UK Election Results

It won’t come as a surprise that the elections for Police and Crime Commissioners had the lowest turnout of eligible voters in UK history! The lowest turnout was in Staffordshire where only 11.6% of the voting population turned out to vote, the highest turnout was still extremely low, 20% in Northamptonshire.

The election turned out surprisingly well for the Conservatives, despite trailing the Labour Party in all polls of a national general election, they managed to win 16 of the PCC posts to Labour’s 13. Unfortunately for the Liberal Democrats the result was even worse as none of their candidates were elected, yet the surprise winner of the election were independents who won in 12 of the races!

Although Labour will be disappointed with the PCC election results, they should not read too much into them. Firstly turnout was historically low, and there was apathy even amongst those who did vote. More importantly is that many people did not vote on party lines (this is likely the reason for independents doing so well), people felt that it mattered less what party they were from and more about what history they had with the police and crime. Despite this disappointment there were more important posts available, three by elections took place on the same day and Labour managed to win in all three. The most prominent was the Corby by-election; the seat had been left open by Louise Mensch when she resigned earlier this year, Labour took back the seat with a massive 21.8% margin! This election bodes well for the next general election, but a lot can change in three years!