ALDC

Less than 90 days to polling day…

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 16:51:00 +0000

There was one principal council by-election held on the 21st January. The Conservatives gained a seat from an Independent in the Uppingham ward of Rutland UA. Last May, the ward elected one Conservative, one Liberal Democrat and one Independent, with the Conservatives topping the poll. Unfortunately, in this by-election the Lib Dems came third behind Labour who had not stood last year. The Liberal Democrat candidate Peter Golden’s vote share went down by 2.1% polling200 votes, which was 24.0% of the vote share.

There were three Town Council by-elections reported to ALDC, the Lib Dems gained two seats and held one. The seat we held was in the Morpeth TC, Kirkhill ward, "The actual result was a dead heat - we got the extra vote when lots were drawn." The first seat we gained was in the Leighton Linslade TC, Barnabas ward, in the second town council by-election we gained the seat off an Independent in Berwick-upon-Tweed, St Boisil ward. This by-election in Berwick was the first time the party's new Connect system had been used in an election, and it performed the job incredibly well.

With less than ninety days to polling day, we all need to up our game in our campaigning for the elections on 3rd May. On ALDC’s website you will find all the templates and artwork examples you will need along with literature from the party's Department of Elections and Skills, which will save you time and effort that you can use knocking on doors and talking to the people who will vote in May.

ALDC has commissioned a series of FOCUS and campaign material templates for use by Liberal Democrat campaigners available exclusively to members of ALDC.

Packs 1,2,3 and 4 for 2011/2012 have been released and packs 5 and 6 will follow over the next two months:

The templates include: A3, A4 FOCUS, ideas for direct mail - new voter letters and inserts, postal voter recruitment letters and forms, casework cards, back our campaign artwork, squeeze materials, canvassing leaflets, members newsletters, single issue canvass leaflets, national and local surveys, these along with packs 5 and 6 will give you all the artwork you need for your election campaign and your year round campaigning - all of which have been produced in black and white, two colour (for RISOs) and in full colour (Colour RISO or commercial printer). All the FOCUS leaflets have variations to allow for single and for two and three member wards and election campaigns, and different bar charts for fighting the Tories and Labour.

Two difficult elections lead to two defeats

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:00:00 +0000

There were two principal local council by-elections that took place on Thursday 19th January 2012 resulting in Labour gaining two seats from the Lib Dems.

There was one town council result reported to ALDC which resulted in a gain for the Lib Dems from Labour on Horwich Town Council in Bolton. This meant the Lib Dem group on the council increased to 5 councillors and Labour losing its majority control on the council.

Of the two principal elections, the one in Redcar & Cleveland resulted in Labour running a very negative campaign and highlighting a controversial article that our candidate had on his Facebook site. We ran a very good campaign with all that you would expect, from lots of literature, good postal vote campaign, lots of voter contact and a full polling day operation. We seemed to have suffered with the negative campaign that Labour ran especially the article from our candidate’s Facebook account resulting in the Lib Dems losing our seat by 56 votes.

In the second by-election in St. Albans we were defending a seat we took from Labour by one vote with a paper candidate in 2010. The defeated Labour councillor, who’d represented the ward for 22 years, then re-stood in this by-election. In the 2011 election we lost to Labour coming third behind the Tories. The Lib Dem campaign was a positive one whereas the Labour campaign was negative attacking the Tories and squeezing the Lib Dems as the Tories only need one more seat to have a majority on the council. The Lib Dems improved and came second this time.

The Doorstep Challenge

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 16:58:00 +0000

We deliver leaflets till our shoes are worn out, now-a-days we also deliver letters, send emails and update our blogs and twitter feeds, but there is NO SUBSTITUTE for knocking on doors and talking to people.

The experience of last year’s local elections as a Party of Government in Westminster has taught us the importance of talking directly to voters. This is why you and your team to be knocking on doors now.

Why is this so important?
1 - It's very easy for politics and politicians to become remote. But as campaigning local Liberal Democrats a fundamental core of our belief is that we stand up for local people. To do this we need to talk to people, we need to find out what issues concern people as the basis for our local campaigning. People are genuinely pleased to see local politicians talking to them outside of election time.

2 - Not everybody hates us! It's true - have you knocked on any doors recently? Despite what those increasingly nasty people in the Labour Party would have us believe, most people understand the issues that the country is facing, and most people understand the commitment that Liberal Democrats have to their local area.

3 - Getting out "our vote" and squeezing the third party is crucial in winning local elections. But we can't do this unless we know who our supporters are, and who 3rd party supporters are. Use your door knocking to update your voter ID - compare this to previous data and you can see how you're doing in different areas.

4. Getting real data from real people makes it easier to plan your strategy for the campaign if you have good data on voting intentions now. It helps you understand which wards are safe, which ones need more work, and if any particular target literature is needed

Why Now?
This election is going to be a challenge. Starting your campaign in April is not going to work this time. By starting now you give yourself a better chance of being re-elected. Many people have already started, or started last year, or do this continuously - they have an even better chance of winning in May.

How to get going

1 - Sort out some calling leaflets. There are some really good simple A4 leaflets on the ALDC website which will work in any area - all you need to do is add your picture(s) and contact details. It might be a good idea to give the door-knockers some "action forms" to take a note of any casework - including email addresses!)

Candidate canvass leaflets from our Artwork pack 1 first published in August last year :
Black and White PagePlus11
Black and White PDF
Two colour PagePlus11
Two colour PDF
Full colour PagePlus11
Full colour PDF

2 - Sort out when you're going. Choose two or three times a week when you're going out as a "team" (it's much more satisfactory as a team). Tuesdays at 6, Saturdays at 10, Sundays at 4 - whatever works for you and your team.

3 - Sort out who you're calling on. Some people "filter" the canvass sheets so we only call on more important households - if you put on the marked register from the General Election you could "filter out" people who didn't vote in the General (if they didn't vote then they're unlikely to vote in the locals!), if you're fighting Labour it might be an idea to filter out HARD Labour households (and people down as Anti or Not Voting or BNP) - no point wasting your time is there?

4 - If it's raining have some telephone canvass sheets as a backup. Invite people round to your house, give them a cup of tea and some biscuits and do a couple of hours phoning round the kitchen table as a group (most people have minutes on their mobiles, or get some old mobiles out of an old drawer with a pay as you go SIM).

ALDC has written a series of articles on voter ID that explains all different aspects of voter ID. The full series is available to be viewed by ALDC members on our website.

Campaign Countdown 3

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 16:32:00 +0000

At 10pm in 100 days time and it will "all be over bar the counting" for this year's local elections. I do not need to tell you that the next 100 days are going to be tough for Liberal Democrats up and down the country to get the message across and campaign to have more Lib Dem Councillors representing local people on the 3rd May 2012.

Target Ruthlessly
If you've not done this already the campaign from now on should be only about targeted seats. This means campaigning in the local elections where we plan to HOLD a Lib Dem seat, or WIN a new Lib Dem seat. Remember ALL your historic canvas data will need to be revisited before May 3rd. This will require a lot of extra work in wards which we have historically regarded as safe and targeting plans need to reflect this. If you don’t recruit new members, canvassers and deliverers in the next few weeks you will need to target your existing resources on fewer wards to be successful. It’s that simple.

Half Price ALDC Membership for Candidates!

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 12:00:00 +0000

We don't need to tell you how important the elections in May 2012 are to the Party.

To help ensure that as many of the hundreds of Lib Dem candidates next May WIN, we're offering HALF PRICE membership of ALDC to every Lib Dem candidate in the May 2012 local elections.

For as little as 79p week, all ALDC members will be able to benefit from:

exclusive access to campaign literature templates, artwork and advice
exclusive weekly "Campaigner" email, packed full of campaign issues, ideas, council motions and best practice
ALDC's bi-monthly members magazine "Local Campaigner"
a free "MyCouncillor" website
full access to our advice line and online advice - exclusively available to ALDC members.
Free Connect Casework for ward work, worth £36

It's not just councillors who join ALDC, we're also proud to have a large number of candidates, agents, local campaigners, Parliamentary and local party staff as members.

