Gregory Hands’ 39.8% majority win may come as no surprise in the ultra-safe Conservative Chelsea and Fulham but the other parties are standing tall.
After her defeat by 16,022 votes, 26-year-old Labour youngster, Alexandra Sanderson, said: “We increased our vote share which many other Labour constituencies have failed to do today.
“We’ve made more affordable homes available, campaigned heavily to make sure hospitals and essential services were protected and I think that’s had a real knock-on effect.”
Elsewhere, Liberal Democrat, Simon Bailey, narrowly beat UKIP 2,091 votes to 2,039, while standing in his first election.
He said: “We always knew that today would not be the greatest of nights for the Liberal Democrats.
“However I am very much keen to keep the future incumbent in-check and make sure they are looking out for the people of Chelsea and Fulham.”
Mr Bailey also remarked how little vote shares equate to seats in parliament.
“It really does show that our democratic system is completely and utterly ballsed up. It’s about time that it was overhauled and chucked in the bin,” he said.
UKIP representative, Adrian Noble, condemned the lack of membership support in south west London.
“We just didn’t have the ground work in place for a strong campaign,” he said.
Mr Noble alleged that party tactics sidelined him in the Chelsea and Fulham borough, despite living in Sutton all his life.
That candidacy was given to Oncology doctor, Angus Dalgleish, who Mr Noble says offered extensive funds for the campaign trail.
“At one point, I was even asked if I could spare any team members to help elsewhere and I had to bite my tongue to not tell them where to go – I’m a one-man team, there is no one else!”
The Green Party’s, Guy Rubin, who came fifth with 1,474 votes, was optimistic reflecting on the huge membership surge the party had received in the past 12 months.
He said: “We came up short of getting our deposit back but 3.8% was still double the votes last election.”
