It was all about Reform this week, with the party defending both of the two vacant seats. After last week's surprise loss to the Greens, they were looking for a pair of holds and to prevent Polanski's crazy gang from hijacking their momentum. Both vacancies arose through resignations of incumbents elected last May, both ostensibly on health grounds. In Leicestershire the Reform councillor had been forced to issue a statement as to the motive for his departure, after it was linked to his poor attendance record. The Northumberland councillor had also been accused of poor attendance, in addition to a lack of engagement with local residents. Having confirmed he is being treated for kidney cancer, perhaps they could have cut him a little slack.
We expected podium finishes in Northumberland to go to Reform, the Conservatives and Greens, and probably in that order. We also predicted a narrow Tory gain in Leicestershire, but as it turned out we got the results the wrong way around. The narrow Tory gain actually came in Northumberland and Labour kept the Greens down in fourth place.
The Reform hold in Leicestershire was quite comfortable, with the party more than a thousand votes in front of the second placed Conservatives. The presence of Advance UK did nothing to dent Reform's performance, with their rivals finishing in last place with just 28 votes.
Results have been slow to appear this week as we were both attending a funeral on Friday.
Narborough & Whetstone, Leicestershire County Council
Ref: 1,033 (33.0%) -9.3%
Con: 927 (29.6%) +5.1%
Grn: 884 (28.2%) +13.4%
LDm: 134 (4.3%) -3.6%
Lab: 124 (4.0%) +4.8%
Adv: 28 (0.9%) New
Ref HOLD
Cramlington South West, Northumberland County Council
Con: 278 (34.2%) +9.0%
Ref: 212 (26.1%) -13.3%
Lab: 187 (23.0%) -5.8%
Grn: 116 (14.3%) New
Ind: 13 (1.6%) New
LDm: 7 (0.9%) New
Con GAIN from Ref
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