On July 29th there were three principal council by-elections and six contests out in the towns.  There was good news at all levels, on the former we gained a seat in Bath and North East Somerset, and in the latter we romped home with four gains out of the six!  

Our gain in the Radstock ward of Bath and North East Somerset District Council has taken us to within four seats of the Conservatives, who currently enjoy minority control with thirty-one seats overall.  That said, the Tories were no threat in this particular ward and their attacks on the ‘Bath-centric Liberal Democrats’ while running a candidate from Bath themselves, indicated how seriously they were taking the contest.  The only real contenders were an Independent and the Labour Party.  Labour polled second with a largely positive campaign centred on their candidate.  Our candidate Simon Allen was a new face in local politics and the campaign made a lot of a ‘Fresh Start for Radstock’.  The long experience of Bath and N.E.S. helping neighbouring constituencies at election time paid karmic dividends, when they received help from no fewer than twelve constituency parties across the region.  Weekly print-runs across a variety of colours and formats, a street letter linked a community action day on a local estate, and a well-timed postal vote campaign sealed the victory.  A legacy of fresh canvass data and a new deliverers network were the icing on the cake of our newest Liberal Democrat in local government.  Congratulations to Simon and the whole Bath and North East Somerset team.

Elsewhere, we came a close second in the Haywards Heath Franklands ward of Mid Sussex D.C., with a 27% increase in our vote-share, we were just eighty-one votes shy of picking up a second by-election seat on Mid-Sussex since May 6th.  In the towns, we took two seats off the Tories, in Crewekerne near Yeovil and Haywards Heath Town Council.  A gain from the Independents in Redruth and one off Labour on Keynsham Town Council near Bristol rounded off a good day at the office for our campaign teams across the country.  

 

ALDC By-Elections Team

With nine principal council by-elections taking place on St Swithin’s day this year, we can only hope our electoral prospects don’t stay the same for the next forty days!  Of the two we were defending, we lost one, and we failed to pick up any seats elsewhere.  The Conservatives held steady, successfully defending four out of five; on Surrey Country Council (Worplesdon division); Great Marlow ward of Wycombe District; Wheatley ward on Rochford D.C.; and Pirbright in Guildford.  The one seat lost by the Tories on the 15th, Bloxwich West ward of Walsall M.B.C., was one of a trio of Labour gains.  They also took the Castle seat on Leicester City Council from the Greens and, disappointingly, the Riversway seat in Preston C.C. from our local Lib Dems.  In Wales, Llais Gwynedd, or Voice of Gwynedd for the Anglophones amongst us, held the Diffwys and Maenofferon seat on Gwynedd against a Plaid Cymru challenge, a contest in which there was no Liberal Democrat candidate.  

With a by-election clutch as dreary as the recent weather, we’ve saved the best ‘til last in the form of our successful defence of the Corfe Mullen South seat on East Dorset District Council.  Nestled in the Mid-Dorset and North Poole constituency of our own Annette Brooke, the ward itself has been a Lib Dem stronghold for the past seventeen years.  With weekly Focus and election literature, in addition to Definite and Probable-targeted letters, we capitalised on local issues of the day, particularly wheelie-bin allocations and a controversial nearby landfill site, to reinforce our message of community politics.  A legacy benefit of approximately 50% new canvass data across the ward and a smooth Postal Vote operation combined to defeat a negative Tory campaign and a lacklustre UKIP effort.  Congratulations to Councillor Philip Harknett, and our hard-working team in East Dorset.

Out in the towns, we had some good news in the form of a hold and a gain on Barnstaple Town Council, unfortunately counterbalanced by a pair of losses on Bradfield Parish Council in Sheffield.  We also lost a Town Councillor in Knaresborough, near Harrogate, to the Tories, making it a pretty torrid time for Liberal Democrats at all local government levels.  There are another nine principals up next week, of which we are defending three.  The best of luck to all our candidates and campaigners across the country.

The tranquil surroundings of the Wells constituency formed the backdrop to our best result of the day, where a Lib Dem gain from the Conservatives put us only one seat behind the Tories on Mendip D.C. and brought the council into No Overall Control.  Candidate Garfield Kennedy led from the front, knocking on every door in the ward, building on Tessa Munt’s election to parliament in May.  Swiftly acquiring a number of strategic sites on the approach to a popular local supermarket for our superboards and a further forty different stakeboard locations, made it a high visibility campaign.  Our messages were spread, and some new members signed up, by the candidate hiring a stall in town on market day.  The Coalition was generally well-received on the doorstep and we found ourselves on the right side of local planning concerns and a parking charges controversy that were hurting the (Conservative-run) Mendip District Council.  Postal votes arrived before the budget, and the P.V.-targeted blue letter dropped onto doormats on the same day – in the end, the postal vote broke approximately two-thirds in our favour.  The campaign also made good use of ALDC’s Focus and Good Morning templates to help tailor their local literature output, templates for all occasions can be found in the members’ area of www.aldc.org.

 Our second gain of the day was the Clee ward of Shropshire Unitary Authority, where candidate Richard Huffer built on his established reputation as a dedicated community worker to take the ward from a complacent local Tory party.  A range of literature, beginning with the post-General ‘Thank You’ Focus and including letters targeted geographically to capitalise on the range of local issues affecting specific areas.  Richard succeeded in converting a number of disillusioned soft-Conservative votes on the basis of his prodigious door-knocking efforts and his long record of action on local issues.  The prospect of Conservative-run Shropshire cutting funding for ‘Meals on Wheels’ and local mobile library services also helped seal the deal by keeping the focus firmly at local level.

 In other developments, the Tories gained a seat on Fylde Borough Council from an Independent and they held the Huntingdon and Hatherton ward of South Staffordshire District Council by the princely margin of two votes.  It was a reasonable day for Labour, holding the three they were defending.  Finally, the non-principal by-elections saw a Lib Dem loss to an Independent on Chard Town Council in Somerset, and our own Town Councillor Michael Reginald Lock successfully defending a seat on Yeovil T.C.

ALDC By-Elections Team

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

There were two principal council elections held on the 28th January. The Lib Dems held one seat and gained one from the Tories. In the only  Town and Parish Council results reported to ALDC the Tories held the seat.

The Great Bowden and Arden Ward of Harborough District Council in Leicestershire saw this year’s first by-election gain, at the expense of the Conservatives.  Tory attacks fell flat when faced with candidate Phil Knowles’ wide experience of local issues and hard-working reputation established during his previous time as councillor.  The campaign’s popular position on a touchstone local planning issue was further boosted by extensive media coverage following a visit by party President Baroness Ros Scott.  Emphasising the importance of local issues and grassroots activism throughout, the Knowles campaign used regular Focuses, Street and Targeted mailing, and an extensive door-knocking in terrible weather to open our 2010 local elections with a resounding success.

Thursday saw the second by-election in the Lyngford Ward of Taunton-Deane District council in Somerset. In October last year another of our three seats in the ward was successfully defended in a by-election, so given that this was a disqualification this was another good result.  Key to our success here was a lot of good preparation given that we knew a by-election was likely. In a cold winters campaign 47% of votes cast were postal and 67% of all postal voters voted. Lucky , then that we sent blue letters and knocked up our postal voters. Falling within Jeremy Browne’s Taunton constituency this was a second piece of good news following his successful appeal against his “Legg letter”.  The Tory candidate didn’t bother to attend the count in October but was so confident that he was there to see them lose this time