The sky is still blue over Woking

From my current distance in Liverpool it looks like an interesting night from a local politics view point in Woking.

From the share of the electorate the results were as follows: ( Note some seats Labour could field no candidate - which was also the case for UKIP ).

Conservative: 47%
Lib Dems: 44%
Labour: 5% (!!!!!)
UKIP: 4%

The failure of Labour to put up a candidate in Knaphill helped the Lib Dems win that seat. They also won in Maybury and Shearwater. Yet they lost both Philip Goldenberg (standing for a different seat at this election than his current seat - unless there are two people with the same name )and Anne Marie Barker. The Woking News and Mail reports that Mr Goldenburg left the count before the results were announced. Whilst it is said that some in his party thought this let his party down, I think you can have more sympathy since few people who haven't been candidates understand the emotion of putting yourself forward for judgment by the voters. IOt should be remebered that Mr Goldenburgh has work hard for many years in service of the public, election night can be brutal.

The Lib Dems - shameless as ever - can only see things in terms of their hobby - politics. Their web site claims they were just 109 votes from overall control. What this missed is that the Conservatives were well ahead in terms of the popular vote and that they got close mostly down to a poor Labour showing - helpfully not standing in Knaphill. I doubt it will make their infamous bar charts !

Control would then be determined by which party had the mayor - which would then lose control ! ( Perversely ). Still thankfully this hasn't happened.

Since Labour will most likely recover at least a little this has to put Woking beyond the grasp of the Lib Dems at the next general election.

But politics in Woking is going to be on a knife edge over the next year.

Update: Who am I kidding - of course it'll be on one of their dodgy bar charts. They always select whatever election results they want. Of course since Labour didn't stand for a number of the seats this is no true measure of Labour support. Just looking at the seats they did stand in ( which are perhaps self selecting as ones they expect to do OK in - or don't need to help the Lib Dems in ) they got 9%.