The 50% discount is only available for people who join us by direct debit. Join us "paperfree" online today by filling in your details here. Call us on 01422 843 785 for more information.

Group Members of ALDC? - why not add your candidates?
The most successful local party in the 2010 elections was the London Borough of Sutton. What did they do in advance of the elections - sign up every single candidate as a member of ALDC through their group membership scheme. With the 50% discount this is even more affordable.

Job Opportunities at ALDC

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 13:29:00 +0000

ALDC is currently recruiting for a Communications Officer (Hebden Bridge) and 2 x Development Officers (location flexible). Deadline for applications is 6 February 2012.

Following the receipt of new income from the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust Ltd, and after an internal re-organisation we are currently looking for three new staff members to join the ALDC team.

This includes a Hebden Bridge based Communications Officer who will lead the development of our communications, particularly online and social media, as well as taking forward our councillors’ website platform “myCouncillor”. We’re also looking for two new part-time Development Officer posts to work on the ground to develop the capacity and success of Liberal Democrat activists outside of target parliamentary seat areas. We’re specifically looking to extend the on the ground support we can offer away from Hebden Bridge, so we are NOT looking for staff to work in the nearby regions of North West and Yorkshire and the Humber.

Communications Officer

(Full Time, Hebden Bridge)
Help lead ALDC’s communications with our members and partners through taking forward our online communications and use of social media. Help our members communications by taking forward our “MyCouncillor” website platform for Lib Dem councillors and campaigners.
SO1-SO2 £24,646-28,636 + 8% pension contribution

Download Application Pack here

Development Officer x 2
(3 days a week, location flexible)
Help us support and develop teams of Liberal Democrat activists around the country in our ambitious programme to help develop effective campaigning and local election success. We are looking to extend the on the ground reach of ALDC, so are not looking for staff to be working near to our base in Hebden Bridge (ie not North West, not Yorkshire and the Humber), but otherwise location flexible).

SO1-SO2 £24,646-28,636 pro-rata + 8% pension contribution

Download Application Pack here

The deadline for application is 9.00am 6 February 2012.

All interviews will take place on 15 February 2012 in Manchester.

Who's Up in 2012

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 15:01:00 +0000

Here is our summary of the composition of councillors, by authority-type and party, facing election in May 2012. This list represents the best of ALDC's knowledge at time of publication but may be subject to change, for example due to by-elections and defections prior to the election. If you would like to report any amendments to the figures presented here, please let us know by emailing john.bridges@aldc.org.

Councillors up in 2012 - At a Glance

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Councillors up in 2012 - In Detail

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Principal Local Byelection Analysis for 2011

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 12:00:00 +0000

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Defence by Party for all of 2011

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Our performance against other parties in 2011

Cumulative votes cast in the whole of 2011

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Campaign Countdown 2

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 17:04:00 +0000

It’s wild and windy but there’s just 120 days till polling day on May 3rd 2012 so why should I appoint my agent now?

Being the agent for an election candidate is a highly responsible and legally significant position (see the article below) and one that many candidates (and local parties) leave to the beginning of the regulated election period (27th March). True, you have to appoint an agent as part of the nomination procedure between 27th March and noon on 4th April 2012 or else act as your own agent (not at all advisable) but an agent can be much more than the legal limiter and conscience of the campaign.
An agent can be the one person you can rely on to be out with you canvassing on a cold dark night. The person who can be honest both to you about how you’re doing and honest to those overseeing our campaigning in the authority on how we are doing, free from the usual candidate’s rose tinted spectacles. They can be the one who keeps track of the stats and figures, the one who keeps you to your agreed campaign plan. They can both keep your feet on the ground and tell when you need and deserve a rest. In some campaigns this is separated out into a “campaign manager” role. The joint role has the advantage of somebody who can keep you up to the mark.
Obviously the more experienced your agent is the better. .It’s an ill wind that means that we have a lot of very experienced campaigners around the party at the moment who are not elected or defending seats, some who lost seats last May through no fault of their own. Grab them, grab their experience and get them helping you in the final 120 days of the campaign, not just the last 30.
So find your agent now!!

How can ALDC help?
In many cases agents are new to the job and learning their way. What is available to help you?
In the legal role of an election agent there is Winning Local Elections volume 3 “The Election Law Handbook” this is getting a bit dated but is still available in the ALDC online shop. The most up to date articles on new developments are in the Election Law part of the Advice section of the ALDC website. We will also produce a number of Factsheets and articles on key issues such as the nomination process in the Election briefings over the next months. Why not get your Agent to sign up for Election Briefing? It’s not just for candidates! In addition, as the election approaches, we will be launching our usual Election Law phone line.
In their campaign management role (if they’re taking this on as well) then most of ALDC campaigning publications and advice will be invaluable. Why not get them to join ALDC its only £6.83 per month. Join here to get access to all our services.

G8 Deadline

The G8 Grants Committee is looking to make grants to local parties in Scotland, Wales and England who have local elections in May 2012. We know from experience that early campaigning activity works. We want to reward those that are starting early on their campaign for 2012 and are therefore "Round 2" of the grants, will be to reward local parties who can demonstrate a good level of campaigning activity in the Autumn/Winter period running up to Christmas. Remember applications must be returned by this Sunday 8 January 2012.

John Bridges
Political Officer ALDC

These emails are being sent to our target candidates and key activists in the run up to the local elections in May 2012. If you should not be receiving this email, or you know of others who should but don’t contact me at ALDC and we’ll update our records!!!

G8 Grants for 2012

Fri, 23 Dec 2011 12:00:00 +0000

G8 Grants for Local Campaigning for the 2012 Local Elections

Where people have elections by 1/3rds we are keen to support wards that we are defending in 2012 but that we lost in 2011.

To be eligible for a grant we will need to see most of the following in place:

knocking on doors has been taking place, and that a plan of knocking on doors, and phoning voters is in place up to the elections in target wards
regular delivery of FOCUS and other literature and a literature plan in place up to the elections.
candidates in place in target wards
a good strategy in place for the May elections across the authority including which wards will be targeted, with strong leadership and the team on board

Applications are through a simple online form, Link to application form for England, Scotland and Wales .

Applications must be returned by Sunday 8 January 2012

Campaign Countdown 1

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 13:08:00 +0000

It’s cold, wet and dark but there’s just 20 weeks till polling day on May 3rd 2012.

Welcome to the first of our campaign emails. These are being sent to our target candidates and key activists in the run up to the local elections in May 2012. If you should not be receiving this email, or you know of others who should but don’t contact me at ALDC and we’ll update our records!!!

In many wards we will need to identify 2,000 supporters between now and polling day to give us a chance of winning. That’s 100 a week. Start now, don’t wait until this becomes an insurmountable problem.
Here are some things you can do to gather voter ID, even at this time of year…..

Knock and drop surveying
Chat canvassing
Canvass old people’s homes and sheltered housing
Tower blocks
Phone surveying

Spreading the load is important, so take some time over the holiday period to say "thank you" to your helpers and supporters, whether it’s a card or a phone call it will pay dividends over the coming weeks.

New free booklet from ALDC - Introduction to Connect

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 17:24:00 +0000

All ALDC members will shortly receive a FREE booklet all about how to use Connect - the party's new data management system. The booklet will come with the next members mailing that will be arriving in the post next week.

The booklet has been written by Tim Pollard and Austin Rathe from the party's Department of Elections and Skills who have been leading on the project. It includes:

Ten ways Connect will help you win
How to first start using the system
How to search for information and use lists
Tags, questions and scripts (or how to record different sorts of data)
Creating reports and canvass sheets
Entering data
Printing letters
Managing casework using Connect Casework (free to ALDC members early in the New Year)
How to get more help

The booklet is designed as a simple introduction to get people going and further booklets and advice will be produced at a later. All ALDC members will receive one free copy and further copies will be available to purchase for £4 via the ALDC shop in the New Year.

