Looking at the four wards that cover most of West Ealing there has been a clear swing to Labour in the 2014 local election. The most striking being Walpole which went from being all Conservative for the last two elections to now being all Labour. Northfields remains all Conservative whilst Elthorne which had one Labour, one Conservative and one Liberal Democrat is now all Labour. Lastly, Cleveland has gone from all Conservative to only one Conservative and two Labour. In all, Labour considerably increased its majority on the Council with the Conservatives falling by half from 24 to 12 councillors and the Liberal Democrats lost one councillor, Nigel Bakhai, on the Elthorne ward.
You can find the full results for all the wards here -but the site is running rather slowly at the moment.
A great shame that Nigel Bakhai lost his seat as he has worked tirelessly helping local people. I guess folks have not yet forgiven the LibDems for getting into bed with the Tories after the last General Election.
Also maybe the Tories got a kicking for planning to close Ealing Hospital and then lying about the fact that there were actually doing it. Maybe also this relentless taxing of the poor by the Coalition Government might well have upset many voters. Surprisingly the give away by Ealing Labour Party of 61 acres at Warren Farm to two Asian billionaires doesn’t seem to have registered with voters.
I would rather have had the coalition of two parties than a Labour-led coalition dependent on the votes of MPs from Northern Ireland. (Nothing against Northern Ireland, it’s a lovely place – holidayed there last year and would recommend it to anyone! Everyone was nice and the countryside was beautiful.)
I think the result goes down to Labour getting more people out to vote for them, regardless of whether they actually knew anything about the existing councillors. It highlights how flawed democracy is when an excellent local councillor, Nigel Bakhai, loses his seat on the council to some unproven new councillors. Nigel has been very helpful over the years in my local area, especially with regard to planning. He contributed greatly to the rejection of A2 Dominion’s unsuitable proposal for flats on the corner of the Uxbridge Road and Shirley Gardens. There have been numerous other occasions when he has helped. His communication has been reassuring, particularly when the Council itself does not respond to concerns – concerns which the Council itself acknowledges as valid. He was, and I hope will remain, approachable and accessible. Nigel won hundreds more votes than his Liberal Democrat colleagues, which is a testament to how well regarded he is within the community. If councillors could only run as independents he would probably have been re-elected on his personal vote. I am not a Liberal Democrat supporter but I voted for Nigel because I knew the community would be better with him on the council. I wish he was my MP, but I don’t see that happening with the current electoral boundaries and sentiment towards his party. Hopefully he will continue in his role as a community champion, keep his local councillors on their toes and working for the good of their constituents.
Like Eric, I also cannot understand how people can be happy with Ealing Council’s Warren Farm giveaway.
Full list of councilors by ward available here
Unfortunately, history tells us that in Southall, people tend to vote like sheep, never mind the credentials and ability to represent of candidates. So the failing candidates are back in.