General election 2010: Confident Ellman re-elected in Liverpool Riverside
By Chris Bradley
Labour have held their seat safe in Riverside as the Commons’ transport committee chairperson Louise Ellman was re-elected.
The announcement came just after 5:00 BST that Ms Ellman had kept her seat for a fourth time with a 14,173 majority of votes (36.5%). Earlier in the night, Ms Ellman told politics.co.uk she would win.
Liberal Democrat candidate Richard Marbrow won 8,825 votes while Conservative Kegang Wu achieved 4,243 votes. Ms Ellman had 5,047 more votes than in 2005, when turnout was the lowest for any constituency in the general election.
But the turnout for 2010 show that 52.05% of voters made their choices at the polling booths today.
Ms Ellman said earlier in the night: “I am going to win the seat.”
Out of the six candidates, only Pat Gaskell of Ukip, Conservative Kegang Wu and Ms Ellman were present at Liverpool Tennis Centre in Wavertree.
The Conservatives were hopeful of a win, but Liverpool Riverside has been a safe Labour seat since 1997.
James Ellis, Dr Wu’s campaign assistant, said: “We had an elderly woman who has voted Labour all her life say she was going to vote Conservative this year.”
But the poll results show there was a huge 18,755 votes between Labour and Conservatives.
Ms Ellman congratulated the Conservative candidate on his campaign, saying: “The Tories have put more effort into this campaign than I’ve seen before and more people have said they are going to vote Conservative than before.”
