LibDem Success in Parliamentary By-elections

12.24.59pm BST (GMT +0100) Fri 16th Jul 2004

The Liberal Democrats won an astounding success in Leicester South, overturning a Labour majority of 13,243 to win by a margin of 1,654 votes. Parmjit Singh Gill is now the 55th LibDem Member of Parliament, following Sarah Teather's success in the Brent East by-election in September 2003, where she demolished a similar Labour majority to win the seat, after a successful LibDem campaign in the London constituency.

The result in Leicester South was LibDems: 10,274; Labour: 8,620; Conservative: 5,796; Respect: 3,724. The turnout was 41.6% and the huge swing away from Labour was further evidence of the lack of trust in Tony Blair (notable for his absence during both by-elections) and the Labour Party generally. In this by-election the Iraq War was a high profile issue. As a result, the Respect candidate benefited with 12.7% of the votes. However, the Conservatives can take no comfort from their performance, having claimed to be the main challengers, yet came a poor third in both by-elections.

In Birmingham Hodge Hill, where the previous Labour majority was 11,618, LibDem Nicola Davies just failed to win by 460 votes, despite a huge swing from Labour of over 27%. The Respect candidate was also campaigning on an anti-Iraq War stance, and gained 1,282 votes, saving their deposit but contributing to Labour's success. The result was Labour: 7,451; LibDems 6,991; Conservative: 3,543 on a 37.9% turnout. Labour dismissed the results as a minor setback, but a "crisis" for Michael Howard! The Conservatives said that the results showed how unpopular the government was, but ignored their own loss of percentage share!