You can find out more about Connect on the ALDC website.

Time to reflect

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 15:22:00 +0000

There were five principal local council by-election held on Thursday 15th December. The Tories held three but lost one to an Independent and there was an Independent hold. There were no parish or town council by-election result reported to ALDC.

Coombe Vale Ward in New Malden is part of the Lib Dem controlled London Borough of Kingston upon Thames. The balance on the council as a whole is LD 27 Con 21. We held three seats in the ward until 2002, when the Tories took one but it’s been solidly Tory since 2006. Despite it being in the Richmond Park parliamentary constituency it did not have a great record after 2006. However in 2010 we came within 89 votes of taking a seat and we had high hopes of two gains in this double by-election. We lost both seats.
So what happened?
As ever with our ruminations on by-elections, it’s early days and there is much analysis to be done. The first thing to say was that it was not due to a lack of work or expertise. We had experienced, reliable canvassers on the doorsteps, good literature and a great team using the latest techniques. Two years ago this campaign would have won.
The Tories should have been on weak ground. One of the their two resignations was for a councillor who had moved to the US and continued to claim his allowance for four months. However they sought to insulate themselves from this by running two female candidates out of the well-resourced Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith’s) office.
We thought we were squeezing the Labour vote hard but obviously not effectively enough as their vote went up. They repeated the mantra that “it’s Labour or the Coalition” whereas the reality was that voting Labour let the Tories in. The turnout, 43% was much higher than expected in a by-election a week before Christmas. In the 2006 all-outs it had been 51% and on general election day in 2010 74%. Much higher than in the Feltham and Heston parliamentary by-election down the road.
We had a huge amount of canvass data two thirds of which was current, and our eve of poll and polling day feedback suggested that we were winning. But we lost all the ballot boxes at the count. This suggests some fundamental problems. As we develop our responses to those problems over the coming months we need, as London have done, to use by-elections to test their impact.
We can, and should use the time over Christmas to reflect on whether the problem is:

Voters are being truthful but change their mind (why?) before they get to a ballot box. - do we need to counter late voting influences, if so how?
Voters don’t like to offend the nice local Lib Dems and even good canvassers are failing to pick it up - do we need better methods of gathering voter ID that avoid this misinformation, if so, what?.
Are we mistaken in our previously held beliefs about who votes when they are identified and knocked up?

ALDC would be keen to hear from those who have theories or suggestions to make.

Other elections

Mid Devon DC, Clare and Shuttern
Melton BC, Frisby on the Wreake
Shetland UA, Shetland Central

Christmas Opening Times

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 12:00:00 +0000

The ALDC Office will be open until 3.00pm on Friday 23 December 2011, and re-open at 9.30am on Tuesday 3 January 2012.

Messages on the answerphone will be dealt with in the new year, so if there are any urgent advice queries please use the "Advice" facility on this website, which will be checked over the holiday period.

If there are any urgent queries over the myCouncillor system, or any system problems, these should also be reported through the same link.

Can we take the opportunity to wish all our members and friends a very Happy Christmas, and the very best for 2012.

Anders, David, Eleanor, Emma, John, Mark and Tim!

Where there's a Wells there's a way

Mon, 05 Dec 2011 17:34:00 +0000

With the cold winter weather now set in, the result in a by-election in Wells Constituency in Somerset at least gave us some heart-warming news. Although we didn’t managed to win we achieved an impressive 15% swing from Conservative to Liberal Democrat.

The Brent division of Somerset County Council is a collection of small villages in the Somerset Levels sandwiched between the resorts of Weston-super-Mare and Burnham-on-Sea. Until 1988 it had a Liberal councillor, but since then it has become the safest Conservative seat in Somerset with them receiving nearly 70% of the vote in the last county council elections. The death of the previous Conservative councillor gave us a chance to win the seat back, and although we had a very active candidate and ran a strong campaign we couldn’t quite overturn their huge majority.

Our candidate Helen Groves was a town councillor from Burnham-on-Sea who was involved with a number of local community groups. As soon as we knew back in September that there was to be a by-election the campaign started with our candidate and her team knocking on loads of doors over the coming months. We also had lots of help from across the South West. Certainly this face-to-face contact and identifying local issues early made a big difference as it allowed us to run very local leaflets picking up on specific campaigns in each individual village.

Meanwhile, the Conservatives chose a local farmer and district councillor as their candidate. He already represented part of the division and so in that area at least he had good name recognition. However, he did also have a somewhat controversial reputation following an incident in 2007 when he threw a dead sheep at a crowd of school children. The Conservatives had few people on the ground until right at the end and spent a lot of money on posting out huge volumes of professionally printed direct mail, leaflets and even a tabloid newspaper. Much of the direct mail was targeted at getting their voters out – a potentially good tactic when turnout is likely to be low – but it only had one uniform message across the whole division. We spent far less, however we had far better campaign messages that combined the very local and the countywide. During the campaign the Conservative county council spent £61,000 on losing a judicial review on library closures and had decided to turn off speed cameras – a big issue in a division that includes the M5 and the busy A38.

What this by-election showed though was that even in big very rural county divisions, it’s still possible to run very intensive election campaigns that make an impact. We didn’t win, (although we think it was the biggest swing from the Conservatives to us in the constituency in 30 years), but if we can get a 15% swing against the Conservatives in other places in the next county council elections we will do very well indeed.

The other by-election on the day was:
Rochford DC, Rayleigh Central

Another successful Kickstart event

Mon, 05 Dec 2011 12:00:00 +0000

The Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors (ALDC) recently held another successful Kickstart event over the weekend of 25-27^th November. 140 keen Lib Dem campaigners and candidates from across Britain, gathered in a hotel near Birmingham for a weekend of training and mentoring. Over the many years it has been running you can trace the electoral success in a range of different places back to their decision to attend the event. With 20 different training sessions, three drop-in Q&A sessions, several hours of mentoring with an experienced campaigner and inspiring speeches, the participants came away with improved campaign plans, refreshed knowledge and loads of new ideas to try out.

One participant, Sarah McStravick from Lewes said: “It was very thought provoking, motivating and gave me plenty of ideas. I have come away, more focused, enthusiastic and knowledgeable about how to help the local community in action. I would highly recommend this training to all members of the party at all levels.”

Louise Shaw from Stockport said: “From Friday night until Sunday afternoon, our time was packed with training sessions, time with our mentor and of course socialising. It was a great event to attend and be a part of and our mentor really knew her stuff.”

The date for next year’s event is already set for 23^rd-25^th November 2012 and so put it in your diary now. Bookings will open around the time of the next Autumn Federal Conference.

One up One down

Fri, 25 Nov 2011 12:00:00 +0000

There were five principal local council by-elections held on Thursday 24th November. We gained a seat off the Tories but lost one to Labour. Mebyon Kernow gained one seat from Independents and there were two Labour holds. There was one parish or town council by-election result reported to ALDC, an Independent hold.

Hazelmere South, is part of a large, largely 70’s overspill estate around Hazelmere village that effectively merges into the wider Wycombe conurbation, in Buckinghamshire. Over the year despite being briefly held by both Labour and the Liberal Democrats the area has been solidly Conservative. In 2007 the Tories elected two councillors unopposed and in 2011 we came third with a paperless campaign. Both Tories elected in May blotted their copy books. One had a homophobic rant on his blog and the other it is suggested fled to the Midlands when dubious material was found on his council computer and resigned to cause the by-election.
Enter our candidate embedded in his community and regarded by many as “Mr Hazelmere”. We front loaded our campaign targeting postal voters with three letters prior to the issue of postal votes including and endorsement letter from a local resident. Only our candidate and the UKIP candidate lived in the ward. UKIP rallied behind their candidate including a visit by Nigel Farage but it was too late. Our candidate did not just raise local issues he had a track record of tackling them.

