The Somerset County Council elections have finally come to a close with tonights declaration of the result from the Coker Division near Yeovil. Previously held by the Lib Dems the result has seen a Conservative gain giving them a 3 seat final advantage on the County Council.
The Lib Dem vote dropped miserably by a third despite Lib Dims from all over the county flooding in to help desperately hold onto their seat -some of whom had given up midway through the evening having failed to get their ‘usual’ vote out and had gone to the pub.
The inevitable UKIP vote rose steaming in from nowhere despite not even running any campaign and on the day their grinning populist leader Farage got chased out of Edinburgh by angry Scots who weren’t for one minute taken in by his right wing tory nonsense.
The Green vote also dropped noticeably despite having stood in the ward 4 years ago.
The success story of the evening that gives any sort of hope for the future was Labour candidate Murray Shepstone flying the red flag in this corner of Somerset for the first time since 1935 and attracting almost 200 votes. Well done Murray!!
The Coker result (2009 in brackets)
Marcus Fysh – Con (1365) 1303
Ian Stephen – Lib Dem (1545) 1079
Neil Boxall – UKIP 702
Murray Shepstone – Labour 195
Peter Bysouth -Green (249) 165
Turnout 44.33%