Carlisle Labour party lose Botcherby council seat to an Independent

Commiserations to the excellent Conservative candidate Rob Currie who won 115 votes in the Botcherby by-election for Carlisle City Council yesterday. In the circumstances that was a good performance but not enough to win.

The by-election was caused by the sad death of a sitting Labour councillor.

Labour lost the seat to Independent candidate Jack Paton who won with over 50% of the vote in what has normally been a Labour ward. Congratulations to him.

The News and Star reports that the new Independent councillor recently led the transformation of a dilapidated building into a new base for Army cadets, with the conversion of a former hairdressers on Victoria Road and land behind it.

He has also previously campaigned on issues including buses in the area and on kerbs and pavements that he perceived as dangerous for wheelchair users.

A number of people on social media have blamed the result on Jeremy Corbyn who visited the area a few weeks ago.

I don't imagine that the pantomime put on by the national Labour leadership was any great help to the Labour candidate in the by-election, but I suspect that Carlisle Labour party might be wiser to examine their own management of Carlisle City Council over the past few years if they want to understand the reasons they lost the seat.

Comments

Jim said…
One of the problems of a London centric governement bubble, is that sadly people often do vote for someone on a local council seat, based on the performance of their party leaders in Westminster.

Personally I dont think this way, I an just commenting that a lot of people do. Others tend to feel some sort of misguided loyalty to a party they may not believe in themselves - you know the "my mother would turn in her grave" line.

Its sad and unfortunate the cause of this By-election, and I would like to pass my condolences to the family of Terry Scarborough.
4:40 pm
Chris Whiteside said…
Good point.

I doubt if this was primarily a national vote. You had good Conservative and Independent candidates in the election, and I think labour voters wanted to reward a hard-working member of the local community and send a message mainly to LOCAL Labour.
12:51 am
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