The Lakenham division of Norfolk County Council actually lies in Norwich, and in the Norwich South constituency. In a held parliamentary seat we naturally fought a strong campaign. The boundary is coterminous with the three councillor city council ward where our by-election candidate is one of the three councillors. In May labour held one of their two seats in the Ward by a larger margin so we knew it was going to be a tough fight. In the end we held off the Green challenge and pulled some ground back from Labour’s result in May.

Other results

Bradford MBC, Great Horton
Cornwall CC, Wendron
Ashford BC, Beaver

Nominations open for the 2012 LGiU and CCLA C'llr Achievement Awards

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 12:00:00 +0000

The 2012 LGiU and CCLA C'llr Achievement Awards are open for entries. Liberal Democrat councillors have done very well in these awards since they first started two years ago. Last year, Cllr James Barber from Southwark won Online Councillor of the Year and two years ago we had three winning councillors. They are now established as the only national ceremony that recognises and rewards the fantastic work of councillors from across the political spectrum.

In light of the ever-growing popularity of the awards, they have created some exciting new categories for 2012, including the Age UK Pride of Place Award, the Judges’ Special Award for Contribution to Local Government, and the Bruce-Lockhart Member Scholarship.

With these additions, there will be a total of 11 different awards on offer at the 2012 ceremony. The Bruce-Lockhart Member Scholarship will be of particular interest as the winning councillor will be presented with a £10,000 bursary, supported by Kent, Essex, and East Sussex councils.

It is free to enter the 2012 awards, and the closing date is set for Friday 30th December 2011. The ceremony is due to be held in late February 2012.

For further details on the different awards and the new streamlined nomination process then visit www.lgiu.org.uk/cllrawards or contact the LGiU at awards@lgiu.org.uk.

Four votes away from four holds

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 23:01:00 +0000

There were seven principal local council by-elections held on Thursday 17th November. We held three seats and lost one to the Tories. The SNP held one seat, the Tories gained one from Independent and Labour gained one from Plaid. There was one parish or town council by-election results reported to ALDC, a Lib Dem hold.

In Warrington we were on our third by-election in 7 months in Poulton North. Avid readers of this column will remember our first success in a Labour facing ward in July. Unfortunately our excellent popular councillor died shortly after the by-election and triggered a third election in the Ward. A tribute leaflet was the first to hit the doormat but the campaign revolved around issues of trust. In July Labour claimed that the Lib Dems had colluded with developers in an unpopular planning decision in the area. They were forced to retract the story and were fined by the courts. In this by-election Labour continued with their innuendo. We could simply state that they had been found guilty of lying.
Having canvassed the ward heavily earlier in the year we focussed our doorstep work on talking to our existing, identified support. A good, well deserved hold.

Elsewhere in the North West things did not go as well. In Ribble Valley’s two councillor Salthill ward we lost by four votes. The Tories normally top the poll in the ward with us picking up the second seat, but with just one vacancy we didn’t hold on. Our activists reported that the Tories were using their mobile phones as part of the knocking up process and using celebrity phone knocking, in this case Baroness Warsi on the relatively small Asian vote.

In Redcar and Cleveland we took both seats in Zetland ward in last years locals, one off the Tories and one off Labour. Our existing and excellent councillors then had to resign following a qualification issue (more about this in a later column) . One, Ron Harrison was eligible to restand in the by-election and was joined by 23 year old, now Cllr Josh Mason. Both Labour and the Tories fought hard. The Tories only used the name of one of their candidates on the posters and seemed to accept that we would retain at least our existing councillor – targeting the second seat. Labour stood candidates that didn’t live in the ward. We focussed on canvassing -knocking on every door in the ward. The double victory is a tribute both to our council team and excellent MP.

Other Elections

Glasgow City Council UA, Hillhead
Isle of Wight UA, West Wight
Wrexham UA, Ruabon

The French Revolution

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 15:22:00 +0000

There were four principal local council by-elections held on Thursday 10th November. There was a Lib Dem gain from the Tories, two Labour holds and a Labour gain from Respect. There were no parish or town council by-election results reported to ALDC.

In Ipswich we took revenge on the Tories for losses last May. St Margaret’s ward was first won in 1994 but we started to take control in 1999 and have had all three councillors for the ward from then onwards. In May our elderly sitting councillor stood down for Cathy French to pick up the baton. Along with many others across the country she lost in May. The Tory victor, perhaps not expecting her success, resigned after four months citing lack of support from her Tory colleagues.

We pulled together with support from across Suffolk, pounded the streets, used a bolder Focus style and phoned knock up over 800 households on the day. The Tories fought hard but this was the sixth defeat for their candidate. This leaves the overall political balance of the 48-member Ipswich Council as Labour 28, Conservatives 15 and Liberal Democrats 5.

In the St Marys Ward in Islington we threw the kitchen sink at the election. We pulled a huge amount of support and effort in from all across London and failed to get the turnaround in support that we had hoped. This was partly because of the number of Labour activists that hit the street and partly because of their negative scaremongering. We had much to be proud of including delivering target mail to the 1000 plus new voters that were added to the register on the Friday before polling day.

It’s clear that the Tories are again vulnerable and Labour, fighting dirty are a tougher prospect and we may need to develop new techniques and approaches over the coming months to deal with them.

Other principal elections:

Redbridge LBC, Aldborough
Birmingham City Council, Sparkbrook

Scottish Seven Vote Stunner

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 16:09:00 +0000

There were four principal local council by-elections held on Thursday 3rd November. There was a Lib Dem gain from Labour, two Tory holds and an SNP hold . There were no parish or town council by-election results reported to ALDC.

The Inverness South ward by-election ends a run of poor Scottish by-election results, and will be used to encourage activists to keep going to the close of poll for some time to come, seven votes being the margin of victory.

The sitting Labour councillor was jailed for a year for benefit fraud totalling £43,000 . It perhaps is indicative of the different political atmosphere that STV elections generate that this was hardly mentioned in any of the campaign literature from any of the parties. Labour were not in contention in a by-election situation in the ward, and given the extensive media coverage of the trial alienating voters potential second preference voters was not top of anybody’s campaign plan.
There was no big issue in the campaign other than who was the best person for the job but as is usual the SNP did glossy leaflets sloganizing. We focussed on the nitty gritty of the issues that local people raised with us.

The ward is urban by Highland standards including the southern suburbs of Inverness but at 522sq km it is larger than 42 English Authorities. It will therefore surprise few that we did six editions of some Focuses to reflect local concerns.Given the size of the ward our campaign was strong on door knocking and postal vote activity, but we stll did target letters, a survey, two leaflets to every household, a blue letter and a "Good Morning". A feature of the campaign was a dedicated poster team as the Highland local authority take a relaxed attitude to poster boards on lampposts and it is a battle at every election. This is in not unique, Birmingham, for instance, have the same traditions. It is always strange to realise in the aftermath that many candidates had more Correx poster boards than votes.

This is only our second by-election gain off Labour this year.

Other elections:

Argyll and Bute UA, Oban North and Lorn
East Staffordshire DC, Yoxall
Leicestershire CC, Syston Ridgeway

Battling Bude

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 15:04:00 +0000

There were six principal local council by-elections held on Thursday 27th October. There was one Labour hold, two Tory holds and one Lib Dem hold. There were two Labour gains from Tory. There were no parish or town council by-election results reported to ALDC.

In the Bude North and Stratton ward of Cornwall County Council we held our seat convincingly, but - because we were starting from such a high mark - we officially suffered a swing against us of 4.4%. This wasn't due to the Tories (they lost vote share too) but because of additional candidates - in this case Labour and a local Independent.

