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

If no news is good news, then this week’s by-election report is positively gospel.  The only by-election reported to ALDC was for two seats on a Town Council in Westbury, and it featured no Liberal Democrat candidates!  It took place on what would have been satirist Henry Fielding’s 303rd birthday.  One of Fielding’s best known quotes is that ‘the slander of some people is as great a recommendation as the praise of others’ – and having read April 22nd’s broadside against Nick Clegg in the right-wing press, one can only conclude that the same still holds…

As there is so little to report on, here is a whirlwind tour of our year so far:

January saw five by-elections across the country.  In addition to successfully defending our seats in Taunton Deane and Harrogate, we pinched the Great Bowden and Arden ward of Harborough District Council to open this year’s by-election account with a monthly net gain.  February was a busy month, with 27 principal council seats up for grabs.  The main news was Labour rallying, holding three of their five seats and gaining a further eight, for a net monthly gain of six.  The Tories gained and lost three apiece, essentially standing still over the month, and the Lib Dem tally was two successful defences out of seven – three gains and five losses left us on a net of minus two seats.  Our by-election nadir came in the Holmewood and Heath ward of North East Derbyshire, where we failed to field a candidate for a seat vacated by a Liberal Democrat Councillor, prompting some stern rejoinders from the By-Elections Team here at ALDC.  March saw six principal by-elections, with the Conservatives having to defend them all.  They succeeded in four cases, with the Mid-Suffolk Greens and Broadland’s Lib Dems dividing the remainder.  Up to now in April, we’ve had five principal by-elections.  The Tories have lost two of the three they’ve had to defend, one to the Devizes Guardian party in Devizes, and one to us in Dave Patrick’s historic victory in Fenland last week.  Of the rest, the Tories held us off by thirty votes on Cambridgeshire County Council, Labour held a seat in Lancaster (again, with Lib Dems in second), and finally Labour picked off Tory splinter group Tendring First for a seat on their eponymous District Council.  For those incurable political anoraks out there, the Westbury Town Council by-election returned two Independents, both gaining from the Conservatives, with forty and thirty percent of the vote respectively.

2010 up to now therefore, sees our electoral account in the black but only by one seat net.  Although we are yet to see the impact of the ‘Clegg effect’ and the General Election on the by-elections scheduled for May 6th and after, our efforts to this point have demonstrated that the Liberal Democrat approach of ward-level, grassroots activism, thorough canvassing contact, effective squeeze messaging, and heroic literature output, is still the key to authentic electoral success.  Where we’ve worked, we’ve won – and we will continue.

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.

In Japan, April 8th is ‘Buddha’s Birthday’ and the ‘Flower Festival’ celebrations in streets and temples across the land add some lovely Spring colour to the occasion.  For those of you who would still like to take the opportunity to wish him many happy returns (pun intended), the rest of eastern Asia will be celebrating Buddha’s birthday on May 21st, in line with the traditional Chinese lunar calendar.  Hopefully, this week’s by-election results are free of any karmic connotations – of one principal and one Town Council by-election reported to ALDC, we took last place in both.  

The single principal by-election took place in the Golf Green ward of Tendring District Council.  In 2010, Tendring will fall within the new parliamentary constituency of Clacton.  It was formerly located in the ancient constituency of Harwich, whose most notable representative (with all due respect to current Tory MP Douglas Carswell) remains seventeenth century gentleman-diarist Samuel Pepys.

Not one to trouble any budding Liberal Democrat diarists, the Golf Green by-election went down as a Conservative gain from Tory splinter-group Tendring First.  The roots of the Tory-Tendring First animus goes back almost a decade, and the well-funded defending T.F. team went heavily after the Conservatives with six glossy leaflets and a highly negative campaign.  The Labour party campaign also extended to three glossy leaflets and a local candidate.  The Tories stole the trademark Lib Dem ‘barchart’ for their only leaflet of the campaign, whilst the squeeze message isn’t particularly welcome, there may be some consolation in the adage that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.  The BNP worked the poorer areas of the ward, and had significant manpower out on polling day, coming fourth of a field of six.  

In the North ward of Devizes Town Council, the Conservatives lost to local issue group Devizes Guardian.  The Liberal Democrats also came last in this particular election, rounding off a day it may be better to forget.  

ALDC By-Election Team

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.