seats, and the remaining two seats were split between the Conservatives on 15% and Labour on 12%; the Conservative MS is the party’s former Welsh leader Andrew R T Davies.

Top of the Plaid Cymru list here in May was Mark Hooper, who defeated sitting MS Luke Fletcher (who was ranked 3rd and lost his seat at the election) for the number 1 slot. Hooper had previously served since 2022 as a Vale of Glamorgan councillor for Baruc ward, which is Plaid’s strongest ward in the district at local election time. In the 2022 election Plaid won 36% of the vote here to 25% for Labour, 20% for the Conservatives and 18% for the Greens, with Hooper taking the third seat created by the boundary review to join long-serving ward councillors Nic Hodges and Steffan Williams.

With Hooper off to Cardiff Bay Plaid Cymru have a by-election to defend here. Their candidate is Barry town councillor Shirley Hodges, who is married to ward councillor Nic Hodges and runs the Victorian Barry Experience on social media. The Labour candidate is Trevor Durham, who is a chartered financial planner. Standing for the Conservatives is first-time election candidate Chelsea Cottle. The Greens’ Lynden Mack will be hoping to improve on his last-place finish in this ward in 2022; he has since been the party’s Westminster candidate for Vale of Glamorgan in 2024. And joining the fray after sitting out the 2022 election here are the Lib Dems, with Gabriela Ferguson, and Reform UK who have selected Sarah Roderick.

Westminster constituency: Vale of Glamorgan
Senedd constituency: Pen-y-bont Bro Morgannwg
Postcode districts: CF62, CF63

Chelsea Cottle (C)
Trevor Durham (Lab)
Gabriela Ferguson (LD)
Shirley Hodges (PC)
Lynden Mack (Grn)
Sarah Roderick (RUK)

May 2022 result PC 1122/1118/978 Lab 770/751/654 C 628/580/544 Grn 556/425/365
Previous results in detail

Neath Port Talbot council, Glamorgan; caused by the resignation of Plaid Cymru councillor Rebeca Phillips.

Our series of councillor-to-MS by-elections continues with a trip to the Swansea Valley. Here we find the village of Trebanos, which lies south-west of Pontardawe which it is administratively part of. This was the home village of the recent Wales rugby great Justin Tipuric, who was captain of the Ospreys and won 93 caps for Wales, including as part of the Grand Slam-winning teams of 2012 and 2019. Throughout his career Tipuric played wearing a blue scrum cap, the colour of Trebanos RFC.

Blue is not the colour of Trebanos politically. At Westminster the Swansea Valley is the Cwm Tawe part of the Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe constituency which is the seat of Wales’ only Lib Dem MP, David Chadwick. In May’s Senedd election it was the Tawe part of the Brycheiniog Tawe Nedd constituency, where Reform UK topped the poll with 33% and won 3 out of 6 seats; Plaid Cymru polled 29% and won 2 seats; the Liberal Democrats polled 12% and won 1 seat, with the party’s Welsh leader Jane Dodds becoming their only MS; and Labour polled 9% and won nothing.

In local elections Trebanos is part of the Neath Port Talbot county borough, where Labour lost control at the 2022 election and a coalition of independent and Plaid Cymru councillors was formed: overall 18 independent and 12 Plaid Cymru councillors were returned against 27 Labour, 2 Lib Dems and 1 Green. The Plaid Cymru seats were concentrated in the Swansea Valley part of the borough, including Trebanos ward where Rebeca Phillips was re-elected as the councillor by 69-31 in a straight fight with Labour. Phillips had gained the seat from Labour in 2012, when she was still known by her previous surname of Lewis.

Rebeca Phillips was elected to the Senedd in May in second place on the Plaid Cymru list for Brycheiniog Tawe Nedd, so Trebaons needs a new councillor. Defending the seat for Plaid is Jamie Watkins, who already represents this ward on Pontardawe town council; he runs the junior section of Trebanos RFC. The Labour candidate is Stephanie Everitt, who is a clinical professional within the NHS. This time there will not be a straight fight, as we also have interventions from Hayley Davies for the Lib Dems, Liz Hill O’Shea for the Conservatives, Graeme Kerrison for Reform UK and Griff Miller for the Greens.