Our message was threefold, as ever:
1.    The candidate: Although not a sitting councillor, our candidate David Parsons is “Mr Bude”. He has great ties to the town going back generations and has been very closely involved with local projects that mattered.
2.    We attacked the Tories who run the council: for the cuts and for waste.
3.    Our squeeze message was everywhere.
We did three full focuses, a set of target letters to definites and probables, a letter to postal voters, blue letters, good mornings and polling day literature. We also got useful information from 30% of the electors during the campaign and knocked on virtually every door.

The Tories did comparatively little and what they did appears to have been of pretty poor quality. With a better candidate than in 2009 they still went backwards. The Labour candidate was pretty much a one man band. Despite doing little (and our squeeze) he picked up just under 8% simply by being on the ballot paper.

We often have strong sitting councillors who are known for their work battling the administration and sticking up for their local area. But it's no good doing the work unless people get to hear about it month in/month out through the press and through our leaflets. Seats are not going to be won by a single person working flat out any more.

Other elections:

Lancashire CC, Wyreside
Newcastle Under Lyme BC, Newchapel
North Lanarkshire UA, Coatbridge North and Glenboig (ward 6)
North Yorkshire CC, Thornton Dale and the Wolds
Walsall MBC, Bloxwich East

Always stand a candidate

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 14:55:00 +0000

There were eight principal local council by-elections held on Thursday 20th October and one on Tuesday 18th. There were four Labour holds, three Tory holds and one Lib Dem hold. There was one Independent gain from Tory. There was one parish or town council by-election results reported to ALDC, a Lib dem gain from the Conservatives.

In a pretty busy week for by-elections the highlight was undoubtedly holding our seat in the Bookham South , By-election in Mole Valley District Council in Surrey. Bookham South is three Councillor ward where we held all three until last May, when we lost one. One of our remaining two then died – hence the by-election.

We ran a pretty standard campaign with a Focus before the campaign started announcing Anne Howarth’s death avoiding expense limits. Then three full A3, full ward elections leaflets, a target letter and black (they didn’t have a blue drum!) letters to both PVs and non PVs. PVs were reminded, there were “Good Mornings” and 2 full knock-ups plus some phone follow-up.

A recurring feature in recent success was the focus on canvassing which was done very thoroughly – around 90% contact was achieved.
The Tories put a lot of effort in and the MP was spotted several times. UKIP also made an effort. Good for morale and it leaves us the largest Group as a result.

In the London Borough of Bromley, we had a creditable result in the Shortlands By-election. There were several reasons to be cheerful; Lib Dem vote share rose by 6.4%; we moved decisively from 4th place to second place and the Lab and Green vote shares were down.

In two elections we failed to stand candidates, Stafford and Great Yarmouth. We have argued week in, week out,in this column, win or lose standing a candidate is always the right thing to do. This applies to the Police Commissioner Elections as much as any other. The Constitution makes it plain:

The objectives of the Party shall be to secure the election of Liberal Democrats as Members of Parliament, UK Members of the European Parliament and members of local and other elected public authorities.

Other elections:

Mansfield DC, Park Hall
Cheshire West and Chester UA, Ellesmere Port Town
Nottingham City Council, Bridge
Salford MBC, Eccles
Great Yarmouth BC, Bradwell South and Hopton
Stafford BC, Walton
Adur DC, Cokeham - on Tuesday

Set SMART targets for your by-election

Fri, 14 Oct 2011 15:12:00 +0000

There were four principal local council by-elections held on Thursday 13th October. There were two Labour holds and two Tory holds. There were no parish or town council by-election results reported to ALDC.

In Sleaford West and Leasingham Division of Lincolnshire County council we ran minimal campaign, one leaflet, no canvassing and a candidate that did not live in the division. This is not normally a recipe for success and so it proved to be. Standing a candidate is always the right thing to do (and this includes Police Commissioner elections!) but when outright victory is unlikely, it’s important that you set specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely organisational targets. Often this will be about developing membership and delivery networks. Just putting a single leaflet across the whole division without structure or purpose can be and often is pointless and demoralising. It would, for instance, have made more sense to put three different leaflets out in a third of the ward. If you are not sure on what your best strategy is for a by-election, ring ALDC, your region or contact your nearest campaigns officer.

For those outside Lincolnshire the result for the Independent candidate may look unlikely. In Lincolnshire the Independents are an organised party with a leader. They stand candidates at every level of government including at the General Election and have their own website and organisational structure. They are a party machine masquerading as honourable amateurs. They are not unique but have been a notable obstruction to Lib Dem progress in the County.

ALDC is asking every local party who has local elections in May 2012 to let us know NOW the details of all candidates that area has already in place. Elections take place in Scotland, Wales and in many parts of England.

Each year ALDC provides a free support programme for Liberal Democrat local election candidates and organisers - in the next few weeks we'll be sending out a Liberal Democrat "Candidates' Handbook". This is being followed by regular emails and mailings. But we can only send the information if we have the know who your candidates are.

Register your candidates online or If it's easier just send these by email to david.ball@aldc.org.

Don't forget to receive our full advice service candidates will need to be members of ALDC. To help we're offering HALF PRICE membership of ALDC for all 2012 local election candidates

Other results

South Ribble BC, Bamber Bridge East
Gravesham BC, Meopham North
Barnsley MBC, St Helen's

Don't Miss Out! - One Day Lib Dem Localism Conference

Wed, 12 Oct 2011 15:32:00 +0000

Localism the New Opportunities
A Conference for Liberal Democrats

Book Online Now

Don't miss out on the chance to spend a day with other Liberal Democrats in local government, the Deputy Prime Minister and others at our one day Lib Dem Localism conference taking place on Friday 21st October 2011 (LONDON).

9:30am - 3.30pm (lunch and refreshments provided), Smith Square, Westminster, SW1P 3HZ

This is a conference and workshop for Liberal Democrats to look at the new opportunities provided by the Localism Bill.

Speakers:
Rt Hon Nick Clegg, Deputy Prime Minister
Lord Victor Adebowale, Chief Executive, Turning Point
Gordon Lishman CBE, Author of the 1970 Community Politics Resolution to the Liberal Assembly
Andrew Stunell OBE, Lib Dem Minister DCLG
Helen Williams, Deputy Director of Neighbourhoods, National Housing Federation
Cllr Richard Kemp CBE, Deputy Leader, Liverpool Liberal Democrats
Chaired by Cllr Gerald Vernon-Jackson, Leader LGA Liberal Democrats

Who should attend?

Liberal Democrats who are: • Councillors • Community activists • Campaigners • Health Trusts and Housing Association Board members • School Governors

Afternoon workshops include:
Localism the Whole council approach
Cabinet Member for your Ward
Housing and neighbourhoods
Integrating Town Hall and Campaigning

The conference will be immediately followed by a discussion of the Resource Review (business rate) proposals at 3.00pm with Andrew Stunell MP and advisors to Danny Alexander MP. (this is for Group Leaders or other representatives, please email alanna.coombes@local.gov.uk if you are interested in attending.)

Book Now

Tell us who your Candidates are!

Tue, 11 Oct 2011 15:25:00 +0000

ALDC is asking every local party who has local elections in May 2012 to let us know NOW the details of all candidates that area has already in place. Elections take place in Scotland, Wales and in many parts of England.

Each year ALDC provides a free support programme for Liberal Democrat local election candidates and organisers - in the next few weeks we'll be sending out a Liberal Democrat "Candidates' Handbook". This is being followed by regular emails and mailings.

But we can only send the information if we have the know who your candidates are.

Register your candidates online at www.aldc.org/elections/candidates/ If it's easier just send these by email to david.ball@aldc.org

Don't forget to receive our full advice service candidates will need to be members of ALDC. To help we're offering HALF PRICE membership of ALDC for all 2012 local election candidates.

Join by direct debit online and paper free here.

