Conservatives hold Shropshire Council, but no room for complacency
Philip Dunne explains why last week's Shropshire Council results leave no room for complacency when it comes to the General Election on 8th June.
"Last Thursday, voters in Shropshire went to the polls to have their say on who they wanted to best represent them at Shirehall. I had been out supporting our excellent Conservative candidates across the Ludlow Constituency, and was delighted with the positive response on the doorstep.
The results were announced in Shrewsbury on Friday morning for the entire county. I was pleased that all those well known Conservative candidates standing for re-election in wards within the Ludlow Constituency held their seats, demonstrating the hard work they had put in as Councillors over the last four years.
But the stand-out result was the success of our candidate in Broseley, Simon Harris, in being elected to Shropshire Council – winning a seat which Labour had held for over thirty years. Simon, who has been mayor of Broseley Town Council for the last two years, is a well-known and well-liked local candidate. He has done a great job as Mayor and am sure he will do a fantastic job representing Broseley at Shirehall.
I was also pleased Elliot Lynch, our new next generation candidate in Bridgnorth, retained the seat for the Conservatives following the retirement of hard working John Hurst-Knight, a longstanding councillor representing the town.
Overall, the Conservatives retained control of the Council, with an additional seat. This means the Council is now represented (with changes to the 2013 Council in brackets) by 49 Conservatives (+1), 12 Liberal Democrats, 8 Labour (-1), 4 Independents (-1) and 1 Green (+1).
Across England Conservatives won four of the eight close fought Mayoral contests, including the knife edge outcome in the West Midlands. Across Britain Conservatives gained 563 council seats, mostly at the expense of Labour (who lost 382 seats) and UKIP (losing 145 seats). While this is clearly encouraging, as election pundits pointed out in Sunday's papers, much of the success against Labour was in broadly Conservative areas, so reinforcing presence rather than winning Labour councils. We clearly still have 'a mountain to climb' based on purely extrapolating the local election results we have seen last week.
Pollsters were wrong about the last General Election, the EU referendum, the US Presidential Election, and the chances of Jeremy Corbyn even becoming leader. So we really can take nothing for granted. The coming General Election will have a lasting impact on our country.
In just 32 days, the country must choose between the credible leadership of Theresa May, or the dangerous shambles of Jeremy Corbyn propped up by the Lib Dems, Greens and SNP in a hung Parliament. So I am taking not a single vote for granted and am redoubling my efforts across the Ludlow Constituency, highlighting the need for strong, stable leadership in the national interest, to see us through the tough Brexit negotiations ahead."
ENDS