There were eight principal local council by-elections held on Thursday 20th October and one on Tuesday 18th. There were four Labour holds, three Tory holds and one Lib Dem hold. There was one Independent gain from Tory. There was one parish or town council by-election results reported to ALDC,  a Lib dem gain from the Conservatives. 

In a pretty busy week for by-elections the highlight was undoubtedly holding our seat in the Bookham South , By-election in Mole Valley District Council in Surrey. Bookham South is three Councillor ward where we held all three until last May, when we lost one. One of our remaining two then died – hence the by-election.

We ran a pretty standard campaign with a Focus before the campaign started announcing Anne Howarth’s death avoiding expense limits. Then three full A3, full ward elections leaflets, a target letter and black (they didn’t have a blue drum!) letters to both PVs and non PVs. PVs were reminded, there were “Good  Mornings” and 2 full knock-ups plus some phone follow-up.

A recurring feature in recent success was the focus on canvassing which was done very thoroughly – around 90% contact was achieved.
The Tories put a lot of effort in and the MP was spotted several times. UKIP also made an effort. Good for morale and it leaves us the largest Group as a result.

In the London Borough of Bromley, we had a creditable result in the Shortlands By-election. There were several reasons to be cheerful; Lib Dem vote share rose by 6.4%; we moved decisively from 4th place to second place and the Lab and Green vote shares were down. 

In two elections we failed to stand candidates, Stafford and Great Yarmouth. We have argued week in, week out,in this column, win or lose standing a candidate is always the right thing to do. This applies to the Police Commissioner Elections as much as any other. The Constitution makes it plain:

The objectives of the Party shall be to secure the election of Liberal Democrats as Members of Parliament, UK Members of the European Parliament and members of local and other elected public authorities.

Other elections:

Mansfield DC, Park Hall
Cheshire West and Chester UA, Ellesmere Port Town
Nottingham City Council, Bridge
Salford MBC, Eccles
Great Yarmouth BC, Bradwell South and Hopton
Stafford BC, Walton
Adur DC, Cokeham - on Tuesday

There were four principal local council by-elections held on Thursday 13th October. There were two Labour holds and two Tory holds. There were no parish or town council by-election results reported to ALDC. 

In Sleaford West and Leasingham Division of Lincolnshire County council we ran minimal campaign, one leaflet, no canvassing and a candidate that did not live in the division. This is not normally a recipe for success and so it proved to be. Standing a candidate is always the right thing to do (and this includes Police Commissioner elections!) but when outright victory is unlikely, it’s important that you set specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely organisational targets. Often this will be about developing membership and delivery networks. Just putting a single leaflet across the whole division without structure or purpose can be and often is pointless and demoralising. It would, for instance, have made more sense to put three different leaflets out in a third of the ward. If you are not sure on what your best strategy is for a by-election, ring ALDC, your region or contact your nearest campaigns officer.

For those outside Lincolnshire the result for the Independent candidate may look unlikely. In Lincolnshire the Independents are an organised party with a leader. They stand candidates at every level of government including at the General Election and have their own website and organisational structure. They are a party machine masquerading as honourable amateurs. They are not unique but have been a notable obstruction to Lib Dem progress in the County.

ALDC is asking every local party who has local elections in May 2012 to let us know NOW the details of all candidates that area has already in place. Elections take place in Scotland, Wales and in many parts of England.

Each year ALDC provides a free support programme for Liberal Democrat local election candidates and organisers - in the next few weeks we'll be sending out a Liberal Democrat "Candidates' Handbook". This is being followed by regular emails and mailings. But we can only send the information if we have the know who your candidates are.

Register your candidates online or If it's easier just send these by email to david.ball@aldc.org.

Don't forget to receive our full advice service candidates will need to be members of ALDC. To help we're offering HALF PRICE membership of ALDC for all 2012 local election candidates

Other results

South Ribble BC, Bamber Bridge East
Gravesham BC, Meopham North
Barnsley MBC, St Helen's

There were three principal local council by-elections held on Thursday 6th October. There were two Labour holds and a Tory hold. There were no parish or town council by-election results reported to ALDC. 

Kensington and Chelsea have pioneered developing their local parties capacity in the last couple of years following their tremendous victory in Colville  Ward By-Election in July 2009. They have worked on neighbouring wards and used the combined strength of the London parties to build their strength in other recent by-elections such as Brompton and Queens Gate.
A sensible tactic for those who can afford it was used to get a quick first leaflet out in Norland  before the start of the regulated period using  paid delivery.  As is often the case in safe Labour or Tory seats our relatively standard by-election methods can have dramatically more impact when they’re novel to the electorate. In Norland it was the “blue letters”. Residents really liked them, read them and responded to them.

