Former Peterborough MP Paul Bristow wins the Combined Authority for the Conservatives, but his party collapses at the county council elections
***Well wasn’t that a dull and boring election contest?!?***
- Liberal Democrats – 31 (a working majority of 1)
- Conservatives – 10
- TeamNigel – 10
- Labour – 5
- The Green Party – 3
- Independent – 2
Above – all change at New Shire Hall
Cllr Dupre held onto her county seat even though she was unsuccessful in her bid for the mayoralty – one that she questioned the need for in the BBC Cambridgeshire hustings.
- Paul Bristow (Cons) – 60,243 votes
- Ryan Coogan (RUK) – 49,647 votes
- Anna Smith (Lab) – 42,671 votes
- Lorna Dupre (LibDems) – 41,611 votes
- Bob Ensch (Green) -18,255 votes
The county council maps following the 2021 county council elections, vs the ones in 2025 look as below
Above – TeamNigel tore chunks out of the Fenland Tory heartland, but did not exceed their 2013 total
“Say that again?”
TeamNigel did not exceed their total number of seats that they won in the 2013 county council elections
Above – from the WikiPage of the 2013 Cambridgeshire County Council elections
However, when the numbers are crunched we may find that the presence of a TeamNigel candidate nominally enabled the Liberal Democrats to nip in and snatch the seat.
That said…
The local electorates who don’t follow party politics and current affairs nearly as closely as political obsessives like me also don’t use the same criteria either. As I found out in the 2023 city council elections in Queen Edith’s ward where a handful of voters said their voting choice was between me and the Conservatives on the basis of our stand on single local political issues – i.e. nothing to do with national. At the same time, there are others who were choosing between TeamNigel and The Green Party on the basis of wanting to ‘send a message’ to the main political parties.
With the Conservatives crushed on the county council, holding on by their fingertips in East Cambridgeshire, and having lost so many Fenland county seats in their previously safe-as-castles Fenland District Council, it’s not a great outlook for new Mayor Bristow
That said, the volatility of party politics means that the party political hold for any seat feels very shallow and unstable. Looking at the city of Peterborough, either the Labour vote that got the party over the line in 2024 stayed at home, or reverted back to one of the two blue parties. What do you do if you are Labour MPs Sam Carling and Andrew Pakes? Mindful that Labour’s HQ sent in a number of ministers (including high profile ones) to campaign in that part of the county.
Cambridge results coming in as I type:
It has gone to the wire for the Liberal Democrats in terms of whether they can win an overall majority. Earlier it looked like it might be beyond them, but now it looks like they might just make it.
Seems like they made it
Of the changes so far, as expected The Greens have gained Newnham from the Liberal Democrats, and the Liberal Democrats have regained Market from Labour – which they unexpectedly lost back in 2021. Labour have held Cherry Hinton (Bry Goodliffe – Chair of the Children’s & Young People’s Services Committee) and Petersfield (former MEP Richard Howitt, Chair of Adults’ Services and Health Committee).
A grim afternoon for Labour, losing their former strongholds of Abbey, and Romsey to The Greens (although the loss of the former was expected, the latter will hurt – losing Red Romsey to The Greens). Labour were also unable to hold onto Castle and Market, which were unexpected gains in 2021.
The only bright spot for Labour was Cllr Alex Bulat who moved house from Abbey in Cambridge to Huntingdonshire, was elected a Labour councillor there. One of their most talented and able councillors in the last council, she’ll be a much-needed presence for Labour in what’s left of the county council’s existence.
As things stand, the component councils of the Combined Authority are led as follows:
- Peterborough – No Overall Control (Labour leader)
- Fenland – Conservative
- East Cambridgeshire – Dead heat between Conservatives and Liberal Democrats but Conservative Led for now
- Huntingdonshire – No Overall Control (Liberal Democrat Leader of a joint administration with Independents, Greens, and Labour)
- South Cambridgeshire – Liberal Democrats
- Cambridge – Labour
- Cambridgeshire – Liberal Democrats
Hence the new Mayor Bristow will only have Cllrs Foden and Bailey of Fenland and East Cambs respectively as allies on the Combined Authority Board
Furthermore, note that Cambridgeshire County Council and Peterborough City Council have veto powers on any new Local Transport Plan. It remains to be seen what changes the incoming mayor makes to the LTCP that has only recently been signed off – due to party political spats within Peterborough City Council.
Paul Bristow’s manifesto
Two things that stand out:
- Light rail for Cambridge & southern Cambridgeshire – as called for by Cambridge Connect
- New heavy rail stations – as called for by Rail Future East Anglia
- Calling for the abolition of the Greater Cambridge Partnership – as called for by…me ages ago!
I also got to speak to him and the other mayoral candidates at the Cambridge hustings too, in order to make the case for citizenship education for adults, and a new industry-co-funded lifelong learning college in Cambridge. I was also speaking earlier to a former close friend of the late Sir Michael Marshall about the idea of a new lifelong learning college named after him being located on the Marshall’s Airport site. (Sir Michael being a lifelong Conservative supporter).
In the grand scheme of things, the position and powers of the mayoralty is very limited – and also the remit is much more focused than other local government posts. Furthermore, the presence of a large majority of non-Conservative council leaders scrutinising him both on the CPCA Board and on the Overview and Scrutiny Committee means he is extremely constrained in what he can do. And that’s before considering ministerial eyes and the new development corporation for Cambridge. As several of us put to him during the campaign, we asked him how he’s changed as a person since the general election – and how he might approach the office of the mayoralty.
“If I don’t work with other parties, I won’t be a success as Mayor”
Mayor Paul Bristow to Kate Moser Andon of BBC Radio Cambridgeshire, 17:10, 02 May 2025
You can read Kate’s report for BBC Cambridgeshire here
I’ll leave things there for now, and save my thoughts on Labour’s campaign for another day. Because having pulled in so much party political firepower for the campaign, being pushed into third place (and almost into fourth), I expect some very senior people in the party will be asking more than a few questions about what went wrong. And from my vantage point here in Cambridge, the majority of the faults were not with their candidate Cllr Anna Smith (who remains my local councillor here in Coleridge), but with decision-makers in her party much further up the hierarchy.
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