There were three principal council by-elections and six by-elections out in the towns.  Of the three main events, two Labour seats and one Tory ward were all successfully defended, with very little change in the vote tallies.  We ran candidates in two of the three, Bedford and Braintree, but to no avail.  The third by-election, in Conwy, saw Labour gain 11% in vote-share, mostly through the absence of a Plaid Cymru candidate who took 12% last time the seat was contested.  Three of the five Town Council seats up were Lib Dem defences, and a 100% retention rate is excellent news for our campaign teams.  We held on to our seat in the Dunmore ward on Abingdon Town Council, a glimmer of consolation after Evan Harris’ narrow defeat in May.  We also held two seats on Chippenham T.C. in the Monkton Park and Pewsham wards, where Duncan Hames and the local Lib Dem team fought and won the newly-created Chippenham seat that emerged from the latest boundary review.  Elsewhere, Labour held a seat on Llandudno, where Gareth Owen and the Lib Dem team doubled their previous vote tally, Labour gained one from the Conservatives in Shrewsbury, and finally the Tories picked off an Independent Town Councillor on Burton Latimer TC in Northamptonshire.

As it has been a bit of a quiet day, the ALDC By-Elections team wanted to take a moment to emphasise the importance of keeping our local voter intelligence fully up to date.  A lot has changed since the election and coalition agreement, and with the budget also polarising opinions on all sides, we should consider that our pre-election voter ID may be out of date.  ALDC is here to help our campaign teams keep their voter intelligence on the cutting edge, and our new Summer Survey is available online at the ALDC shop.  Tailored to generate a range of casework and Focus issues and to feed back valuable information on which local issues are driving voters’ political priorities, the ALDC Summer Survey can be printed and delivered to order.  

With seven principal by-elections next week, including Tulse Hill in the London Borough of Lambeth, and a brace out in the Towns, we hope there will be plenty of exciting developments to share a week from now.  Until then, the best of luck to all our teams out in the field.

Winning Candidate John Griffin at the Site of his Winning Opposition to a New Housing Development

Whilst June 3rd was a good day for by-election watchers this year, it suffers from a relative lack of whimsy in its anniversary celebrations.  One interesting tidbit however is that it was 54 years since British Railways renamed their ‘Third Class’ carriages to ‘Second Class’, arguably a greater victory for mass social mobility than has been achieved at any point since!  In by-election terms there were three principal council contests fought on Thursday, we were defending two in St Albans and pushing for a win in rural South Oxfordshire.

The Crowmarsh ward of South Oxfordshire District Council is safely ensconced in the Conservative stronghold of Henley, a famous stomping ground for big Tory beasts past and present – Baron Heseltine and Boris Johnson – and a constituency that celebrates an unbroken century of Conservative representation at Westminster in December this year.  Successful candidate John Griffin is a well-known figure in the area, having served as councillor for Crowmarsh before in the mid-late 1990s and currently serving as leader of the Crowmarsh Parish Council.  The Lib Dem campaign picked up a wealth of canvass data, pounding the streets with the assistance of the East Oxfordshire Lib Dems, and gained a positive response to their popular opposition to a proposed housing development in Crowmarsh itself.  In national terms, the coalition also went over well on the doorstep – with a large number of voters giving the Liberal Democrats plaudits for taking a brave step in the national interest.  

The remaining principal council results were a pair of successful defences in the St Albans area.  A notable Conservative stronghold throughout its electoral history, one point interest can be found in the work of John Bamford Slack M.P., the Liberal Member of Parliament for St Albans between 1904 and 1906.  On May 12 1905, Slack gave his place on the Private Members Bill ballot to a motion to introduce full voting rights for women.  Some years ahead of the times, the Womens Enfranchisement Bill was shamefully filibustered by anti-suffragist Members drawing out a prolonged discussion of the Lighting of Vehicles Bill that preceded it on the order paper.  Back in the modern day, at County Council level Lib Dem Martin Frearson was returned to represent the St Albans South division on Hertfordshire CC, keeping the Lib Dem opposition numbers at 16 County Councillors to the Tories’ 55.  The by-election for the Ashley ward on St Albans District Council was an exciting affair – we were defending a council majority of just two seats – but with 49.5% of the popular vote, the St Albans Lib Dem team and new Councillor Andy Grant safely retained their seat.  

A quick word on the best of the rest, we received reports of a handsome Liberal Democrat gain in the Gannel Ward of Newquay Town Council.  A straight head-to-head with the defending Conservatives saw our man David Sleeman elected to council with roughly 60% of the vote.  The next by-elections we currently have on the books are three on the 17th June.  Congratulations to all this week’s winning teams, and the very best of luck to all of our campaigners in the field.

ALDC By-Elections Team

On the 98th anniversary of the Titanic disaster, it was the Conservative Party’s by-election teams that hit an iceberg last Thursday.  Of the five seats they were defending, we are pleased to report four losses – three of which came our way as did a very close second in the Tories’ only successful defence.  

