Bowing to the electorate's wishes...

So the Rother council elections represent a very mixed set of results, based to some degree on party politics but in other respects on purely local issues.

Who would have thought, for example, that Sidley Ward would "go Tory"?

Well, anyone who could see that for Labour to oppose two former party stalwarts who had quit the party mid-term to go independent would split the vote ...

The Conservatives are hugging themselves over that one. But what else could Labour do but give their supporters official candidates to support?

The Conservatives are not hugging themselves over St Michael's Ward, however. There, long-serving Conservative member Peter Fairhurst lost a seat to the Liberal Democrats' Martyn Forster.

It could be argued that Mr Forster had established his name through his work as Bexhill East county councillor.

But then Peter Fairhurst had also worked diligently for the electorate over issues like the wastewater plant smell and the waste transfer station.

So on a day when the Conservatives increased their standing on 38-seat Rother from 25 to 28, the Liberal Democrats took St Michael's off them.

But then, the Liberal Democrats also increased their representation on Rother from five to eight.

The real losers were those who, like long-serving Keith and Helen Bridger at Sidley and Eric Armstrong in Old Town, had changed from the party on whose ticket they had originally been elected to stand as independents.

Thus, tenure at Old Town which had culminated in the Town Mayoralty ended with Eric Armstrong coming fifth in a six-horse race.

There were more upsets outside of Bexhill. The Conservatives lost Bob White from Battle to the Liberal Democrats who lost John Kemp from Crowhurst - by two votes and after three re-counts!

Sole former Labour member Sam Souster who was in line for the Rother chairmanship can console himself with loss of his Rye seat with a lesson from history.

Though bitterly hurt by Labour's 1945 landslide victory, Winston Churchill declared that as a supporter of democracy he bowed to the wishes of the electorate...