Reading East Conservative Association thanks all our members and supporters for their help and support over the past months. We are also grateful to our candidates who worked very hard and we congratulate them on fighting positive campaigns.Although the official campaign was only four weeks long, we began knocking on doors, delivering leaflets and carrying out street-surgeries last June. The election campaign is really just the final lap: the dash for the line in an otherwise almost continuous marathon.
Across the country, the Conservative Party was punished for the decisions forced upon it by Gordon Brown’s years of profligacy. After the party years of cheap credit, the debtfuelled crisis has forced us to tighten our belts and that is never as much fun.
In Reading Borough we retained three seats, welcoming two excellent new councillors to our bench. Ed Hopper will represent Thames ward and Jane Stanford-Beale, Peppard. Isobel Ballsden was elected to Mapledurham as Fred Pugh retired. In all our majorities were comfortable. In Peppard, where the campaign was heated by an Independent, the Labour vote was actually down on last year. This was the same in Thames. Labour moved against the Liberal Democrats and gained in marginals but lost ground elsewhere. They certainly did not have everything their way.
In Wokingham it is the Liberal Democrats who are the main contenders. In both Loddon and Bulmershe & Whitegates the Liberal Democrats saw their majorities slashed and the distance between us and the winning post considerably foreshortened.
Across the constituency we took 30% of the vote, pretty much in line with the national average for the Conservatives. This is down on last year but must be set both against the national picture of a resurgent Labour Party and the peculiar local political scene of Reading. This is this interesting point. In a Borough which has been Labour controlled from its inception (barring a ten month Conservative-Lib Dem coalition), this is surely the real story of the elections. Despite everything, our vote was in line with the national average.
Two of our councillors give their views on their own websites
http://www.isobelballsdon.com/2012/05/moving-on-from-last-weeks-elections.html
http://richardwillisuk.wordpress.com/2012/05/05/reading-local-elections-2012/
ABBEY - Labour hold
Kirsten Bayes (Lib Dem) - 135
Alex Coleman (Con) - 354
Hazel Murphy (Green) - 230
Tony Page (Lab) - 1,140
Howard Thomas (Common Sense) - 87
CAVERSHAM - Labour gain
Richard Davies (Lab and Co-op) - 1,258
Jenny Hicks (Green) - 265
Dave Luckett (Con) - 880
Jenny Woods (Lib Dem) - 168
CHURCH - Labour gain
Annette Hendry (Lib Dem) - 94
Azam Janjua (Con) - 700
Vivienne Johnson (Green) - 134
Kim Maysh (Common Sense) - 79
Eileen McElligott (Lab) - 1,029
KATESGROVE - Labour gain
Janel Blattler (Lib Dem) - 257
Richard Robson (Con) - 237
James Towell (Green) - 157
Michael Turberville (Ind) - 42
Rose Williams (Lab) - 890
MAPLEDURHAM - Conservative hold
Isobel Ballsdon (Con) - 695
Chris Burdon (Lib Dem) - 111
Dougie Coulter (Green) - 103
Ashley Pearce (Lab) - 136
PARK - Green gain
Rachael Chrisp (Lab) - 1,094
Hoyte Swager (Lib Dem) - 54
Laurence Taylor (Con) - 279
Jamie Whitham (Green) - 1,246
PEPPARD - Conservative WIN
David Absolom (Lab) - 434
Mustafa Chaudhary (Lib Dem) - 297
Jamie Chowdhary (Ind) - 789
Kate Day (Green) - 210
Jane Stanford-Beale (Con) - 1,090
REDLANDS - Labour gain
Robert Booth (Green) - 251
Tony Jones (Lab) - 1,032
Leo Lester (Con) - 273
James Moore (Lib Dem) - 425
THAMES - Conservative hold
Duncan Bruce (Lab and Co-op) - 625
John Dickson (Ind) - 322
Ed Hopper (Con) - 1,266
Helen McNamara (Green) - 311
Guy Penman (Lib Dem) - 282
Bulmershe & Whitegates - Lib Dem
HOLD
Greg Bello (Labour) (750)
Lesley Hayward (Lib Dem) (976)
Bill Khan (UKIP) (137)
Mohammed Parvaiz (660)
Adrian Windisch (Green) (106)
Loddon - Lib Dem HOLD
Tom Clark (Labour) (303)
Tom McCann (Lib Dem) (846)
Bill Soane (Conservative) (751)
Julia Titus (Green) (132