Leaflets are not enough

Fri, 07 Oct 2011 16:48:00 +0000

There were three principal local council by-elections held on Thursday 6th October. There were two Labour holds and a Tory hold. There were no parish or town council by-election results reported to ALDC.

Kensington and Chelsea have pioneered developing their local parties capacity in the last couple of years following their tremendous victory in Colville Ward By-Election in July 2009. They have worked on neighbouring wards and used the combined strength of the London parties to build their strength in other recent by-elections such as Brompton and Queens Gate.
A sensible tactic for those who can afford it was used to get a quick first leaflet out in Norland before the start of the regulated period using paid delivery. As is often the case in safe Labour or Tory seats our relatively standard by-election methods can have dramatically more impact when they’re novel to the electorate. In Norland it was the “blue letters”. Residents really liked them, read them and responded to them.

In Watford we had two concurrent by-elections. Nascot, where we were defending, polled last week. For the first weeks of campaigning we naturally focused on holding Nascot successfully; the Vicarage campaign suffered as a result. With Nascot held, we condensed a five week campaign into five days in Vicarage. A piece of literature was delivered every day but we could not turn it round in such a short space of time. The message from most recent by-elections is that it is the doorstep work that is crucial to success and this fell by the wayside. We were not aided by a previous Lib Dem supporter standing as an independent and splitting the vote. In the circumstances second was a creditable result. What must be worrying for the Tories in a parliamentary seat that they won at the general election is that from the two by-elections in two weeks their aggregate position is now third.

Other Byelections:

Coventry City MBC, Lower Stoke

Kickstart Weekend - cheap rates end this Saturday!

Wed, 05 Oct 2011 12:00:00 +0000

Cheaper "Early Bird" registrations for ALDC's Kickstart Training weekend end this Saturday (8 October 2011).

Kickstart takes place 25-27 November 2011, just north of Birmingham.. This is the main training event of the year for volunteer campaigners, and a great opportunity to ensure your team is a WINNING TEAM at your next local elections

Click here to go direct to the online booking form.

We've had an unprecedented level of interest in the event this year. It is great to see that so many people are up to the challenge of fighting local elections and sending a team to Kickstart.

WHAT YOU GET:
Over 20 hours of training – both advanced and beginner.
Over six hours for your team working with an experienced mentor to develop your campaign plan.
A weekend's accommodation at the Holiday Inn (M6 Junction 7 near Birmingham), food and training rooms. (There's even time for both the pool and the bar...). The weekend starts at 6:00pm on Friday and finishes 2:30pm on Sunday.

WHO SHOULD ATTEND:
Kickstart is great if you can bring along your campaign team. Imagine a whole weekend of campaign planning with expert help without any interference! This year we're encouraging everyone with elections in 2012 and 2013 to attend, but everyone is welcome.

Individual campaigners are also welcome - they will work together in small teams to develop plans and ideas. Kickstart works for experienced campaigners and new campaigners. It’s a great way to develop ideas and bring on new people.

IS MONEY A PROBLEM?
Many council areas provide assistance to their team to attend out of group funds. We know this isn't possible for everyone so there are a number of ways we can help.

- The G8 committee is happy to support council areas with elections in 2012 and 2013 with up to two "Half Price" places, with a priority for places with less resources than others. Contact ALDC for more details or email eleanor.ritchie@aldc.org

- If you've not got elections in 2012 or 2013, ALDC has a fund to support "Black Holes" attending Kickstart (no councillors or councillors in only one ward) - contact anders.hanson@aldc.org for more information.

- Save £60 by sharing a room (with someone you know!)

- If you're near to Birmingham we have some low-cost non-residential rates - not available to book online but contact emma.hall@aldc.org

HOW DO I BOOK:
You can book now – online at ALDC’s website – click here to go direct to the booking form. Remember you need to LOG IN as an ALDC member FIRST to receive your members discount which will then be applied automatically.
More information from Emma Hall – 01422 843 785 emma.hall@aldc.org

Autumn Arrivals

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 14:56:00 +0000

A flurry of new publications from ALDC and the Elections and Skills department and the Party President came out for Conference, and are all now available for sale:

Campaigning in your Community by Mark Pack and Shaun Roberts,
This ALDC booklet is about how you too can join the ranks of successful campaigners. It shows you how to find the right issues to campaign on, how to run successful campaigns and how to build up the team and the track-record which then wins your election, and re-election, as a councillor. Copies are available from the ALDC shop.

Building a winning team by Austin Rathe
This booklet from the Election and Skills Department is designed to show you how to build, motivate and organise a small committed team who have a winning attitude.
As well as practical advice it includes stories from Lib Dems across the country who bear testament to what we know works, and activities which will help make the theory relevant to your campaigns. It concludes with a task list to help you to start now to build your winning team. Copies are available from the ALDC shop.

Ask Every Time by Austin Rathe
When Liberal Democrats talk about local campaigning ambitions, the discussion often seems to end up in a familiar place; not enough money not enough people. “We don’t have enough volunteers because we don’t ask enough people to help” This booklet from the Election and Skills Department is based around that simple idea that is about recruiting that team of people who will deliver leaflets and knock on doors for you. It’s not about the “core” campaign team Copies are available from the ALDC shop.

Strong candidates, strong records, strong results

Fri, 30 Sep 2011 15:34:00 +0000

There were five principal local council by-elections held on Thursday 29th September. We held two seats, the Tories held one, Plaid one and Plaid gained one off Llais Gwynedd (Voice of Gwynedd). There was one parish or town council by-election results reported to ALDC - a Tory hold.

Bishops Castle is a geographically large rural division on the Welsh border of Shropshire Unitary authority. Newton and Welshpool in Montgomeryshire are closer than either Shrewsbury or Ludlow. We won it 20 years ago after the hard graft of Peter Philips whose resignation caused the by-election. Peter suffered a pulmonary embolism on election day so a resignation for health reasons was always likely. He put it off to complete some major political projects dear to his heart, the local BioMass project and saving his local school. Once they were achieved he stood down. Bishops Castle was lucky that we had such a good candidate to replace Peter. Charlotte Barnes is a businesswomen, local campaigner, a local Parish Councillor and a parent governor at Bishop's Castle Primary School.
Sometimes by-elections struggle to get help in, not this one. Help came from Herefordshire, Montgomeryshire as well as from across the county. Even Tim Farron and Vince Cable found time to help. The glorious weather on polling day may have helped.
We delivered four leaflets in the three months before the election was called and then out shone all the other parties in quality, variety, content and volume of literature. Every house was canvassed by the candidate and or the outgoing councillor twice and in some cases three times. We relentlessly squeezed Labour (standing their first candidate since 1985 -“ what do you do with the numbers?” she asked our tellers!) and the Greens. Despite the massive turn out for by-election 51%, we got the green vote down from 186 to 74. Key again in this was posters – and not just window bills but stake-boards and even super-boards. In the current climate it’s even more important to give voters the clear message from posters that we can win.

In 2006 we won a notable by-election in the Watford Tory stronghold of Nascot. We held it in 2007 and then lost it by 3 votes in 2008 following Tory scaremongering. Our candidate again great local credentials, she lived in the ward, she was a local school governor and she was married to the local GP! Without a full slate in the ward we had been building her up for the vacancy in 2012 anyway, but here she got an earlier opportunity. Labour supporters who had voted in May to “give us a kicking” switched back noting our strong local record and following a heavy squeeze campaign. We cut the Labour vote in half.

Other results

Gwynedd UA, Diffwys and Maenofferen
Gwynedd UA, Penrhyndeudraeth

Cherwell DC, Bicester North

ALDC Campaigner Awards Winners

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 14:25:00 +0000

ALDC presented its annual Campaigner Awards at its AGM during Federal Conference in Birmingham. We had a large number of entries from across the country and the standard of entries is improving every year. Once again, the awards were kindly sponsored by Midshire and Riso. The awards were presented once again by our Party President, Tim Farron MP.

