local council seat. In October 1969, two Conservative councillors on Wandsworth London Borough Council—Athlene O'Connell and Peter Mitchell—defected to the Front, but returned to the Conservatives in December. In the May 1974 London council elections, the party averaged 10% of the vote in the boroughs of Haringey, Islington, Brent, Southwark and Lewisham, while its best result was in Hounslow. In the April 1976 council elections, the NF boosted its vote in many towns, securing 21% of the vote in Sandwell, 20.7% in Wolverhampton, 18.54% in Leicester and 17% in Watford. The NF made gains in the 1977 Greater London Council elections, where it contested all but one seat. Its 91 GLC candidates gained 120,000 votes, over twice the total that the party had accrued in the whole of England in 1974. In Inner London, it gained the third-largest vote share. Its share of the London vote also increased, reflecting an average rise from 4.4% in the October 1974 general election to 5.3% in the 1977 GLC election. It averaged over 10% of the vote in three boroughs: Hackney, Newham and Tower Hamlets. The NF's vote share began to stagnate in the local elections from 1977 and 1978. By 1977, the party's electoral support had peaked and, by the London Borough Council elections of 1978, its support "had very noticeably declined" in the city, something that was then reflected in local elections elsewhere in the UK. In 2010, the NF gained its first elected representative in 35 years after John Gamble, a local councillor on Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council, defected to it from the England First Party. In 2011 he was removed for failure to attend meetings in six months. Parish and community councils The NF obtained several representatives on parish councils and community councils. In 2010, Sam Clayton, a representative for Bilton and Ainsty with Bickerton Ward in Harrogate—originally elected uncontested as a BNP candidate in 2008—defected to the NF. By 2011 he was no longer on the council. In 2011 the NF gained a representative on Langley Parish Council in Derbyshire, when Timothy Knowles was elected without opposition. On failing to attend council meetings, he was ejected from the council several months later. In October 2015, the NF chairman David MacDonald was elected to Garthdee Community Council in Aberdeen with 18 votes. Reception By the late 1960s, the National Front was "the principal electoral force" on the British far-right,