Lib Dems Perform Strongly in Elections

4.54.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Wed 10th Jun 2009

The Liberal Democrats continue to make great advances

Liberal Democrats advanced strongly in last Thursday's elections.

Achievements included:-

Local elections

• Achieved a record high vote share of 28 per cent (BBC projected national vote share)

• Beat Labour into third place

• Were the only one of the three main parties to increase our projected share from last year's local elections

• Won almost three times as many council seats as Labour (484 Liberal Democrat councillors to Labour's 178)

• Added Bristol to the list of major cities run by Liberal Democrats that also includes Cardiff, Liverpool, Newcastle, Sheffield and Edinburgh

• Won five of the six county seats in Burnley from Labour (the BNP won the sixth)

• Became the largest group on the new unitary Bedford Council

• Took three seats from the Conservatives and one from Labour on Essex County Council

• Increased our number of seats on Surrey County Council with both the Conservatives and Labour seeing their number of seats fall

• Made net gains on many other county councils including Cumbria, Dorset, East Sussex, Hertfordshire, the Isle of Wight, Kent, Lancashire, Leicestershire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, West Sussex and Worcestershire

• Defeated the Conservative group leader on Cumbria County Council and the Labour council leader on Nottinghamshire County Council

European Elections

• Gained an extra MEP (and more or less maintained our vote share)

• Elected Liberal Democrat MEPs in every part of England and Scotland, whilst narrowly failing to win a seat in Wales

• Elected Catherine Bearder (South East) and George Lyon (Scotland) to the European Parliament for the first time

The Liberal Democrats are the Real Alternative