Lady Luck shone on incumbent councillors in the local elections, when two seats were decided by the drawing of lots. Liberal Democrat, Richard Stevens, retained his Hastings seat, while the Labour incumbent in Halton, Stefan Nelson, beat his main challenger in Cheshire through the quirky method used to decide a drawn count. Had Mr Stevens lost his seat, the Conservatives would have taken control of Hastings. Instead, no party will have overall control of the authority. But the traditional decider, in which an election officer picks from envelopes containing the candidates' names, left even the winning candidates to bemoan shortfalls in the democratic process.