Pictures of all the winners can be found on ALDC's Flickr site.

The winners were:

Overall Winner

Bath and North East Somerset

Best Focus

Winner: Cambridge
Highly commended: North Somerset and Eastbourne

Best literature by a volunteer campaigner

Winner: Cotswold
Highly commended: Preston and South Northamptonshire

Best ward campaign

Winner: Brent
Highly commended: Southwark and Lewisham

Best election campaign material

Winner: Portsmouth
Highly commended: Wycombe, Manchester Withington and Swansea

Best online / e-campaigning

Winner: Wiltshire
Highly commended: Mid Sussex

All of the artwork from the winners and highly commendeds will be uploaded to the Best Practice area of our website over the next few weeks. Links will be added in above as appropriate.

ALDC at Autumn Federal Conference 2011

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 12:00:00 +0000

Autumn Federal Conference is always a busy time for ALDC, and this year's event in Birmingham was no exception.

ALDC's training programme saw 27 different sessions highlighting issues as diverse as: email campaigning, being an effective ward councillor, campaigning against organised independents and campaigning in your local community.

Our Fringe programme kicked off on Saturday evening with our Annual General Meeting which included the 2011 ALDC Campaigner Awards presented by Party President Tim Farron (see separate story). This was followed by our members reception, with kind support from the Co-operative, and guest speakers Nick Clegg MP and Andrew Stunell MP. You can see a short video of Nick's speech to ALDC members below or on our YouTube site here.

Three policy fringes included a fringe on campaigning locally on national issues where speakers included Andrew Stunell MP; a "Green Deal" event (with kind support from B&Q) where speakers included Chris Davies MEP, and a Community Politics event with speakers (Lord) Paddy Ashdown, Tim Farron MP, Daisy Cooper and Director of Elections and Skills Hilary Stephenson.

More photos on our Flickr site here.

Community Politics fringe, local campaigning fringe, Nick visiting the ALDC stand, the members' reception, and two pictures form the Campaigner Awards.

Nick Clegg speaking at the ALDC Members' Reception 2011, thanked by ALDC President Cllr Veronica German

Ashcroft’s Polling suggests that Lib Dem hard work could make the difference

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 12:00:00 +0000

There was one principal local council by-election held on Thursday 22th September. The Tories held the seat. There were two parish or town council by-election results reported to ALDC. One seat was held by the Tories, one by the Lib Dems.

Fenland District Council, in Cambridgeshire, has two Lib Dem councillors. It held a by-election in the Staithe ward on the edge of Wisbech. In 2010 we did not stand a candidate and we had not campaigned there in living memory.

We ran a decent campaign with a survey, postal vote letter, three Focuses plus polling knock up, but as ever we would have benefited from more time on the doorstep. We had no historic data so 20% contact this time was a decent first shout but limited our polling day activity. The Tories we worried, both by our activity and the potential of UKIP and a non-selected Tory standing as an Independent splitting their vote. Labour got very excited pulling in help from as far away as Leeds but their vote was only marginally up.

Quoting Conservative Lord Ashcroft is not a Liberal Democrats first instinct; however some of his recent polling of eight Tory held Lib Dem marginals has suggested that by out working the Tories and Labour on the ground we have significantly boosted our support. In those eight parliamentary seats more voters interviewed thought that we had
a) knocked on their door
b) telephoned them
c) delivered literature to them and
d) sent them direct mail than the Tories or Labour.
Voters asked about their intentions in these specific seats were 13% more likely to vote Lib Dem.
Alternatively this may be to do with voters understanding and continuing to respond to our squeeze messages, but without the high level of activity how would we deliver that squeeze message?

Either way this is positive news.

Phoenix rises again

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 16:16:00 +0000

The winning team in Surbiton Hill - From left: Cllr Liz Green (Deputy Leader of the Council), Edward Davey MP, Cllr John Ayles, Cllr Derek Osbourne (Leader of the Council).

What better start could we have had to Federal Conference than our first gain from Labour in a principal council by-election since the formation of the coalition.

The Borough of Gedling covers a number of towns and villages around the edge of Nottingham, and was the scene of a massive swing to Labour in May when they gained 23 seats and took control. One of those 23 gains was Phoenix ward where sitting Lib Dem councillor Andrew Ellwood lost his seat by just four votes. However, just three months later one of the ward’s Labour councillors resigned after deciding to go off and teach in Mexico.

The by-election was an incredibly hard fought campaign on both sides. Labour swamped the ward with huge numbers of helpers and ran a campaign that focused solely on heavily attacking us on national issues. Instead, we ran a very local campaign emphasising the credentials of Andrew Ellwood. This consisted of regular canvassing along with weekly leaflets using lots of photos and articles about how good a councillor he was for the area. This message contrasted sharply with the lack of commitment from the outgoing Labour councillor after quitting so soon. We managed to get lots of help from surrounding areas, but were still vastly outnumbered by Labour on polling day. However, in the end our message was much more effective and it saw Andrew elected back on to the council.

The other significant by-election for the Lib Dems was our defence of the Surbiton Hill ward in the London Borough of Kingston upon Thames. Surbiton Hill had traditionally been safely Conservative but we gained it by just 103 votes in 2010. The circumstances of the by-election were unfortunate when hugely promising Lib Dem councillor Umesh Parekh had to resign when his new employers decided his job should be politically restricted. The Conservatives put up their former councillor who had expected to be council leader until his defeat, but they were no match for a very effective campaign that saw excellent candidate John Ayles win. The big lesson was to keep knocking on doors. Not only did this gather huge amounts of canvass data, but it also helped to reconnect us with those supporters who had become less enthusiastic about voting for us.

Federal Conference - Highlights for Councillors and local campaigners

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 12:00:00 +0000

Liberal Democrat Federal Party Conference takes place this Saturday 17 September, to Wednesday 21 September 2011, in Birmingham. All Party members can attend, more details on registration are available from the main party website here.

Download and print out ALDC's Conference Planner for our full guide to training and fringe events for this year's September Conference.

Come and visit us in the Exhibition Hall - we're at Stand 104 in the main Hall 4. Come and tell us how you think ALDC is doing - staff, Management Committee members and volunteers will be on hand from Saturday through to Wednesday to help with advice, information, membership information and technical queries.

Fringe Highlights

Saturday 17 September 2011, 8.15pm, ICC 10B (Conference Centre, just after the Rally)

ALDC Annual General Meeting and Campaigner Awards 2011
Party President Tim Farron MP presents the 2011 Campaigner Awards. £500 for the top prize sponsored by RISO and Midshires. We've received a record number of entries so it looks set to be a great evening (drinks provided).

Sunday 18 September 2011, 8.00pm Jury's Inn 112
Local Campaigning on National Issues
How do we campaign as a party in the new political environment? What are the best ways we can deliver our Autumn party campaign locally and nationally - “Save money, Stay Warm, Go Green”. Speakers include: Andrew Stunell MP, Shaun Roberts.

Training Highlights

ALDC have 22 training session and six workshops at this Autumn’s conference in Birmingham. See our guide for the times for each session.

Winning Ways
We are running a set of six ‘Winning Ways’ training sessions, these sessions will be run twice once in the morning and once in the afternoon:

Campaigning in your Community
In Touch All Year Round
A Record of Action
The Best Person for the Job
Voter ID
Targeting Voters

You might have missed:
Next Generation Alumni
Update training session for the participants of Lib Dem Next Generation 1-5 and Lib Dems on previous Leadership Academies.
Jury’s Inn room 114 – Sunday 9-15 to 10-45

Mayoral Campaigning - How we won in Bedford
Sunday Morning at 11am Room 113/115/117 of the Jurys Inn
Find out how we doubled our vote this May in Bedford with Mayor Dave Hodgson, Christine McHugh & Shaun Roberts.

