In the UK, a Manchester City council seat was vacated when Jim Battle resigned his job to take the job of Deputy Police Commissioner. This forced a by-election that took place Thursday 10 October 2013. The Pirate leader, Loz Kaye, was competing for the single seat against several more established parties.

The election was in a small local region called Ancoats & Clayton. Because the election was a local by-election to fill the missing seat, participation of the people was low as well, with 1764 voters (13.5% of possible voters) making their way to the voting booth.

From the results we can see that Loz Kaye was 10 votes away from a 3rd place in this election. Compared to the Pirates last election in Ancoats & Clayton they improved slightly from the 3% received by Tim Dobson in that election. The Pirates improved their position and hard work payed off. They beat the more established Liberal Democrats again despite them throwing money at phone banks to rally support. 

For more information about the election take a look at the great live coverage made by Party Governors Stephen Ogden and Andrew Norton.

Featured image: CC-BY-SA, Andy Halsall

About Josef Ohlsson Collentine

I’m a dual citizen (American/Swede) and try to integrate my reflections from a more global perspective if possible. I’m the organizational leader for Pirate Times and work actively to strengthen the pirate movement through this work as well as being the international contact for Piratpartiet (PPSE). Elected board member of PPSE for 2015-2018.
If you would like to ask me something I speak English, Swedish and Spanish. Find me on the links below

 

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In the UK, a Manchester City council seat was vacated when Jim Battle resigned his job to take the job of Deputy Police Commissioner. This forced a by-election that took…