Brilliant Basingstoke and Deane Election Results.

Dear Friends,

Wow! What an excellent set of election results. Overall around the country the Liberal Democrats gained hundreds of seats and control of five councils including Gosport in Hampshire. Whilst we had no elections in Test Valley this May, on the other side of the constituency in Basingstoke and Deane council we did have some elections. I was lucky enough to be invited to the count where I saw our hard campaigning work pay off. We won both the Tadley seats (Tadley and Pamber; Tadley North, Kingsclere and Baughurst). Well done to newly elected councillors Jo Slimin and newbie Kerry Morrow respectively.

Congratulations to Linda Stepney and Lucy Sloane Williams who came second in Whitchurch, Overton and Laverstoke (pushing the Conservatives into third place), and Pauleen Malone who yet again came a very strong runner-up in Evingar. They all produced good results and did the Lib Dems proud.

Many thanks to the hard work of the candidates and activists who supported them. I was delighted to do some campaigning work on their behalf. At the count, I was even more happy to see our local Tory MP and Boris acolyte, Kit Malthouse, looking far from happy at the results.

Further afield, in the Southampton bit which is in the constituency to our south, Romsey and Southampton North, Richard Blackman won Bassett and became the first Lib Dem councillor for over a decade in Southampton. After a massive effort we beat the Tories into second place by 700 votes!

Next year we will have all up local elections in Test Valley, and elections by thirds in Basingstoke and Deane. As always, we will be looking forward to support from you in terms of candidates and campaigning.

As I recently pointed out to one of our long-term supporters, unlike the Tories who get donations from extremely wealthy individuals and companies, many of them developers, and Labour who is subsidised by the trade unions, Liberal Democrats are very much reliant on individual donations from people like you - our members and supporters.

Regards

Luigi Gregori

Lib Dem Parliamentary Spokesperson for North West Hants