Three of the five by-elections reported to ALDC this week centred on Wisbech in Cambridgeshire, with our candidate Dave Patrick running for Wisbech Town Council, Fenland District Council, and Cambridgeshire County Council at the same time.  The openings on the two principal councils were a result of the death of the incumbent Conservative Councillor.  Of the three, most significant was the contest for the Wisbech Kirkland ward of Fenland District Council.  The Lib Dem campaign in this relatively urban ward in Fenland produced three main by-election leaflets, in a variety of colour and formats, and made good use of EARS to create an effective squeeze message for ‘soft’ Conservatives.  The biggest issue in the local area was the controversial Fenland DC plan to relocate a taxi rank and, as Chair of a local Hackney Carriage drivers’ association, Dave was well-placed to get to grips with the matter and successfully reinforce the image of Liberal Democrats as dedicated champions of local issues.  Despite immigration being a key topic on the doorstep, a UKIP campaign grown complacent after their second-place at County level last time around, came fourth.  Dave Patrick took the first Liberal Democrat seat on Fenland DC with over 50% of the vote, with the Tory vote collapsing by 74% on May 2007!  Congratulations to the Fenland Lib Dems on their historic victory, and the candidate’s further election to Wisbech Town Council.  Unfortunately, despite a 20% surge in the Lib Dem vote, Dave wasn’t able to make it three out of three – with UKIP folding 15% of their previous vote, most likely back to the Conservatives, the Tories held on by just over 30 votes to prevent a complete whitewash.  

In the remaining non-principal by-elections, Lib Dem Colin Gerald Wright took 40% of the vote to become Parish Councillor in the South Ward of Great Cornard in South Suffolk.  Finally, an Independent gained a seat on Sudbury Town Council that was previously Conservative.

March 18th saw two notable anniversaries in the annals of democracy.  Firstly, the world celebrated eighteen years since the watershed referendum that voted to end the system of apartheid across South Africa.  In a longer lens, it was also the anniversary of the declaration of the Paris Commune in 1871, an event that gave the Western world a working model of delegative democracy, and a parliamentary recall function similar to our own proposals for errant M.P.’s – let us hope 1980s synth-pop band The Communards (‘Don’t Leave Me This Way’) cease to remain its most recognised cultural echo!

Back in modern-day Britain, there were only two principal by-election results to report on, the Taverham North ward of Broadland District Council and Gravesham Borough Council’s Meopham South and Vigo ward.  Whilst the Tories held the latter quite handily, it is our pleasure to report a Lib Dem gain at Tory expense in Taverham.  There were no Town or Parish Council by-elections reported to ALDC this week.

Currently a part of the Norwich North constituency, the Taverham North ward of Broadland D.C. will be part of the new Broadland parliamentary constituency from 2010.  Former Councillor, grassroots activist and renowned political blogger Nich Starling successfully took the seat from a local Tory party whose candidates and councillors were reportedly rarely seen in the wards.  Using touchstone local issues such as bad road conditions in the ward, scepticism toward some aspects of the under-development ‘eco-town’ at Rackheath, and the Northern Distributor Road being built in the teeth of widespread opposition, the Liberal Democrat campaign in Taversham chimed with the values of voters on the doorstep and reaped the rewards at the polls.  Nich’s excellent blog is located at www.norfolkblogger.blogspot.com.    

In Meopham South and Vigo, the Conservatives retained their council seat with close to 60% of the vote, with second place coming almost 400 votes behind.  An insurgent UKIP took 14% of the vote, making it to second place on their first attempt.  Both the Liberal Democrat candidate Ann O’Brien and the Labour candidate were eight votes shy of the UKIP total, the Lib Dem share of the vote was 13% on a seat that went uncontested by us last time around.  

Make sure that you don’t leave it to the last minute to get your nomination papers in.  If you leave it too late then there won’t be time to fix any mistakes and you won’t be able to stand.  Comprehensive guidance for ALDC members can be found here.  

March 11th is better known as ‘Johnny Appleseed Day’ on the other side of the Atlantic, a celebration of the well-loved nineteenth-century nurseryman who first introduced apple orchards to vast swathes of the American mid-west.  On this side of the pond it was a relatively tranquil by-election Thursday, with only two principal council by-elections and a pair of Parish Council results to digest.  The two principals resulted in Conservative holds, whilst in the two parish elections reported to ALDC we held one seat and gained the second from Labour.

The by-election in Adeyfield West ward of Dacorum Borough Council in Hertfordshire became fractious with the introduction of a BNP candidate and some highly negative campaigning by the Labour party.  Of the three main parties only the Lib Dem campaign succeeded in increasing the proportion of their vote, the defending Conservatives shedding nearly 9% and the Labour vote dropping by over 13%.  The presence of the BNP appears to have had the effect of solidifying the soft-Labour support that was showing signs of melting away at the previous County Council elections.  Without the additional turnout of Labour supporters catalysed by the BNP, Labour could well have been facing a dramatic collapse.  The Lib Dem campaign to ‘end the neglect of Adeyfield’ came in third by around 60 votes, and almost double the vote of the BNP who limped in fourth.

Less competitive was the by-election for the Redwell West ward of Wellingborough District Council in Northamptonshire, where the successful Tory campaign retained the seat with 143 votes more than every other candidate combined.  With an English Democrat presence diluting the far-right vote, the BNP found themselves pushed from a previous second into third place.  The Liberal Democrat campaign worked with virtually no resources and almost doubled their popular vote.  If the 23 votes that went to the Greens had come our way, we could have forced the BNP from second to fifth overnight.

Finally, warm congratulations to the Deborah Crane campaign who have taken a seat from Labour in the Central ward of Lawley and Overdale Parish Council in Telford constituency, and John Kelly, whose team in the Brandon and Byshottles Parish Council election in Country Durham succeeded in fending off a Labour challenge and retaining the seat for the Liberal Democrats.