Westminster constituency: Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe
Senedd constituency: Brycheiniog Tawe Nedd
Postcode district: SA8

Hayley Davies (LD)
Stephanie Everitt (Lab)
Liz Hill O’Shea (C)
Graeme Kerrison (RUK)
Griff Miller (Grn)
Jamie Watkins (PC)

May 2022 result PC 445 Lab 196
Previous results in detail

Pembrokeshire council, West Wales; caused by the death of independent councillor Brian Hall.

We now travel into West Wales to reach the Cleddau estuary, which effectively divides the county of Pembrokeshire into two halves. This is a centre of the oil and gas industry with a large number of refineries and LNG storage facilities surrounding the town of Milford Haven, but not all ship movements here are to do with fossil fuels. There’s also some passenger sea travel, as Irish Ferries run two sailings a day between Rosslare and the Welsh port of Pembroke Dock.

The dockyard itself is the main feature of Pembroke Dock: Market ward, which is the western of the five wards covering the town of Pembroke Dock. This is a nineteenth-century town spawned by the dockyard, which was established by the Admiralty in 1814. The Navy moved out in 1926, but after a short period the Air Force moved in and RAF Pembroke Dock became the world’s largest station for flying boats, until the military finally turned the docks over to civilian use in 1956. Hangovers from the Navy and RAF eras include a pair of flying boat hangars, one of which housed a full-scale Millennium Falcon during the filming of The Empire Strikes Back, and the Victorian-era Defensible Barracks which was built as secure housing for Pembroke Dockyard’s Royal Marines contingent. Also here are the small South Pembrokeshire Hospital and the Garrison Chapel, which has been rebuilt using EU funding and turned into a heritage centre.

In the 2021 census Pembroke Dock: Market had 10.4% of adults working in lower supervisory and technical occupations, which was the highest figure for any ward in Wales and was exceeded in England only by four wards dominated by Sellafield or by the quarrying industry. Market also made the top 20 wards in England and Wales for residents with level 2 qualifications (5+ GCSEs or equivalent), and was in the top 100 for residents working in mining or quarrying at 1.3% of adults in work, although this only amounted to 11 people.

Pembroke Dock is the third-largest town in Pembrokeshire after Milford Haven and Haverfordwest, having overtaken the older and neighbouring town of Pembroke. It is one of the major towns in the Mid and South Pembrokeshire parliamentary seat, which roughly corresponds to the “Little England Beyond Wales” where the culture and language has for centuries more English than Welsh. This seat has been represented since 2024 by Labour backbencher Henry Tufnell.

In the Senedd Pembrokeshire is paired with Ceredigion to form the Ceredigion Penfro constituency which split its six seats three ways in May. Plaid Cymru were top of the poll with 36% and won 3 seats; Reform UK polled 26% and won two seats; and the Conservatives won one seat with 17%. The Labour slate polled just 7% and their lead candidate, the outgoing First Minister Eluned Morgan, was nowhere near holding her seat.

Not that this has much relevance for local elections in Pembrokeshire, where the council has a long-standing independent majority and where there is a serious problem with unopposed elections: at the last Pembrokeshire council elections in 2022, 25 of the 60 seats were filled without a single vote being cast. This included Brian Hall, who had been an independent councillor for Pembroke Dock: Market ward for 30 years since he won a by-election in 1996. Hall last faced a contested election in 2017 when he defeated another independent candidate, Hayley Wood, by 58-42. In 2008 he had seen off a challenge from a high-profile Labour candidate in Christine Gwyther, who had previously represented Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire from 1999 to 2007 in what was then called the Welsh Assembly. Brian Hall died in April at the age of 78.

