Butler scores stunning victory for Labour

Labour's Alison Butler had a great result in the Bensham Manor by-election last night. The by-election was to fill a vacancy on Croydon Council caused by the resignation of Labour Co-op councillor Paula Shaw. Bensham Manor has for some time been one of Labour's safest seats in Croydon, so a victory was on the cards, but for Labour to increase its majority on a similar turnout to the last election was perhaps not predicted by everyone.

The full result was:

Butler, Lab - 1683, 61.6%
Taylor, Con - 617, 22.6%
Khan, Green - 240, 8.8%
Tyree, LibDem - 126, 4.6%
Feisenberger, UKIP - 40, 1.5%
Cartwright, OMRLP - 15, 0.5%
Samuel, People's Choice - 9, 0.3%

So a majority of over 1,000. In May 2006, Labour received a similar number of votes, but this represented 50% of the votes cast, and the Conservatives have gone down a little, with Taylor losing exactly 500 personal votes since he stood last year. The Greens had another relatively good performance with local lad Shasha Khan.

So congratulations Alison, and welcome back to the Council. Alison was previously cabinet member for housing and has helped thousands of people across north Croydon as head of Malcolm Wicks MP's constituency office, so she will make a great councillor for the area.