Liberal Democrats Take Hampton Seat From Michael Howard's Unpopular Tories

11.11.44am BST (GMT +0100) Fri 8th Oct 2004

Suzette Nicholson, the Liberal Democrat candidate, swept to victory in the Hampton Ward by-election on Thursday 7 October, with a majority of 558. She beat the Conservative candidate, Stuart Leamy, by a significant margin of votes to take the council seat. The Labour candidate, Kanbar Hosseinbar, was a distant third with just 3% of the vote.

The results were:

Suzette Nicholson, Lib Dem, 1669 votes; 58%

Stuart Leamy, Conservative, 1111 votes; 38%

Kanbar Hosseinbor, Labour, 101 votes. 3%

As the Lib Dem members cheered, claiming that the majority was beyond their wildest dreams, Councillor Nicholson thanked the people of Hampton for their support in voting for her. This is the third seat that the Liberal Democrats have taken from the Conservatives since 2002 plus only last month Cranfield-Adams defected from the Conservatives to the Lib Dems.

The election had a 42% turnout, this was due to the intense campaign that the political parties ran plus the superb support by the Online Communities Websites, who ran an online hustings as they did in 2001 and 2002.