There is a lot of interest in the by-election to replace Hall, with seven candidates being nominated - that’s six more than in the last local election here. Three of them are independents, and for a change I’ll take them in reverse alphabetical order. Hayley Wood, who is a local food back trustee and a miscarriage of justice advocate, was the losing candidate here in 2017; Claire Francis-Boswell also stresses her record of community work in the town; and Paul Dowson previously had a controversial term as an independent councillor for Pembroke Dock: Central ward from 2017 to 2022, during which he ran as a UKIP candidate in the 2021 Senedd election. After Dowson lost his seat in 2022, he was disqualified from public office for three years by the Adjudication Panel for Wales - the Welsh councillors’ ombudsman and custodians of the Welsh Councillors Behaving Badly file - for falsely claiming that a fellow councillor had distributed illegal pornography, falsely suggesting that a member of the public had a criminal record, misrepresenting the sex education school curriculum, and fabricating evidence to the Panel to suggest that another member of the public was a sex offender. Since 2022 Dowson has also pleaded guilty to possessing amphetamines and he has been prosecuted for working as a pub doorman without a licence. With his disqualification now expired, Dowson was an independent candidate in the 2026 Senedd election for Ceredigion Penfro, polling 88 votes and finishing in 44th and last place; he is standing here as an independent affiliated with Restore Britain. We also have four candidates who have been nominated more conventionally by political parties: Lee Herring is standing for the Lib Dems, Ryan Morgan for Reform UK, Chloe Richards for Plaid Cymru and Jamie Street for the Conservatives.

Parliamentary constituency: Mid and South Pembrokeshire
Senedd constituency: Ceredigion Penfro
Postcode district: SA72

Paul Dowson (Ind)
Claire Francis-Boswell (Ind)
Lee Herring (LD)
Ryan Morgan (RUK)
Chloe Richards (PC)
Jamie Street (C)
Hayley Wood (Ind)

May 2022 result Ind unopposed
Previous results in detail

Gwynedd council, North Wales; caused by the resignation of Plaid Cymru councillor Beca Brown.

Croeso and welcome to what was once the Welsh-speaking capital of the world. We’re in Llanrug, a village on the northern slopes of the Snowdon massif about four miles east of Caernarfon, which was listed by the 2011 census as having 87.8% of its population able to speak Welsh - the highest proportion of any ward in the principality. However, once the 2021 census came out Llanrug lost that title to Hendre ward in Caernarfon, which is 91.0% Welsh-speaking; Llanrug came in second, at 90.0%.

With a population of just under 2,000, Llanrug is big enough to support a secondary school, Ysgol Brynrefail, with over 700 pupils on the roll. Notable people who studied at Ysgol Brynrefail include the rugby player Rhun Williams, who was the star player in the Wales Under-20 grand slam-winning team in 2016 and subsequently made 30 appearances for Cardiff Blues, but was forced to retire from rugby at 22 due to injury. Two knights of the realm, the Chief Bard Sir T H Parry-Williams and the cycling coach Sir David Brailsford, also went to school in Llanrug, as did the former Welsh MEP Eurig Wyn.

Wyn served in the European Parliament from 1999 to 2004 as a member of Plaid Cymru, who are the dominant political force in this corner of North Wales. Llanrug is part of the Senedd constituency of Gwynedd Maldwyn, where Plaid won four out of six seats at May’s election: they polled 44% of the vote to 28% for Reform UK, who won the other two seats. The local Westminster seat is Dwyfor Meirionnydd, represented since 2015 by Liz Saville Roberts who has led the Plaid Cymru group in Westminster for nine years.

The Dwyfor Meirionnydd constituency covers the majority of Gwynedd council, where Plaid Cymru have a large overall majority: they won 44 out of 69 seats in 2022 and gained a by-election in Criccieth from an independent councillor in 2024.

Like Pembrokeshire above, Gwynedd council has a problem with unopposed elections with 28 of the 69 councillors being elected in 2022 without having to face the electorate at all. They included Llanrug ward’s Plaid Cymru councillor Beca Brown, who had won a contested by-election in March 2021; I described her then as “a Llanrug community councillor currently working for SaySomethinginWelsh, an online language teachers’ firm”. Brown has now gone on to greater things by being elected to the Senedd: she was in third place on the Plaid list for Gwynedd Maldwyn two months ago.

Defending the resulting by-election for Plaid Cymru is Dewi Evans, a fairly recent recruit to the party who previously turned up in this column in October 2024. On that occasion he was the Wales Green Party candidate for a by-election in Llanberis, and he tried the sneaky trick of using the Welsh-only ballot paper description “Plaid Werdd Cymru”, but intending Plaid Cymru voters were not fooled. Opposing Evans in this by-election are Stacie Ingham for the Conservatives, Sue Macfarlane for the Greens, Linda Park for the Lib Dems, independent candidate Rhys Parry (who uses the Welsh-only ballot paper description “Annibynnol”, and was a candidate for the Isle of Anglesey council in 2022), and Terry Temple for Reform UK.

