nmg | Swaythling Ward Results (Reply)

Diana Jane ODGERS	Conservative Party	1215
Andrew Michael WILSON	Labour Party	504
Anne Mary Patricia WORK	Liberal Democrats	711
Christopher Francis BLUEMEL	Green Party	256
Rejected Ballot Papers		8
Electorate		9466
Turnout		28.5%

This represents a loss for the Libdems and a gain for the Tories; the returns at the last election for this ward were otherwise quite similar (Lib 975, Con 681, Lab 457, Green 260). The city council is No Overall Control.

The Tory campaign was distinguished by being largely anonymous (a series of flyers for meetings of concerned residents) and focussed on a NIMBYish opposition to a transit site for travellers on the edge of the ward. I wouldn't go quite so far to say that it was a dirty campaign, but it veered close to ad hominem in places and played heavily on unreasonable fears, rather than presenting a positive manifesto.

The Libdems produced exactly the sort of reasonable campaign I'd expect from them, but they necessarily had to rebut the Tory scaremongering.

I didn't see any material from the Labour candidate, who was previously the SU president, and ran a campaign aimed solely at students (the ward contains three halls of residence). I'm quite disappointed at the local Labour party for allowing such a minority interest candidate to stand in their name; the sole presence I saw for him was on Facebook (login required, alas). His election poster here rather beggars belief. He failed to respond to any of my questions on broader ward issues, so I'm quite glad that he wasn't elected. He doesn't seem to have substantially increased the Labour share of the vote, in any case.

Finally, I neither saw, nor expected to see any campaign flyers from the Green candidate. In this at least I was not disappointed.