There was one principal council by-election held on the 7th January. The Lib Dem held the seat. There were no Parish and Town council election results reported to ALDC.

In the Woodfield Ward on Harrogate council in the Harrogate and Knaresborough constituency we ran a professional campaign that you would expect in a held parliamentary seat to regain a seat lost by defection to the Tories.  The defection in October 2008 had also handed overall control of the council to the Tories so it was nice to see it reversed.  Technically the result is a Lib Dem hold but it deprives the Tories of their overall majority on the council leaving the balance Tories 27, Lib Dems 21 and Ripon Independents 6. It also builds on our success last June when we won back the Bilton Nidd Gorge ward of North Yorkshire County Council  which the defector had also held.

Whilst the Tory vote increased it was pleasing to see both the BNP and Labour falling back. The BNP ran an active campaign that included the Yorkshire’s BNP MEP both on the streets and at the count – perhaps it was counter productive?  Labour did little in a ward in which they were a getting over 30% in 2005 and fell behind the BNP to fourth place. The Tories ran a strong campaign with four “In Touch” leaflets and target mail and were evidently disappointed at the count not to do better in ward they’d rarely worked in previously.

Key to victory was a strong postal vote campaign as around 40% of the votes cast were from postal voters in the extremely challenging snow and ice.

A nice birthday present for Nick Clegg!
 

There were five principal council by-elections held on 8th October. The Tories held three seats. The Lib Dems took one seat off Independents but lost one to an Independent Liberal. There was one Parish and Town council election reported to ALDC  which was won by the Tories. 

According to the agent in the Penrith West Ward by-election for Eden District Council in Cumbria we ran a “classic ALDC campaign”, “by the book”. I could write a whole column - in fact a book  - about that but what was clear was that it was considerably better than the campaigns run by the other parties. Blue letters and “Good mornings” were a novelty without competition. With only 1500 doors a full foot canvass was accomplished.  The town has an incomplete supermarket, where the developer has gone bust. The council is run by Independents and Tories (often elected in uncontested elections) and has been taking decisions about the sites future behind closed doors. An easy campaigning target.

In the Pickering East Ward of Ryedale Council, North Yorkshire we’ve had a chequered recent history. The two-member ward elected an Independent and a Liberal Democrat in 2003. In 2007 it elected a Lib Dem and (after a by-election) an Independent Liberal. The one Liberal Democrat councillor moved away from the area causing the by-election. The independent Liberal candidate won giving them both seats in the ward. There was obvious confusion between the Liberal and Liberal Democrat Candidates, particularly as the Liberal was above us on the ballot paper. This might have been a case for using the party description “Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrats”.

In the Grange Hill ward of Epping Forest we nearly regained a seat lost to the Tories in 2004. Gavin Chambers has been building for success, starting with his impressive election to the Buckhurst Hill Parish council at the end of August with 62% of the vote. To come within 42 votes of winning with a 31% increase in our vote is frustrating but we need to stick with it, and we’ll win in the end.

John Bridges
John.bridges@aldc.org

There were eight principal council by-elections held on 10th September. Labour held one seat and took one off the Greens. The Lib Dems, Tories and Independents each held two seats.  In the one Parish and Town council election reported to ALDC the Tories won the seat. 

In the Cheadle and Gatley by-election for Stockport council we were particularly keen to win, not just as a fitting tribute to ex-Council Leader Brian Millard who’s untimely death instigated the election, not just because it lies within the Mark Hunters Cheadle parliamentary constituency but also because we lost one of the three seats in 2008 by 17 votes.  As you’d expect in a parliamentary target this campaign had all the bells and whistles but was none the less satisfying, particularly squeezing Labour down to 2.9%.  This is the second by-election in the new Cheadle constituency this year  - the other was Stepping Hill, formerly Maggie Clay’s seat. The two unfortunate but successful elections have allowed us to gather good recent data for about a third of the constituency, which the Tories are targeting, in the run up to next years General Election

In the Market Harborough Welland Ward of Harborough District Council we lost the county seat in June by eight votes. So when one of our district councillors moved and resigned we were glad to hold the seat. Labour failed to stand a candidate so we used both our historic data and Mosaic to identify and squeeze the Labour vote successfully.

In the York City Council ward of Heworth all four major parties fought hard in the seat, which is contained within the York Central constituency. Key to the improvement in the Lib Dem vote was a door-to-door survey preceding the canvass of all households, which picked up over 1,200 pieces of casework, and lots of new deliverers. In a previously unworked Ward we doubled our share of the vote and moving up from fifth into second place collecting deliverers along the way. York have set themselves realistic targets using the by-election to break new territory.
 

There was one principal council by-election held on the 27th August. The Liberal Democrats held the seat. In two parish and Town council elections reported to ALDC the Lib Dems held one seat and the Tories gained one seat from Independents.

In the Starbeck Ward in Harrogate the Tories made a strong attempt to wrest this strong Lib Dem ward from our grasp. A vigorous campaign around saving the local baths from Tory closure put paid to that but the campaign was notable for its strong postal vote. Of 1398 votes cast 530 were postal votes; 38%. At the outset of the campaign, knowing that polling day was in a holiday period, we decided that one of our key campaign targets would be to sign up and engage with postal voters. To this end we targeted key groups for postal vote recruitment. We sent specific “blue “ letters to all non-anti postal voters as well as the usual “How to letter”. We also targeted existing postal voters in the extensive canvas that took place. Whilst a holiday period gave particular focus to this aspect of Starbecks campaigning we would win more if this was replicated as a minimum in all our local by-elections.

Following last week’s success in council by-elections this was another week of success for the Liberal Democrats.

Harlow’s by-election came under unusual circumstances when a former Conservative councillor was thrown off the council due to non-attendance as a result of a six month stint on remand.  The by-election campaign was centred on Lib Dem opposition to cuts by the local Conservative council and resulted in a collapse in the Conservative vote of 15%.  Combined with a Lib Dem increase of 6% this saw John Strachan elected by 60 votes to become Harlow’s ninth Lib Dem councillor.  You can find out more about we won this election in an article by Lorna Spenceley on Liberal Democrat Voice.

In Sheffield, we had our first electoral test since taking control of the city council.  Each party focused their campaign on our record since last May and the result saw a resounding 819 vote majority in a ward won by just 74 votes two years ago.  The contest saw a swing from Labour to the Lib Dems and the Conservatives limped home in fourth place despite a very active campaign.  Congratulations to Cllr Colin Taylor and his campaign team that was ably led by Ben Curran and Adam Williams.

Of particular significance this week is that our two by-election wins were in parliamentary seats that are being targeted by the Conservatives at the next General Election.  On this evidence, it shows that the task for the Conservatives is a lot harder than their poll ratings show.  It also gives hope to those people who worry that the Liberal Democrats may be squeezed out.