AS today s Oxford Mail was going to the printers last night, many of us were still on the edge of our seats waiting to find out the results from our police and crime commissioner election. Having waited all day to hear the news, the officials said the result from people s first preference votes was so close that they needed to begin again and start counting second choices. Many of our readers were there with us, glued to the website waiting for the latest updates. It comes after a whole weekend of edge-of-the-seat live coverage of our county, city and district council elections, where surprise results included Tory county council leader Ian Hudspeth losing his seat.
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image captionEddie Reeves is the new Oxfordshire Conservative councillors leader
Conservative councillors at Oxfordshire County Council have voted a new party leader after their former leader lost his seat in the local elections.
Eddie Reeves, councillor for the Banbury Calthorpe, was elected as the new Tory leader at a virtual meeting between members late on Monday.
Mr Reeves replaces former council leader Ian Hudspeth, who lost his seat in Woodstock to the Liberal Democrats.
He said he was delighted to have been elected.
Mr Reeves, a qualified solicitor and former district councillor in Northamptonshire, takes over after his party suffered heavy loses in last week s local elections.
The council has been left with no overall majority control as a result of the election. The Conservative group remains the largest on the council, but it now has only 22 seats, far short of the all out majority of 32 needed to claim power. Following them were the Liberal Democrats with 21 seats, the Labour Party with 15, the Greens with three and the Henley Residents Group with one. One seat went to independent candidate, Les Sibley, of Bicester West. It remains to be seen what kind of governing group will now be formed. Ian Hudspeth, the leader of the council and councillor for Woodstock, was among the Tory councillors who lost their seats.
Local elections 2021: Counties buck the Tory trend
County councils have bucked the trend of Conservative success in the local election on Thursday, with a mixed picture for the party.
The counties saw two senior leaders ousted from their seats, while Cambridgeshire CC returned to no overall control after four years of Conservative rule.
In Hertfordshire CC, Conservative leader and chairman of the County Council’s Network (CCN) David Williams lost his seat. The party, which has been in control for 20 years, lost four seats in all, while Labour lost three.
The Liberal Democrats picked up five of the seats, cementing their position in opposition, while the Greens and an Independent picked up the other two.
Shock as well-known sector figures lose their seats
County Councils Network members are reeling from news that their chair David Williams (Con) has been ousted from his Hertfordshire CC seat by just 41 votes, meaning he also lost his national chairmanship.
Elsewhere, other longstanding local government figures from both main parties have also been unseated or face leadership challenges locally.
Although the Conservatives secured a majority of 14 in Hertfordshire, their leader Cllr Williams, who has been CCN chair since 2019, was narrowly beaten by Liberal Democrat candidate Paul de Kort in his seat of Harpenden North East by 2,063 votes to 2,022.
CCN’s executive committee will now work with the Conservatives, which remain the network s largest political group, to put in place an interim leader ahead of an internal election. A new chairman elect will be formally confirmed in September.