Winning candidate Charlie Stewart (third from left) celebrates winning the All Saints by-election with some of his team.

In the three principle by-elections held on Thursday 30th July 2009 the Conservatives took a seat off the BNP, Labour and the Lib Dems held a seat each.
The Lib Dems held a seat on Cheltenham BC ‘All Saints’ ward after the sad death of long-serving Liberal Democrat Councillor Tina Franklin in May. After a hard fought campaign in which they delivered a constant flow of leaflets and letters, they canvassed over 50% of the ward with the valuable help from outside the constituency. The Conservatives as expected ran a hard campaign, but seemed to get the message wrong by talking about the internal workings of the Council. The result was a good majority of 285 over the Conservatives.

In the Tameside MBC, ‘Denton North East’ ward, Labour held the seat with a slight increase of vote share. The two disappointing points of this result are that we did not stand a candidate even though last time we achieved 18.2% of the votes, and the second was the 13.6% (358 votes) that the BNP achieved.

In the Broxtowe BC, ‘Brinsley’ ward, the Conservatives took the seat with 40.9% of the votes and the BNP came second with 28.3% a drop of 15.7% from when they won the seat last time. The Lib Dems did a full-blown campaign of leaflets, target mailings and a 60% canvass. This ward was targeted by the Tories and even though the Lib Dems did a very good campaign, the Tories had a local candidate who has been a Parish Councillor for 30 years, they out leafleted, out canvassed and did the Postal Vote better than we did, by starting earlier than we did. and using all the messages that we would, but against us, resulting in the Conservatives winning the Postal Vote and the seat, with Lib Dems coming third behind the BNP.

The messages from this week's elections are, start early, target the Postal Vote, talk to as many people as possible and make sure that you set the messages and keep control of the campaign.

Cllr Mark Alcock
mark.alcock@aldc.org
 

There were six principal council elections held on the 16th July. We held three wards, the Tories two and Labour took a seat from the Tories. In the only Town and Parish Council result reported to ALDC we held the seat.

In the Merseyside metropolitan borough of St Helens we held all three seats in the Moss Bank ward. The council was on a knife edge. Lab 23: LD 19: Con 6. We lead a LD/Con administration. When a well respected councillor for Moss Bank ward, Anne Heyes, died, control of the council was at stake in the ensuing by-election. Our campaign team quickly spotted from early canvassing that one of our other councillors in the Ward, Carole Kavanagh was the Liberal Democrat that most voters identified with. Our campaign was then to use Carole’s popularity to help the new candidate David Kent get elected. We did this by having plenty of target mail from Carole and emphasising David as part of our strong team. Photos on literature were of our two existing councillors with David, not usually of David on his own. This contrasted well with the isolation of the opposition candidate’s campaigns. Labour ran an entirely negative campaign against our administration.

In the Portfield ward of Christchurch Council in Dorset we saw the benefit of knocking up to the last minute. In 2007 in the borough we lost a seat when the vote was tied and lots were drawn. On the first count in Portfield ward there were only 4 votes between 1st and 2nd place. After the first recount we led by one vote as a bundle of 25 had been found to be mixed and this was confirmed on the second recount. It pays to knock on phone and foot to the last minute.

In the Warwickshire County council ward of Arbury and Stockingford Labour again demonstrated their resilience by retaking this ward from the Tories. So far this year Labour has made five net gains in by-elections, not as good as us but very notable in the current national political climate

This week's by-elections resulted in in the incumbent parties holding their seats, but this hides a good performance by us in two of the three by-elections.

In Brockhurst ward of Gosport we were defending two seats in one ward as a result of a husband and wife team of councillors emigrating to Australia.  The backdrop for this by-election was then made tougher still as a result of this week's decision by the Standards Board to bar our council group leader Peter Chegwyn from office for two years.  The Conservatives however had their own problems, as Sir Peter "Duck Island" Viggers is the local MP.

Despite these difficult circumstances a local campaign of regular hard-hitting leaflets, lots of canvassing and exposure of Conservative dirty tricks, helped to ensure we held on comfortably.  The campaign was masterminded by Peter Chegwyn, who remains one of the party's best campaigners, and they are very grateful for the considerable assistance from the many Liberal Democrats who came from across Hampshire to help out. 

The Conservatives will have been gutted by the result.  Not only did they arrive at the count thinking they had won, but there was actually a swing to us from the Conservatives with us doubling our majority since the last local elections in the ward.

