Thursday’s election in Sutton resulted in Conservative Philip Read holding his seat with 817 votes.  I’m very grateful to the 542 local residents who voted for me, resulting in second place.  The Labour candidate came third with 295 votes.

Across Cambridgeshire as a whole, the Conservatives have lost overall control of the county council.  In the process their leader Nick Clarke was defeated in his Fulbourn seat by Liberal Democrat John Williams, who worked hard for his win and will make an excellent county councillor.

We wait now to see whether the Conservatives will try to run the council alone without a majority, or to form a coalition with the newly increased UKIP contingent on the council. The second option would be interesting, as many new UKIP councillors appear not to have been prepared to win their seats, and in many cases didn’t even turn up to the counting of the votes.  What sort of contribution will they make to the council?