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The Liberal Democrats gained a formidable victory in a by-election within the West Hampstead ward of Camden on Thursday, gaining the seat with a excessive swing. However the query of which get together they gained the seat from is a bit more sophisticated than normal.
Each Labour and the Conservatives had trigger for embarrassment due to the trajectory of former councillor Shiva Tiwari. A managing director on the non-public fairness agency Peak Rock, Tiwari had been a valued recruit to Labour’s slate in 2018, however he turned disenchanted with the get together and resigned from it in March 2025 to hitch the Conservatives.
In doing so, he criticised Labour each nationally and domestically, arguing that “I simply don’t assume the Labour Celebration stands any extra for the values that I strongly consider in round supporting hard-working households and small and medium-sized companies to drive financial development”. He accused Camden Labour of “pursuing a minority leftist agenda”.
The depleted Conservative contingent on Camden Council, decreased to only three councillors within the 2022 elections, welcomed Tiwari with open arms and made him deputy chief of their group. He was chosen as a candidate for the Frognal ward, Camden’s solely Tory stronghold, for the borough elections in Could 2026 and appeared set truthful for a major position in his new get together house.
Nonetheless, Tiwari’s interval as an asset to the Conservatives proved quick. On 12 July, he went to select up a bundle on the Costcutter grocery store on Finchley Street and received concerned in a dispute with the employees there about whether or not he had an accurate type of identification. Tempers rose and Tiwani shouted, “Don’t annoy me, I’m a councillor for this space, I’ll shut down your bloody store, okay? Name your boss, this can be a joke,” and went on to make use of foul language. The incident was recorded on the store’s CCTV. Tiwari expressed remorse for his half within the altercation and resigned his seat on the council.
It was not an election Camden Labour wished to struggle. West Hampstead’s electoral historical past is attention-grabbing. Its predecessor ward, West Finish, elected one Conservative and one Labour councillor in 1978, however then voted Labour throughout the board within the subsequent three units of native elections. In 1986, the Alliance (precursors to the Lib Dems) gained neighbouring Fortune Inexperienced and a few of the native activism unfold next-door: the Lib Dems gained their first seat in West Finish in 1994, mopped up the opposite in 1998, after which dominated three-member West Hampstead from its creation in 2002 till 2014, when Labour gained all three seats. However the Lib Dem vote didn’t fade away, and even at their 2018 low level they nonetheless had 1 / 4 of the vote. West Hampstead has been a vigorously contested Labour-Lib Dem battlefield for over 30 years.
It’s a compact ward, well-served by public transport. The three West Hampstead stations (Jubilee Line, Mildmay Line, Thameslink), lined up alongside West Finish Lane, are the main target of the ward, though the railway strains divide the residential areas from one another. Within the east, the ward extends to Finchley Street, the eponymous stations (together with Finchley Street & Frognal) and the O2 Centre, a 1998 purchasing centre which was very stylish when it first opened however has aged poorly.
Within the east, West Hampstead touches the borough boundary simply reverse Kilburn station on the finish of Maygrove Street and below the railway arches. The southern boundary is the southernmost railway line, aside from a number of streets round Sherriff Street reverse the West Hampstead Jubilee Line station. To the north, it’s divided from Fortune Inexperienced at Mill Lane and the northernmost a part of West Finish Lane that runs east-west. Fortune Inexperienced and West Hampstead are carefully linked and successfully kind a single city group of West Hampstead.
Demographically, West Hampstead is the form of ward discovered solely within the huge cities. It’s dominated by flats (89 per cent of households), and 39 per cent of individuals stay alone (29 per cent do in London as an entire). The inhabitants is disproportionately drawn from folks aged between 20 and 50, and a staggering 66 per cent are educated to diploma degree, almost twice the nationwide proportion.
It’s skewed in the direction of skilled and managerial staff (55 per cent, in comparison with 38 per cent in London). West Hampstead is ethnically combined however pretty white for London (62 per cent in comparison with 54 per cent) and by religion it’s plurality non-religious (37 per cent) with a major (six per cent) Jewish group. The politics of the ward might be learn off from these figures – it’s a metropolitan liberal stronghold and pleased with it, with a small however persistent rich Conservative aspect.
The residential areas forming West Hampstead ward are principally late Victorian terraces, with refined social gradations between subdivided villas ignored by railway strains to the bigger household homes up in the direction of the centre of Hampstead. There’s additionally the Seventies Lymington Street council property, also called the Potteries as a result of its streets and walks are named, apparently randomly, after pottery companies and the town of Dresden.
Admirers of quirky road names, recent from final week’s chinchilla-inflected contest in Hounslow, can even be pleased with West Hampstead. There’s a path named after rock and curler Billy Fury and a street named in Victorian instances after a big Indonesian island for causes no person appears to know. There’s a full gazetteer of Camden road names with explanations (after they exist) and just a little historical past of street-naming to be discovered on-line. Sumatra Street, by the way, was topped in 2015 because the UK’s most canvassed road, being in a key three-way marginal (Hampstead & Kilburn) inside straightforward attain of Westminster on the Jubilee line.
The West Hampstead panorama is within the course of of adjusting due to the event of the O2 web site, which extends almost all the best way from Finchley Street to West Hampstead stations on a stretch of land initially earmarked for the Ringway motorway scheme that was cancelled within the mid-Seventies. Camden Council authorized the masterplan for the location in 2023, and it’ll ultimately yield 1,800 new dwellings, 600 of them graded inexpensive. The event is meant to be car-free. Work on the primary section has already begun with the demolition of the Homebase retailer on the far finish of the O2 automobile park.