Lichfield is an area that has seen steady progress over the last few years and we did well in the city of Lichfield itself in the recent county council elections.  Yesterday's by-election however was in a rural area to the south east of the city in a county division that saw the Conservatives win 67% of the vote in June.  A 5% swing to us in this by-election is a sign we continue to be heading in the right direction.

Unfortunately this week's results were spoilt by the failure of the Liberal Democrats in Suffolk Coastal to to field a candidate in a by-election.  What makes it worse is that we have had a good record of winning by-elections in the area, with us taking a county council seat in Woodbridge last December - a seat we the held in June's county council elections. 

Don't forget!  There are people out there who want to vote Liberal Democrat, so failing to stand a candidate not only denies them that opportunity but it also stops us, (and as a result helps the other parties), build up support in the area and potentially finding people who may be sufficiently motivated by the campaign to become party activists in the future.
 

There were four principal council elections held on the 19th March. The Tories held three seats and Labour held one. There were three Town and Parish Council results reported to ALDC, all three Lib Dem holds.

The Leek East ward of Staffordshire Moorlands Council lies in the marginal Labour held parliamentary constituency of the same name that only has a majority of 2438. Yet the Labour party chose not to stand a candidate in this by-election. We had not stood ourselves in 2007 but the ward lies in a county division that we are fighting. We surveyed the ward prior to the elections and ran on the strong local issue of Tory proposals to introduce parking charges in the Town centre. Our petition gathered hundreds of signatures and worried the Tories into action. We were not helped by the fact that both the Green candidate and one of the Independents were ex-Lib Dems. Whilst we did not win we are now in second place in the run up to the county elections and the Tories back tracked on the parking charges – Focus Victory.

In recent local by-elections the BNP have begun to use full colour Riso leaflets. This is just another step up in their attempt to get representation in Brussels with the funding that comes with it. It is therefore even more essential that we maximise our vote in all the June elections to help keep them out. One straightforward way to do so is get our supporters on to postal votes. Ideally this should be a concerted postal voter recruitment campaign across your area and there are materials available on the ALDC website and the Party's Extranet to help you do it. However if you’ve got friends, members and relations you keep in touch with via the web why not encourage them to get Postal Votes using the national website www.aboutmyvote.co.uk.

Remember the clocks change on Sunday and the lighter evenings should enable us all to get onto the doorstep, surveying, recruiting or canvassing. It’s also time for another Royal Mail stamp price rise, with the cost of stamps rising on the 6th April up 3p for 1st and 2nd class. So it’s a worthwhile investment to buy your stamps now, for elections in the year ahead.

There were five principal council elections held on the 18th December. Labour held two seats; the Tories held two seats and the Lib Dems gained one seat off the Tories. There were six Town and Parish Council results reported to ALDC; the Tories held one seat, Lib Dems held two and gained two seats off the Tories and one from Labour.

Our only principal council gain of the night was in the Newchurch Ward, on the Isle of Wight where Parish council chairman and farmer Colin Richards won back his old seat lost to the Tories in 2005. He had previously sat as an independent but fought as a Lib Dem in the by-election.

The second story of the night was the BNP threat. In the Hibstock and Heather ward of the North West Leicestershire council the BNP increased the UKIP vote from 20% to 31% to come within 15 votes of winning. Here the local Lib Dems did the right thing by standing a candidate. There is demonstrable evidence that the BNP do worse in seats where we put up a candidate, irrespective of the level of campaign we then run. To not stand a candidate is to aid the BNP. The “united front”/ ”standing down to give the strongest challenger a clear run” argument is simply not supported by the facts.

In the Kells and Sandwith ward of Cumbria County Council we failed to stand a candidate and the BNP came within 16 votes of winning. The local party were aware that the election had been called by the BNP and that they would therefore be standing. It is incumbent under the 3.1(b) (i) of the constitution for local parties to secure the election of Liberal Democrats to local authorities The Copeland Local Party failed to do this.

Local officers can easily overlook the significance of individual by-elections to the regional and national party. Different solutions to this ongoing problem have been modelled. In Shropshire they are now using a countywide flying squad. Another method may be for the regions to suspend local parties who consistently fail in this obligation.

The third story of the night was in the Parish council election in Penketh East, in the Warrington South parliamentary constituency, where we took a vital seat by 5 votes, coming from a previous third place to take the seat from Labour. Penketh was until last night the only part of the marginal Parliamentary Constituency of Warrington South not to have any Liberal Democrat representation at Borough or Parish Council level.

Finally in Weston-super-Mare, Clarence and Uphill Ward of North Somerset Council the seat was decided by the toss of a coin!!

Happy Christmas