Westminster constituency: Dwyfor Meirionnydd
Senedd constituency: Gwynedd Maldwyn
Postcode district: LL55

Dewi Evans (PC)
Stacie Ingham (C)
Sue Macfarlane (Grn)
Linda Park (LD)
Rhys Parry (Ind)
Terry Temple (RUK)

May 2022 PC unopposed
Previous results in detail

Flintshire council, North Wales; caused respectively by the death of Liberal Democrat councillor Hilary McGuill and by the resignation of independent councillor Bernie Attridge.

Today’s surfeit of Welsh council by-elections concludes in the north-east of the county, with two polls to rather different wards of Flintshire council. Up in the Clwydian hills we find the ward of Argoed and New Brighton, which covers a pair of villages located to the west of Buckley and to the east of the former county town of Mold. (Flintshire council quit the County Hall in Mold last year and is now based in Ewloe.) The name Argoed refers to the community council which has the same boundaries as the ward, but the largest centre of population is the village of Mynydd Isa on the Mold-Buckley road; New Brighton lies just to the north of here.

Rather different in character is the town of Connah’s Quay, which is actually the largest settlement in Flintshire by population but goes to a lot of effort to hide its light under a bushel. Although Connah’s Quay lies on the North Wales Coast railway line, there is no railway station here. The Quay is not recognised as a town by the Royal Mail, which identifies every address in the local CH5 postcode district as part of the “Deeside” post town. The area was sufficiently under English control in the 11th century to be listed in the Domesday Book, but that was under its previous name of “Wepre”. The Connah of the modern name was James Connah, an eighteenth-century industrialist, and the Quay was spawned by the Industrial Revolution to replace the port of Chester further up the Dee, which had silted up.

But the quay at Connah’s Quay has itself succumbed to the silt deposited here by the River Dee. Indeed, the Dee Estuary itself now contains a lot of reclaimed land and saltmarsh. The England-Wales border and the other administrative boundaries here were clearly drawn before the estuary silted up and they now make no sense whatsoever on the ground, and one effect of this is that Connah’s Quay Central ward crosses over what is now the channel of the Dee to take a narrow slice through the Deeside Industrial Park on the far side of the river. The ward boundary cuts straight through the Tata steelworks and the Shotton paper mill at an acute angle, and runs up to take in the Sealand rifle range next to the English border. And Connah’s Quay Central is not alone in this: there are nine other Flintshire wards which extend out into the estuary and saltmarsh in this bizarre manner, including two of the other three Connah’s Quay wards. No, I don’t understand it either.

The Deeside Industrial Park is a major employer in Connah’s Quay and clearly shows up in the town’s census return. Connah’s Quay Central is in the top 20 wards in England and Wales for residents employed in manufacturing (22.6%) and in the top 100 for routine occupations (25.0%). It is also in the top 10 wards in Wales for residents who were born in Bulgaria or Romania (4.0%), adults who have Level 1 or entry qualifications (1-4 GCSEs or equivalent, 12.8%) or adults who have Apprenticeship qualifications (8.2%). Argoed and New Brighton ward makes the top 100 wards in England and Wales for intermediate occupations (16.1%) and has high levels of owner-occupation.

These wards are in Labour-held Westminster seats. Argoed and New Brighton ward is part of the Clwyd East constituency represented by Labour backbencher Becky Gittins, while Connah’s Quay is the largest town in the Alyn and Deeside constituency which has returned government whip Sir Mark Tami to Parliament continuously since 2001.

Alyn and Deeside was the only constituency in North Wales which remained in Labour hands at the 2019 general election, and in May’s Senedd election the Fflint Wrecsam constituency which it is part of was the only constituency in North Wales to return a Labour MS: that was Ken Skates, who has taken over as the leader of Welsh Labour on an interim basis after Eluned Morgan lost her seat in the election. Vote shares here in May were 36% and two seats to Reform UK, 26% and two seats to Plaid Cymru, 13% and one seat to the Conservatives, and 12% and one seat to Labour. Argoed and New Brighton was included within the Clwyd Senedd constituency, which gave 32% and three seats to Reform UK, 28% and two seats to Plaid, 20% and one seat to the Conservatives whose Welsh leader Darren Millar was elected here, and 10% to Labour who missed out.