In Watford we had two concurrent by-elections. Nascot, where we were defending, polled last week. For the first weeks of campaigning we naturally focused on holding Nascot successfully; the Vicarage campaign suffered as a result. With Nascot held, we condensed a five week campaign into five days in Vicarage. A piece of literature was delivered every day but we could not turn it round in such a short space of time. The message from most recent by-elections is that it is the doorstep work that is crucial to success and this fell by the wayside. We were not aided by a previous Lib Dem supporter standing as an independent and splitting the vote. In the circumstances second was a creditable result. What must be worrying for the Tories in a parliamentary seat that they won at the general election is that from the two by-elections in two weeks their aggregate position is now third.

Other Byelections:

Coventry City MBC, Lower Stoke

There were five principal local council by-elections held on Thursday 29th September. We held two seats, the Tories held one, Plaid one and Plaid gained one off Llais Gwynedd (Voice of Gwynedd).  There was one parish or town council by-election results reported to ALDC -  a Tory hold. 

Bishops Castle is a geographically large rural division on the Welsh border of Shropshire Unitary authority. Newton and Welshpool  in Montgomeryshire are closer than either Shrewsbury or Ludlow. We won it 20 years ago after the hard graft of Peter Philips whose resignation caused the by-election.  Peter suffered a pulmonary embolism on election day so a resignation for health reasons was always likely. He put it off to complete some major political projects dear to his heart, the local BioMass project and saving his local school. Once they were achieved he stood down. Bishops Castle was lucky that we had such a good candidate to replace Peter. Charlotte Barnes is a businesswomen, local campaigner, a local Parish Councillor and a parent governor at Bishop's Castle Primary School.
Sometimes by-elections struggle to get help in, not this one. Help came from Herefordshire, Montgomeryshire as well as from across the county. Even Tim Farron and Vince Cable found time to help. The glorious weather on polling day may have helped.
We delivered four leaflets in the three months before the election was called and then out shone all the other parties in quality, variety, content and volume of literature. Every house was canvassed by the candidate and or the outgoing councillor twice and in some cases three times. We relentlessly squeezed Labour (standing their first candidate since 1985  -“ what do you do with the numbers?” she asked our tellers!) and the Greens. Despite the massive turn out for by-election 51%, we got the green vote down from 186 to 74. Key again in this was posters – and not just window bills but stake-boards and even super-boards. In the current climate it’s even more important to give voters the clear message from posters that we can win.

In 2006 we won a notable by-election in the Watford Tory stronghold of Nascot. We held it in 2007 and then lost it by 3 votes in 2008 following Tory scaremongering. Our candidate again great local credentials, she lived in the ward, she was a local school governor and she was married to the local GP! Without a full slate in the ward we had been building her up for the vacancy  in 2012 anyway, but here she got an earlier opportunity.  Labour  supporters who had voted in May to “give us a kicking” switched back noting our strong local record and following  a heavy squeeze campaign.  We cut the Labour vote in half.

Other results

Gwynedd UA, Diffwys and Maenofferen
Gwynedd UA, Penrhyndeudraeth

Cherwell DC, Bicester North

There was one principal local council by-election held on Thursday 22th September. The Tories held the seat. There were two parish or town council by-election results reported to ALDC.  One seat was held by the Tories, one by the Lib Dems.

Fenland  District Council, in Cambridgeshire, has two Lib Dem councillors. It held a by-election in the Staithe ward on the edge of Wisbech. In 2010 we did not stand a candidate and we had not campaigned there in living memory.

We ran a decent campaign with a survey, postal vote letter, three Focuses plus polling knock up, but as ever we would have benefited from more time on the doorstep. We had no historic data so 20% contact this time was a decent first shout but limited our polling day activity. The Tories we worried, both by our activity and the potential of UKIP and a non-selected Tory standing as an Independent  splitting their vote. Labour got very excited pulling in help from as far away as Leeds but their vote was only marginally up.

Quoting Conservative Lord Ashcroft is not a Liberal Democrats first instinct; however some of his recent polling of eight Tory held Lib Dem marginals has suggested that by out working the Tories and Labour on the ground we have significantly boosted our support. In those eight parliamentary seats more voters interviewed thought that we had
a) knocked on their door
b) telephoned them
c) delivered literature to them and
d) sent them direct mail than the Tories or Labour.
Voters asked about their intentions in these specific seats were 13% more likely to vote Lib Dem.
Alternatively this may be to do with voters understanding and continuing to respond to our squeeze messages, but without the high level of activity how would we deliver that squeeze message?

Either way this is positive news.