Convincing Lib Dem victory in North Road

Tonight's result in the Darlington Borough Council North Road Ward by-election was a convincing win for the Lib Dems, losing just a handful of votes to the Independent candidate, a former Lib Dem councillor in the ward.

The result in full:
Anne-Marie Curry (Lib Dem) 561 (50.8%) (-4.2%)
Labour 262 (23.7%) (-0.0%)
Conservative 115 (10.4%) (-1.0%)
BNP 106 ( 9.6%) (-0.3%)
Independent 60 ( 5.4%) (+5.4%)
Turnout 24%
Figures based on top placed candidate from each party in May 2007.

Just 519 votes were cast on the day: 53% of those who voted did so by post.

The result is a vindication of the hard work put into the ward by Cllr Fred Lawton and myself. We are absolutely delighted that Anne-Marie will be joining our team, which will be all the stronger for her presence.

Darlington Liberal Democrats campaigned hard to win, with four leaflets, blue ink letters and a full canvass and polling day operation. Thanks are due to our friends in Redcar, and DF and CFW, for their help during the campaign and to all our members and supporters who delivered and canvassed in inclement weather on cold, dark evenings.

One Labour councillor complained that our strategy of delivering one leaflet each week during the campaign was excessive and brought the democratic process into disrepute. How stupid some people are! The Labour Party actually got their first leaflet out before us - no doubt aware before we were that Cllr Jones was about to be expelled from the Council. I imagine that a few days canvassing in the ward was enough to tell them they couldn't win, so they ran just a token campaign thereafter.

Of course, Labour would prefer it if voters' view of the world was informed by the "Town Crier". It must be so annoying for them that we deliver Focus so that our local residents are better informed about local affairs.

No, what brings the democratic process into disrepute is not the Liberal Democrats delivering a leaflet once a week during an election campaign: it's the Labour Party stifling democratic debate by refusing to devolve any decision-making to ward level and insisting that only they know best what the people of Darlington want.