There was one principal council by-election held on the 5th November. The Tories held the seat. There were no Parish and Town council election results reported to ALDC.

The Lower Sheering Ward of Epping Forest District council in Essex is a one member rural ward that has a polling station in Hertfordshire and lies in the highly marginal Harlow parliamentary constituency. Despite this Labour failed to nominate a candidate and the Tories increased their vote by less than 1%. We ran a paperless campaign yet got more than four times the vote we received in a by-election in the ward in June 2005.

As the 10:10 campaign gathers momentum the next campaigning step for us all is working towards Copenhagen, the United Nations Climate change conference 7-18th December. The party will be producing a range of materials to help you campaign on this and there will be a number of marches and events to attend in London on December 5th. However it’s worth finding out what is happening in your area e.g. local demonstrations and getting involved. We will keep you updated week by week as the campaign develops.

The Political Parties and Elections Act became law in July 2009. One key element of the act is that in the next six months the spending of political parties will be governed by three different regimes! In the period 1/1/2010 to the start of your local election regulated period (earliest 29/3/2010)  materials and expenses can count towards:
·    the national parties limit where it promotes the national party
·    promoting the PPC counts towards the new “long” campaign limit and will need to be declared.
·    promoting anything else can be allocated to the local campaign, but needs no declaration before the start of the regulated period for the local campaign.
This is complicated and will require very careful attention to imprints, PPERA declarations, Long and Short Parliamentary campaign and local election campaign expense limits. As with the Euro campaign last year record-keeping is very important. There is a strong argument for the constituency general election agent being the agent for all the wards covered by the constituency in the local elections to keep the record keeping comprehensive and consistent.

In the one directly elected mayoral by-election held on 15th October we took the post from an Independent. There were twelve principal council by-elections, the Tories held eight seats, Labour one seat and the Liberal Democrats one seat. The Lib Dems took one seat off Labour but this was reversed with Labour taking one seat from the Lib Dems. There were two Parish and Town council election results reported to ALDC   an Independent hold and a Lib Dem gain from Independent. 

The mayoral campaign was gripping everyone in the ALDC as news seeped out of the count all Friday. We fancied our chances from the start. One of our best results in the country on June 4th was in Bedford where, on new boundaries, we became the largest party in the new unitary authority. Then the Tories decided to hold  an open selection for their candidate alienating many of their core voters and activists in the process. We ran a good campaign with big guns like Nick Clegg and Simon Hughes visiting. On the Tory side Eric Pickles and David Cameron were wheeled out. They must have been aghast to see our window posters, stakeboards and super boards dominating across urban Bedford. With Watford, East of England region now has two directly elected Lib Dem, t Mayors lets hope Henry Vann can take the parliamentary seat next May! 

The Cannock Chase Heath Hayes East and Wimblebury Ward in Staffordshire has been held by all three parties over the last 20 years.  Having held it before we won it back in 2004, but lost it in 2008 coming third.  As soon as this election was over we got wind that the Lab councillor was moving to Sardinia and so we started working it.  In the end it took him 18 months to go and even then it was just three days before he would be disqualified.  We also used the county council elections as a trial run for the by-election, just working that part of the division.
Since June we delivered seven leaflets, covered the whole ward in street letters on specific local issues, direct mail and phone canvassed.  In the postal vote we were neck and neck but we won on the day with a phone knock up.

In the Crawley Borough Council Northgate Ward By-election the Tories started their campaign with a leaflet implying that the reason for our councillors resignation was dubious. Coupled with a family bereavement for the candidate this put us on the back foot and we never really recovered dropping from first to third. The local agent suggests that we simply did not knock on enough doors.

For a second week in a row, no council seats changed hands in the by-elections being contested.

The best result for the party this week was in the Burrsville Ward of Tendring in Essex.  This ward makes up the northern suburbs of Clacton-on-Sea and saw a 16% increase in the Liberal Democrat vote.  This campaign was fought hard as Conservative overall control of the council rested on the result.  In the end, despite a good increase in our vote we didn't quite succeed in removing the Conservative's slim majority on the council.

Results in the other wards up for election showed no obvious trend, other than that all were in wards that have tended to be very weak for the Liberal Democrats and in some cases they were the first time we had contested the ward for some time.