Whether this has much relevance to Flintshire council time will tell. Flintshire has been under no overall control since 2008 with large Labour and independent groups who have never quite been able to knock each other out. The 2022 election returned 31 Labour, 30 independent, 4 Lib Dem and 2 Conservative councillors; in by-elections since then Labour have gained one of the Conservative seats (in Brynford and Halkyn ward) and lost a seat to Reform UK (in Leeswood ward). The independents are not a united force, and there have been a lot of defections over the last four years: the council website currently lists 27 Labour councillors who run a minority administration, 9 councillors in the Independent group, 9 councillors in the True Independents group, 6 councillors in the Flintshire People’s Voice group, 5 Reform UK councillors, 3 Lib Dems plus the Argoed and New Brighton vacancy, 3 councillors in the Eagle group, 2 “Independent (Unattached)” councillors, 1 Conservative and the vacancy in Connah’s Quay Central ward.

The latter vacancy is in respect of long-serving councillor Bernie Attridge, who called it a day last month after 22 years’ service. Attridge was first elected for Connah’s Quay Central ward in 2004, winning unopposed as a Labour candidate, and he rose to become deputy leader of Flintshire council. He was sacked from that post in 2019 and quit the Labour Party shortly afterwards, being re-elected in 2022 as an independent councillor; Connah’s Quay Central was a straight fight between Labour and independents in 2022, with Attridge topping the poll and the independent slate winning by 66-34. Bernie Attridge had also fallen foul of the Adjudication Panel for Wales during his career, and he was suspended as a councillor for four months in 2024 for sending sexualised messages to a vulnerable constituent.

Argoed and New Brighton ward was created in 2022 by the merger of two previous single-member wards. Both of the predecessor wards had voted Liberal Democrat in Flintshire council elections for decades, and Hilary McGuill - who died in April at the age of 76 - was an even more long-serving councillor who was first elected for Argoed ward all the way back in 1999. In the combined ward in 2022 McGuill topped the poll at the head of the Lib Dem slate, which won 36% against 25% for Labour, 15% for Plaid Cymru and 15% for an independent candidate. The other Argoed and New Brighton ward councillor, Mared Eastwood, has since defected from the Lib Dems to the Eagle group.

We will soon see what all that means for these by-elections. Defending Argoed and New Brighton for the Lib Dems is Faron Hadfield-Jones: he is currently an Argoed community councillor, representing the Mynydd Isa half of this ward, and he runs a computer support firm. The Labour candidate is Peter Agnew. Plaid Cymru have reselected Jack Morris, who stood here in 2022; he also fought Alyn and Deeside in the 2021 Senedd election and the 2024 Westminster election. There is no independent candidate this time, so completing the Argoed and New Brighton ballot are Meilir Roberts for the Greens, Angela Hughes for Reform UK and Hazel Lynes for the Conservatives.

In Connah’s Quey Central two independent candidates have come forward, both of whom have previously stood for higher office: Edwin Duggan was an independent candidate for Alyn and Deeside in the 2024 Westminster election, finishing in seventh and last place but polling a relatively decent score for that position of 3.6%; while Andrew Williams, who declares recent Reform UK membership on his nomination papers, polled 0.6% as an independent candidate for Fflint Wrecsam in May’s Senedd election. The Labour candidate is Peter Davies. This time we do not have a straight fight, with challenges from Lee Lavery for the Greens, Dewi Parry for the Conservatives, Richard Pooley for Plaid Cymru and Reform UK’s Dave Vernon, who contested another Connah’s Quay ward in 2022. Vernon completes an all-male ballot of seven candidates.

Westminster constituency: Clwyd East
Senedd constituency: Clwyd
Postcode district: CH7

Peter Agnew (Lab)
Faron Hadfield-Jones (LD)
Angela Hughes (RUK)
Hazel Lynes (C)
Jack Morris (PC)
Meilir Roberts (Grn)

May 2022 result LD 845/843 Lab 577 PC 341 Ind 341 Grn 242
Previous results in detail

Westminster constituency: Alyn and Deeside
Senedd constituency: Fflint Wrecsam
Postcode district: CH5

Peter Davies (Lab)
Edwin Duggan (Ind)
Lee Lavery (Grn)
Dewi Parry (C)
Richard Pooley (PC)
Dave Vernon (RUK)
Andrew Williams (Ind)

May 2022 result Ind 780/626 Lab 403/308
Previous results in detail

Gateshead council, Tyne and Wear; caused by the resignation of Reform UK councillor Danielle Cavanagh.

