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Elections | News Lib Dems down but not out Comment By Stephen Eighteen
PERHAPS the significant Lib Dem vote in Maidstone Council elections will never collapse. That might
Cllr Fran Wilson
well be the re- signed view in the Conserva- tive camp be- cause, if Fran Wilson's group could not be dismantled in the elections of 2015,
the prospect of it
happening any time soon looks very slim. Two key ingredients were in
place for the Conservatives to take back the undisputed control of the council they relinquished last year. The first was that the borough council poll was conducted along- side a general election, which tradi- tionally brings out a high number of voters who do not engage with the council process and simply vote for the dominant parties nationally. The second is related to the first:
the Lib Dem vote in the general election did not so much fall off a cliff as somersault out of an aero- plane at 15,000 metres. Ameaslysumof eightMPswear-
ing rosettes emblazoned with that odd mix of yellow and orange (can anyone tell me which colour it is? – let- ters to the editor, please) remain in Parliament. One of these was emphatically
not Jasper Gerard, who worked his socks off for two years and was standing in the Lib Dems’ sole tar- get seat for Kent.Hewas backed by visits from heavyweights such as the then leader Nick Clegg and a predecessor, Paddy Ashdown. Yet he still received little more
than half the share of votes won by Helen Grant, who held Maidstone and The Weald for the Conserva- tives. This resultwas declared early on
Friday morning, so you could have forgiven Cllr Wilson for fearing a doomsday scenario later that day when the council tallies were an- nounced. But no. Nineteen seats were up
for grabs and by teatime the Lib Dems still had the 20 councillors with which they had begun the
day. The Conservatives could only add one, to end with 25, so were unable to form a controlling major- ity.
With Cllr Annabelle Blackmore,
the leader of the council and a Con- servative, polling more than 2,000 votes to comfortably hold her seat in Marden and Yalding, it was the next most senior member on the council, Cllr Wilson, who almost became the biggest casualty of the election. Crosses on the Thursday were
split virtually 50-50 between her and the Conservative, SamWatkin, in High Street ward. But postal votes proved decisive and CllrWil- son ultimatelywonthe tussle 1,098- 979.
ConservativeMikeHoggwas the highest-profile loser, in Southward, but a defeat by Cllr Brian Clark, al- ready a Lib Dem member on KCC, was no disgrace. Ukip's local fortunes echoed their national problems. While the deci- sion by Nigel Farage to backtrack on his resignation as leader was bound to backfire, so did the bizarre idea to stop Eddie Powell from defending the seat he won a year ago in Harrietsham and
Lenham. Mr Powell
Ukip’s Eddie Powell
lives in Harri- etsham and had been praised by all sides – Conser- vatives, Lib Dems and resi- dents in his ward – for his hard work and
principled approach in the previous 12 months. His “reward”was being turfed out to Allington, a Lib Dem stronghold, while Mike Williams stood in Harrietsham and Lenham. Both candidates were nowhere
close to challenging, polling little more than 1,300 votes between them. Unlike last year, when Ukip took four seats – their first ever wins in Maidstone – this time the electorate seemed to ignore party lines and national sentiments and backed thosewhohad shown proof or promise of strong local represen- tation. This mindset is good for democ-
racy and a godsend for the Lib Dems on a day when divine inter- vention cared mainly for the boys and girls in blue.
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