A Light-hearted Reflection on some Election Results. A Tale of Two Mayors.

Readers will be aware that a former mayor of Newham, on Robin Wales recently stood as the Labour candidate, for the post of Police and Crime Commissioner in rural Suffolk. Alas, for Labour, Wales was unsuccessful in his bid to overturn a 50,000-vote majority. He did however, see a substantial swing to Labour, reducing the majority to just over 11,000. (Con 40.2%; Lab 31.6%.)

So, a creditable showing for Newham’s former mayor. 

Wales previously oversaw the Labour mayoralty in Newham winning with significant majorities 2002, 2006, 2010 and 2014. Arguably his record set the conditions for the astounding mayoral vote in 2018, which subsequently took a dive in 2022, after Fiaz had been in office for four years, with her share of the vote dropping by almost 20 points to the lowest in 18 years.

Fiaz has more recently seen the rise of both the Greens and The Independent Group with the former taking all of the new ward of Stratford Olympic Park, and the latter humiliating Labour in two byelections with swings of over 30% against Labour.

As we said, an interesting, if unscientific, reflection on the performance of two mayors.