I have just looked at the BBC website where they have a scoreboard of Council seat gains and losses and it is presently showing Conservative net gains of 898 seats. I say presently because for reasons I am unaware of it seems there are still two Councils left to declare! I seem to recall that prior to Thursday the pundits were all saying that a good result for the Conservatives would be in the region of 500/600 net gains.
I have had a fairly quiet day with just one meeting with my Constituency Chairman. I have had an opportunity to study the national results and our own local results in detail. The Conservatives were nearly 4,000 votes ahead in terms of the actual votes cast across the Borough. If just 106 Labour voters had voted Conservative in the three most marginal Labour held seats then the Conservatives would have secured an overall majority. Our Council Candidates have all worked tremendously hard and I am sure those who were not successful will feel extremely disappointed.
At least all our Candidates actually had votes cast in their favour, let us spare a thought for the Conservative Candidate in the New Trimdon and Trimdon Grange Ward in the Prime Minister’s Constituency of Sedgefield one Shirley Bowes. Mrs Bowes unfortunately failed to secure a single vote. Well at least the voters had a choice and from there the only way is up.