Up in the North East of England, High Fell ward is aptly-named. It occupies high ground on the southern edge of Gateshead, around the summits of Sheriff Hill (167 metres) and Black Hill (151 metres). Sheriff Hill overlooks the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, which is the main general hospital for Gateshead and nearby towns; further along the Old Durham Road which links this ward together is the Cardinal Hume Catholic School, named after the late-20th century Archbishop of Westminster. Basil Hume was originally a Geordie.

High Fell ward makes the top 100 wards in England and Wales for social renting, at 46.2% of households, and it has a strongly working-class demographic profile. In other words, this is exactly the sort of Northern ward where Reform UK ran riot this year after decades of Labour representation - and Gateshead council got new ward boundaries this year, allowing Reform UK to win an overall majority on the council straight away. The 2026 Gateshead elections returned 38 Reform UK councillors against 13 Lib Dems, 12 Labour and 3 Greens.

Labour had never failed to poll an absolute majority of the vote in High Fell ward in the period 2004-24, but second-place finishes for UKIP in 2014 and 2015 had demonstrated the potential for the radical right here: and in 2026 High Fell elected the Reform UK slate with 45% of the vote against 29% for Labour and 14% for the Greens. The local Labour MP Mark Ferguson, a former editor of the website LabourList who was elected in 2024 for the Gateshead Central and Whickham constituency, must be looking at these results with some concern.

The ruling Reform UK group on Gateshead council have immediately found themselves one woman down, after High Fell ward councillor Danielle Cavanagh handed in her notice just ten days after her election. She cited rapidly-expanding business commitments for her resignation. Cavanagh was elected in second place here in May, so the winner of this by-election will take over a two-year term ending in 2028.

Defending this seat for Reform UK is Lindsay Atkinson, who stood in May in Whickham South and Sunniside ward. He is the chair of the party’s Gateshead Central and Whickham branch, which appears to have bullied one of their Gateshead council cabinet members into not taking their special responsibility allowance for this year in order to offset the cost to the council of this by-election. The Labour candidate is Kathryn Walker, a retired financial services professional who is seeking to get straight back onto the council after losing her seat here in May: Walker previously represented this ward from 2023 to 2026. Standing for the Greens is Lee Turner, who was an unsuccessful candidate in May in Windy Nook and Whitehills ward. Also on the High Fell ballot are Jonathan Aibi for the Lib Dems, Elaine Brunskill for the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (who actually finished second here back in 2012), and former Northumberland councillor Barry Flux for the Conservatives.

Parliamentary constituency: Gateshead Central and Whickham
Postcode district: NE9

Jonathan Aibi (LD)
Lindsay Atkinson (RUK)
Elaine Brunskill (TUSC)
Barry Flux (C)
Lee Turner (Grn)
Kathryn Walker (Lab)

May 2026 result RUK 1133/1098/1071 Lab 718/679/624 Grn 346/325/272 LD 231/224/197 TUSC 89
Previous results in detail

South Lanarkshire council, Scotland; caused by the death of Labour councillor Lesley McDonald.

We finish for the week with our Scottish by-election, which is on the southern edge of the Central Belt. For road travellers up the M74 motorway from Carlisle, Larkhall is the first significant town they will pass on the descent into Glasgow. There is also a rail link from here to the big city thanks to the 2005 reopening of Larkhall railway station, which is on a branch of the Argyle line into Glasgow Central low level; Larkhall ward also includes Merryton station, the stop before the terminus.

The town lies on high ground between the River Clyde to the east and the Avon Water to the west. Downstream from Larkhall, the Avon descends into a wooded and steep-sided gorge which is part of the Chatelherault country park. Larkhall ward takes in the western side of the gorge, including the picturesque ruin of Cadzow Castle.

