Latest By-Election Results

At last, there seems to be some moderately good news for the Tories - a 3.7% swing in our favour in the Washington East council seat, and a 5.5% swing in Dover Town.

However, as we all know, local election results very rarely give much of a clue to the general election result. Michael Howard achieved pretty much 40% in 2004, but stil only polled 32% in the 2005 GE.

Furthermore, let's examine the Westminster seats for these two towns (including projections after boundary revisions):

Washington and Sunderland West:

Labour 21507 59.98%
Lib. Dem. 6564 18.30%
Conservative 5787 16.14%
BNP 892 2.48%
Neil Herron, Ind 608 1.69%
Jim Batty, UKInd 479 1.33%
Mad Cow Girl Warner, Lny 18 0.05%
Total 35855 52.55%

Lab Majority 14943 41.68%

Dover:

Labour 21821 45.21%
Conservative 16891 35.00%
Lib. Dem. 7651 15.85%
UK Independence Party 1276 2.64%
Independent 607 1.25%
Howard Green, Grn 12 0.02%
Total 48258 67.52%

Lab Majority 4930 10.22%

So there we are. Dover certainly is winnable - indeed, it's probably one of the seats that would clinch a working Tory majority.