What is it about the town of Southport which makes it so different to virtually anywhere else in the country when it comes to voting?

Two weeks ago, the rest of England was thoroughly turning its back on Theresa May. But here in Southport, Tory candidate Damian Moore achieved a monstrous 10 per cent increase in his party's vote share from 2015 to secure victory - the country's only Conservative gain of a Lib Dem seat from the 2015 general election.

Meanwhile, the Lib Dem candidate Sue McGuire took her party down to third place - somewhere they have not been in the town since 1966 when a young councillor called Ronnie Fearn first came onto the local parliamentary scene.

Yet it was previously so different. Just 13 months earlier, Lib Dem councillors swept the board in Southport's local elections for the first time ever. Damien Moore was nowhere to be seen and his Tory troops in the town were falling like flies. Go back another year and John Pugh's team made sure that while Lib Dem seats were crashing and burning all over Britain in the 2015 general election, Southport was not one of them. What has happened in between?

Southport has a history of going its own way politically. In the 1960s, when Liberals were getting nowhere virtually anywhere else in the land, they controlled Southport's County Borough Council. When Ronnie Fearn first won the Southport parliamentary seat for the Liberals in 1987, his victory here went completely against the national trend. When he won it back again in 1992, this was despite the Lib Dems going backwards nationally that year. Then of course, only a matter of a dozen years or so ago, we had the amazing unique phenomenon of The Southport Party which won council seats across the board in the town and might easily have won more. And then disappeared without trace.

So what is the reason for our town's so-different election result this year? Is it, as some say, part of the 'scousification' of Southport bringing in more Labour votes? Certainly, Councillor McGuire was helpless in her attempts to stop a major Labour vote build-up in the manner that Councillors Fearn and Brodie Browne mercilessly squashed Labour's local support in the 1980s. With Lib Dem Westminster leader Tim Farron resigning his position after making only a small number of gains nationally, what does the future hold for Southport's Lib Dem councillors and the other political parties in next year's local elections? If we look at the town's political history, virtually any prediction is likely to be wrong.

They didn't offer anything. They told us not to vote Labour because 'X' and not to vote Tory because 'Y' but gave us no reason to vote for them! Plus Mr Pugh's dismal record as our MP where he has achieved precisely nothing for this town - we've lost our children's A&E, lost libraries, the town centre is a mess and full of empty shops, if it wasn't for Lottery funding our parks would be derelict and our LibDem councillors vote against anything proposed by Labour or the Tories regardless of whether it's a good idea or not because scoring political points is more important to them than the needs of this town and it's residents. What exactly have the Lib Dems ever actually done for us?

Originally Posted by roving-eye

So what is the reason for our town's so-different election result this year? Is it, as some say, part of the 'scousification' of Southport bringing in more Labour votes? Certainly, Councillor McGuire was helpless in her attempts to stop a major Labour vote build-up in the manner that Councillors Fearn and Brodie Browne mercilessly squashed Labour's local support in the 1980s. With Lib Dem Westminster leader Tim Farron resigning his position after making only a small number of gains nationally, what does the future hold for Southport's Lib Dem councillors and the other political parties in next year's local elections? If we look at the town's political history, virtually any prediction is likely to be wrong.

Scousification of southport

for a town that relies on tourism it's hardly welcoming language.

Cllr Maguire was helpless because her predecessors had delivered nothing, no jobs, no investment and the town continued to slide, even with 56 MPs and in a coalition our MP went with the masses with no investment.

A tram to ASDA and a digital economy when your own digital business is in Liverpool hardly was a compelling case to start dragging southport forwards. Also the "are they local though" argument is weak when you stand in south ribble 2 years before and another leading Lib stood in saddle worth. It was also good to see such a persistently personal and nasty campaign not be successful.

Maybe this will show the door to councillors that we need results from the council and no more it always being bootle labours fault as if so then they should get off the pot....finally as for the article after the loss saying "Lib dem councillors will keep on keeping on" they should hang heads in shame at the thought of it given it's a separate role and not an extension of the MPs office!