Friday, May 05, 2006

Tory victory in Tooting

Well, my ward - the Tooting ward in Wandsworth has been Labour held since time immemorial, apparently. When the election campaign began, I didn't think the three Conservative candidates had a great chance, but I did think they could make progress against Labour's margin of victory - significant progress.

Well, they did better than that. Two won last night - Susan Richards and Alex Jacob. Unfortunately, Matthew Maxwell Scott - only just missed it with little more than 50 votes fewer than Alex garnered. He was the victim, I'm afraid, of where his name appeared on the ballot. Susan's legal name is Susan John-Richards. She doesn't use that, but that's what appeared on the ballot. That meant that Susan's and Alex's name appeared next to each other on the alphebetically listed ballot and Matthew was a couple of names away. Too many people unthinkingly went tick-tick-tick, voting for Alex and Susan and the person above or below them on the list.

Stuart King, the Labour group leader in Wandsworth Borough and Tooting councillor lost his seat last night. Nick Bowes, Labour won a seat last night.

Congratulations to Susan and Alex. Commiserations to Matthew. They all worked hard and really well together. I'm proud to be represented by them and look forward to watching Matthew's political career in future.

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