16/12/2011

Labour Win Feltham By-Election

Labour has retained a parliamentary seat in west London in a by-election on Thursday evening.

Seema Malhotra held Feltham and Heston achieving an eight percent swing from the Conservatives, with more than 12,600 votes, representing 54% of the overall vote and 6,203 votes ahead rival, Conservative party candidate Mark Bowen.

However, the turnout of 28.8% was the lowest in more than a decade.

Speaking after her win, Malhotra said: "This result is a great victory for Labour which shows the progress we are making under Ed Miliband's leadership, a vote of confidence in the way Labour is changing, listening hard, winning back the trust of the people we seek to serve.

"But this is also a wake-up call for David Cameron. This result shows how this Tory led government is totally out of touch."

The by-election followed the death of Labour MP Alan Keen last month.

Meanwhile, signalling the free-fall of Lib Dem support, their candidate Roger Crouch won just 6% of the votes, down eight percentage points from the 2010 election.

The Labour win is in contrast to opinion polls earlier this week that showed the Conservatives had overtaken Labour in the country as a whole, after David Cameron's popularity was buoyed by his veto of the European Union treaty.

(DW)

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