Larkhall has a reputation for sectarianism even by the standards of Lanarkshire. It is a strongly Protestant, Orange and Rangers-supporting town, to the extent that local shopkeepers avoid having shopfronts in the green colours of Celtic. To this day the branch of Subway on the main street has a black sign rather than the usual green, while at one point South Lanarkshire council placed every green traffic light in Larkhall behind a metal grille after spending £17,000 in three years repairing green lenses which had been smashed by vandals.

All this came to wider attention last year thanks to the Scottish Parliament by-election in the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse constituency, after the seat’s Scottish National Party MSP Christina McKelvie died in 2025. The Holyrood poll thirteen months ago was gained by Labour candidate Davy Russell, who grew up within this ward in the mining village of Quarter; he finished at the top of a close three-way result ahead of the SNP and Reform UK. Russell ended up serving in Holyrood for less than a year, as he lost his seat in May to the SNP’s Alex Kerr who had once worked for Christina McKelvie. Kerr has served since 2022 as a Glasgow city councillor for Baillieston ward; under Scottish local government law he can see out the last year of his term, but he will not be able to seek re-election to the council in 2027.

In Westminster Larkhall is part of the Hamilton and Clyde Valley constituency represented since 2024 by Labour MP Imogen Walker, who had previously been a Lambeth councillor from 2006 to 2018 - representing Stockwell ward, and serving for the last four years of that period as deputy leader of that council. Walker was appointed to the Whips office last year, but one wonders whether she will remain in favour once the Starmer régime comes to an end: her husband is Morgan McSweeney.

South Lanarkshire council currently has a Labour minority administration. The 2022 elections here returned 24 Labour councillors against 27 for the SNP, 7 Conservatives, 3 Lib Dems, 2 independents and 1 Green councillor. Labour took a by-election off the SNP in East Kilbride West ward in 2023, while two Conservative councillors have walked off to join Reform UK and one SNP councillor has become independent.

The Larkhall ward elects four members of South Lanarkshire council, and Labour have topped the poll here and won two out of four seats at all four previous elections since proportional representation was introduced for Scottish councils in 2007. First preferences here in 2022 were 33% and two seats for Labour, 29% and one seat for the SNP, and 25% and one seat for the Conservatives; recounting the votes for a single seat would have given the lead Labour candidate Andy Carmichael a lopsided 61-39 win over the SNP’s Ross Clark.

Labour are defending this by-election to replace their second councillor Lesley McDonald following her death in April. McDonald was first elected for this ward in 2007 as a Scottish National Party councillor, but she defected to Labour in the 2012-17 term and stood for re-election under her new colours in 2017; on that occasion she lost her seat to the Conservatives. In 2022 McDonald returned to the council by defeating long-serving Labour councillor Jackie Burns, who stood for re-election as an independent candidate, polled 10% of the first preferences and finished as runner-up.

We have a rather short ballot paper for the resulting by-election with just four candidates standing. Defending for Labour is Chris Roarty, a support worker who has resorted to Crowdfunder to raise money for his campaign. Roarty previously appeared in this column in June 2021 as the Labour candidate for a North Lanarkshire by-election in Murdostoun ward; his mother Louise Roarty is the depute leader of North Lanarkshire council where she represents that ward. The SNP, who will recover their position as the council’s largest party if they gain this by-election, have selected Leigh Payne who stood in 2022 in the neighbouring Avondale and Stonehouse ward. Another Avondale and Stonehouse 2022 candidate who has turned up here is the Conservatives’ Gary Burns, who stood in the 2024 Westminster election as the Tory candidate for Rutherglen. And completing the Larkhall ballot is Reform UK’s Fiona McDermott.

Next week will be a little quieter with a mere nine polls taking place, including a county-wide by-election for Norfolk Police and Crime Commissioner. Stay tuned for that.

Westminster constituency: Hamilton and Clyde Valley
Holyrood constituency: Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse
Postcode districts: ML3, ML8, ML9, ML10

Gary Burns (C)
Fiona McDermott (RUK)
Leigh Payne (SNP)
Chris Roarty (Lab)

May 2022 first preferences Lab 2043 SNP 1788 C 1518 Ind 639 LD 148 Libertarian 36 UKIP 21
May 2017 first preferences Lab 2503 SNP 1755 C 1645 Grn 161 LD 102 UKIP 80
Previous results in detail

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Andrew Teale