The O2 improvement was a marketing campaign situation. Labour supported the scheme for its new housing and argued that current native residents would get advantages, together with new parks and £10 million in enhancements to West Hampstead station. The Lib Dems have been extra equivocal, arguing that the housing was good however improved native infrastructure ought to precede it, but it surely was not a serious theme of their marketing campaign. The Conservatives complained concerning the 15-storey “excessive rise” buildings within the improvement – the builders argue that density is required to permit extra inexperienced area – and Reform UK alleged that “uncontrolled improvement is reshaping West Hampstead behind closed doorways”.
The problem of fly tipping was distinguished within the marketing campaign, because it was in Cranford final week. It appears a ubiquitous drawback no matter whether or not the ward is city, suburban or semi-rural, though the very central boroughs are maybe much less affected. It rankles with voters who see it as an indication of creeping squalor of their neighbourhood and an instance of the state’s incapacity to regulate delinquent behaviour.
Wanting into the economics of why the tippers do it and implementing the rules that exist could be good investments by central and native authorities. Labour identified that Camden was doing this, funding an enforcement officer targeted on West Finish Lane and prosecuting a number of native companies for violations, however the opposition argued that there was plenty of room for enchancment.
Liberal Democrat leaflets focused left-liberal voters who had supported Labour within the 2024 basic election and subsequently felt disenchanted. They criticised the Starmer authorities over welfare cuts, Europe and potential cuts to central authorities funding of London boroughs. Gaza got here up often on the doorstep. Labour’s marketing campaign majored on the document of Camden Council, certainly one of London’s more practical and widespread borough administrations, though it’s uncommon even in these circumstances for folks to really feel all that grateful for improved faculties and libraries.
The candidates have been an attention-grabbing bunch. The Lib Dems chosen Janet Grauberg, a major persona within the native get together and Camden’s political historical past. Camden is, regardless of having extra rich and Conservative areas than different internal north London boroughs, typically loyal to Labour, and Labour management has solely lapsed on two events – the Conservative sweep of 1968 and Labour’s current nadir of 2006. The lead to that yr was a hung council, with the Lib Dems the biggest single get together. The administration was shaped from a coalition between the Lib Dems and the Conservatives.
Elected for Kilburn ward, Grauberg turned the borough’s cupboard member for finance. Labour regained management in 2010, unseating her in Kilburn. She stood there once more in 2014 and 2018 with diminishing returns and was redeployed to the extra hopeful ward of West Hampstead in 2022, reaching a powerful consequence – the Labour model of Tiwari completed solely 38 votes forward of her, and he or she led her Lib Dem colleagues by round 200 votes, indicating an efficient private marketing campaign.
Her private qualities shaped a serious a part of the Lib Dem by-election marketing campaign – she had been awarded an OBE for providers to schooling and the group. Labour criticised her document in energy in 2006-10. If there’s a non-Labour administration to be shaped after the 2026 elections, Grauberg will kind an necessary a part of it.
Labour’s candidate was Francesca Reynolds, a younger parliamentary staffer and administration guide. The Conservatives nominated Ian Cohen, who had contested West Hampstead in 2022 and Fortune Inexperienced in each 2014 and a 2021 by-election. Cohen runs a dry-cleaning enterprise in West Finish Lane and is a long-standing native resident. Thomas Sterling stood for Reform and Matthew Hull represented the Greens.
Regardless of a vigorous marketing campaign, the citizens had not shaken off its summer time torpor and turnout was poor (26.4 per cent). Because the Lib Dem bar charts claimed, it was a two-horse race – their campaigners have been impressed by the Labour effort and pushed again in opposition to predictions of a giant win. However when the votes have been counted Grauberg (pictured, centre) had gained in a landslide. She polled 1,176 votes – eight greater than within the increased turnout 2022 borough elections – which amounted to 54.4 per cent of the vote (up from 38.9 per cent in 2022).
Reynolds fought a very good struggle, however was miles behind on 21.2 per cent (a steep drop from the Labour staff’s 44.5 per cent in 2022). Cohen polled 222 votes (10.3 per cent), a poor exhibiting, though the Tory vote was buffeted by Lib Dem squeeze ways and the arrival on the poll of Reform (155 votes, 7.2 per cent). The Greens introduced up the rear with 152 votes (7.0 per cent).
It’s not a very good signal for Labour that they ran a good marketing campaign but solely simply scraped over the 20 per cent barrier, even contemplating the components making for a very good Lib Dem consequence. It is sufficient to make one revise down the estimates of Labour efficiency within the 2026 borough elections, and people predictions weren’t trying too rosy to begin with. However the query with challenges to Labour’s internal London hegemony is all the time from which course they could come, and whether or not the opposition merely cut up the vote and allow Labour to outlive regardless of decreased assist.
In West Hampstead it was all the time clear that the Lib Dems have been the principle contenders, however in lots of wards it’s removed from clear – Conservatives, Reform, Lib Dems, Greens, native events, Independents and Corbynites will all have ambitions. Three Camden by-elections final yr painted a confused image. To lose Camden, for instance, Labour must lose 20 seats in comparison with 2022. It’s straightforward to see six going to the Lib Dems and two extra going to the Greens, however after that it will get more durable. The bedraggled Camden Tories must choose up seats of their targets reminiscent of South Hampstead and Primrose Hill and the Greens would want to develop into Kentish City. That’s nonetheless solely 19 seats, so someplace sudden must flip as nicely.
Camden, for the primary time since 2010, will probably be one of many headline contests in London, as native voters weigh the deserves of the council and their verdict on Sir Keir Starmer’s authorities on the Prime Minister’s house turf.
Observe Lewis Baston on Bluesky. Photograph from Janet Grauberg’s X/Twitter feed.
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