The other by-elections this week were:
North Tyneside MBC, Preston
Hartlepool UA, Elwick
Broxtowe BC, Toton and Chilwell Meadows
Three Rivers DC, Hayling

If this week's by-elections aren't very exciting, then maybe next year's council elections will be.  ALDC's Kickstart is the leading training course for people aiming to do well in next year's local elections.  But places are going fast.  The benefits of Kickstart as opposed to other training courses include: an experienced mentor for your campaign team, training tailored for your own individual circumstances, a change of scenery from your own area to help you focus on what you need to do to win and a chance to swap ideas with Liberal Democrats from around the country.  There is a discounted early-bird rate, but this ends on 1st October, so make sure you book now.  More details from our Kickstart page.

There were four principal council by-elections held on 3rd September. Labour held one seat and lost one to the Tories. The Tories lost a seat to an Independent and one to the Liberal Democrats. In the six Parish and Town council elections reported to ALDC the Lib Dems held one seat and gained two seats from the Tories. The Tories held two seats and Independents one.

In the Hallow Ward of Malvern Hills council we scored a spectacular gain from the Tories in the key West Worcestershire parliamentary seat. Crucial was the Regional Spatial Strategy advocating 3500 extra houses for the village. The Tories claimed they’d been instrumental in delaying the implementation of the RSS (incidentally following the national Tory strategy revealed last week http://tinyurl.com/torydelaytactics).  We pointed out that the Tories had forced through the proposal. Strong issues well used.

In the Luton and Wayfield Ward of Medway Unitary Authority in Kent we had not stood a candidate for years. The parliamentary seat is held by Labour but is a top Tory target. The remaining Labour councillors in the Ward (once Labour’s safest in the parliamentary seat) resigned and joined the independents over the Labour candidates selection. The Tory candidate was a Ghurka but the Tories were closing a local primary school.!! Clearly there was plenty of ammunition but in such a highly charged political atmosphere three leaflets and some target mail is not normally a winning campaign, and so it proved this time.

In the Southwick Ward of the newly unitary Wiltshire an Independent took the seat, leapfrogging our campaign. Whilst the Tory vote was hardest hit it does highlight the issue of how to deal with independents in the current “anti politics” environment. One thing to be extremely careful of is historic canvas data whether it’s from actual canvassing in previous elections or “how did you vote last time/usually” type questions. This data is often gathered without reference to the possible choice of candidates in the current election. Once electors are aware they have a choice beyond the main parties they can be tempted to leave their usual allegiances or abstain. It is something the party needs to address before next May.  One approach may be to re-canvas the historic element of the shuttleworth in the last few days of the campaign, perhaps on the final Sunday.

Regular readers of this column may be aware that we have made significant progress in local by-elections this year with over 10 net gains in the year to date. While the causes of success in any election are notoriously difficult to unravel it is evident that one of the keys to Liberal Democrat success is that in by elections we can focus the resources from across a borough or county to campaign in the by-election ward.  As Chris Huhne outlined in his article in Lib Dem news last week, our opinion poll ratings double when were not squeezed by Labour and the Tories. It is the volume and quality of our campaigning that helps us bridge this credibility gap. In 2010 the likelihood of combined local and parliamentary elections presents huge capacity challenges to the party as a whole. There are no guarantees of success but it will be clear that where we have not built sufficient financial and human resources will not win. Now is the time to join the Big Build campaign to build the capacity we need for success in 2010.
 

There were six principal council elections held on the 23rd April. The Lib Dems gained a seat off the Tories, one off Labour and one off Independents. The Tories held two seats and lost a seat to Labour. There was one Town and Parish Council result reported to ALDC, an Independent hold.

In the Totteridge ward of Wycombe District council in Buckinghamshire we took a seat off Labour. The result saw the Liberal Democrats move from third place in 2007 to victory with over 50% of the vote taking the seat from Labour. The main issue of the campaign was the decision by local Conservatives to close the open air swimming pool. Steve Guy and the Lib Dems have been running a campaign to save the pool.

In the Inverness West ward of Highland Council in Scotland , in Danny Alexander MP’s seat we won on the first round with 60% of the vote taking the seat from an Independent. There was a 22% swing to us from the SNP and the Conservatives came a dismal 5th.

In the Aboyne, Upper Deeside and Donside ward of Aberdeenshire council we took a seat off the Tories. Labour didn’t even bother to field a candidate and the SNP were pushed into 4th place by an Independent candidate.

We also had a 17% increase in our vote in the Wanstead Ward of the London Borough of Redbridge, which will do no harm to our chances in Leyton & Wanstead at the General Election and next year’s locals in London.

In the Alford , Cranleigh Rural and Ellen’s Green Ward in the Borough of Waverley we had a 14% increase in our vote which will boost Sue Doughty’s hopes of returning as the MP for Guildford.