Campaign Workshops
We have to half-day Campaign Workshops on Saturday afternoon:

Winning Elections for Beginners
This workshop is for people just starting out, it will give you the basics you will need to start campaigning in your ward, area, with practical ideas and examples to take away. Ideal for local election candidates and new campaigners.
Hyatt Regency Hotel Andante – Saturday – 2-30 to 5-30

Why should anyone vote for me in May?
This special session workshop will work though developing your message for next year's local elections. Ideal for all local election candidates, councillors, agents and campaign organisers.
Hyatt Regency Hotel Allegro – Saturday – 2-30 to 5-30

Download and print out ALDC's Conference Planner for our full guide to training and fringe events for this year's September Conference.

Conference Photo Opportunities

Tue, 13 Sep 2011 12:00:00 +0000

Cllr Jonathan Wallace has arranged some photo ops for conference which will be of interest to ALDC members and other Councillors.

All will be held in Hall 5 of ICC. The Nick Clegg photo op is for council candidates for 2012 only (Leader's office stipulation) and members will need to notify Jonathan in advance if they are coming to the NC event by email to jonathanwallace@compuserve.com.

Sunday 11-11.30am Stand alone session (no MP but with props for income tax cut and pupil premium)

Monday 11-11.30am Chris Huhne (Green Deal)

Tuesday 4.30-5pm Nick Clegg (for 2012 council candidates only, no props)

SMF at the Lib Dem Conference 18-21 September 2011

Mon, 12 Sep 2011 14:20:00 +0000

ADVERTISMENT

Sunday 18 September

18.15-19.30

Keeping the home fires burning: who’s to blame for spiralling energy bills – companies, consumers or government?

Soprano, Hyatt Regency

Speakers: Rt Hon Chris Huhne MP (tbc); Richard Lloyd, Which?; Christine McGourty, Energy UK; Matthew Sinclair, The TaxPayers’ Alliance

CHAIR: John Springford, SMF

20.00-21.15

Pensions auto-enrolment: nudging to higher or lower savings?

Fortissimo, Hyatt Regency

Speakers: Steve Webb MP, Pensions Minister; David Nish, Standard Life; Dr Ros Altman, Saga; Dr Adam Marshall, British Chambers of Commerce

CHAIR: Ian Mulheirn, SMF

Monday 19 September

13.00-14.00

Success by degrees? Social mobility and higher education

Chamberlain Suite, Council House

Speakers: Baroness Sharp; Professor Julia King, Aston University; Professor Nick Barr, London School of Economics; Phil Collins, The Times

CHAIR: Ian Mulheirn SMF

18.15-19.30

Routes to success: improving skills to encourage social mobility

Executive Room 8, ICC

Speakers: Simon Hughes MP, Access to University Tsar (tbc); Heather McGregor, Taylor Bennett Foundation and Adam Hopley, a recent graduate from the Career Academies programme; Paul Johnson, Institute for Fiscal Studies; Tom Clark, The Guardian

CHAIR: Mary Ann Sieghart, SMF

20.00-21.15

No NEET solution?

Room 105, Jury’s Inn

Speakers: Stephen Lloyd MP, Work and Pensions Select Committee; Graham Hoyle OBE, Association of Employment and Learning Providers; Katja Hall, CBI; Rafael Behr, New Statesman

CHAIR: John Springford, SMF

Tuesday 20 September

08.00-09.00

Whose crime is it anyway?

Room 104, Jury’s Inn

Speakers: Rt Hon Sir Alan Beith, Chair of the Justice Select Committee; Tom Brake MP, Co-Chair Parliamentary Party Committee on Home Affairs, Justice and Equalities; Paul McDowell, Nacro

CHAIR: Ian Mulheirn, SMF

13.00-14.00

Smart on crime, tough on the causes of crime

Chamberlain Suite, Council House

Speakers: Lord Thomas of Gresford, (tbc); A representative from the Community Justice Partnership; Ashley Ames, Ipsos MORI; Brian Paddick, Liberal Democrat Mayoral Candidate (tbc)

CHAIR: Ian Mulheirn, SMF

18.15-19.30

Growing Pains? Where next for jobs and the economy?

Executive Room 8, ICC

Speakers: Rt Hon Danny Alexander MP, Chief Secretary to the Treasury; Rt Hon Oliver Letwin MP, Cabinet Minister; Brendan Barber, TUC; Ian Mulheirn, SMF

CHAIR: Olly Grender, Liberal Democrat Commentator

18.15-19.30

The Green Growth challenge: opportunities for public-private partnerships on development finance

Dolce, Hyatt Regency

Speakers: Baroness Kramer; Yvo De Boer, KPMG; Ingrid Holmes, E3g; Fiona Harvey, The Guardian

CHAIR: John Springford, SMF

Read All About It! 9/9/2011

Fri, 09 Sep 2011 15:19:00 +0000

Recommended reading for Liberal Democrat councillors and local campaigners from the last seven days:

There has been two bits of news on police this week. Firstly, the good news that the elections for Police and Crime Commissioners in England and Wales will be delayed until November 2012 instead of being held on the same day as next year's local elections. Secondly, in Scotland there has been opposition from local authorities to proposals by the SNP government to merge all of the police forces in to one force. Something which the Scottish Lib Dems have been campaigning against for some time.

This week, the first 24 free schools opened in various places around the country, but there was controversy within the coalition when Nick Clegg demanded that whilst they should have flexibility in their curriculum and how they are run they shouldn't be allowed to make a profit. On the opposite of the argument saying that free schools would have to make a profit was fellow Lib Dem Phil Willis.

On Lib Dem Voice, there was a discussion about the 'general power of competence' that local authorities will receive under the Localism Bill and whether these will be used effectively enough.

Lib Dem Voice's Local Election Channel praises Conservative MP Andrew Selous for tackling Eric Pickles on the amount of money that council chief executive's pocket for being the local returning officer.

There's a useful article myth-busting the current proposals to change the planning process on Conservative Home. For a bit of balance there was an article in the Daily Telegraph by National Trust Director-General Fiona Reynolds criticising the changes.

Around the country:

Cornwall Council is to tighten up on people who have second homes who register to vote.

In Southwark, the local Lib Dems block a plan by the Labour council to build a £120,000 roof terrace at their council offices.

Within the Liberal Democrats the big news of the week was the announcement that Chief Executive Chris Fox is to step down from his job before the end of the year.

Read All About It! 2/9/11

Fri, 02 Sep 2011 16:04:00 +0000

Recommended reading for Liberal Democrat councillors and local campaigners from the last seven days:

In general political news, the Tory press have started their pre-conference Lib Dem bashing pretty early. For instance they’ve picked up on:
“Local councils should have the right and ability to raise additional taxes that they see appropriate for their circumstances. Not all places would be able to apply each levy, but this should not block those that were willing and able. Councils could also raise revenues to cover the costs of specific extra costs and services that they bear. For example, a small per drink surcharge in town centre bars and pubs, borne by drinkers themselves, could offset additional policing and health costs that drinkers impose on councils, and therefore residents, in many towns and cities.” from page 13 of our local government finance consultation document going to Birmingham conference.

No matter that it’s only a discussion document - not a policy paper or motion, just one suggestion from a 22 page document full of ideas nor that it merely varies a principle on the under used existing Alcohol Disorder Zones that the government may abolish in its forthcoming Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill.
For them it’s the “Tipple” tax, The Sun started, and the Mail followed, even the Mirror had joined in.

Vince has come out fighting for small business against the banks and big business.
This is one of many around the same issue but the tory press seem to think that we’re getting uppity, which is excellent.

In the local government world: Eric Pickles has been trying to reduce bureaucracy at the expense of monitoring.... again.

In Scotland the Lib Dems have been pressing ahead for the completion of the Edinburgh tram system against the “bonkers” proposal from Labour that stopped the trams short of the city centre.

Our sister party, The Alliance Party, in Belfast, bolstered by excellent results in May, have been doing great things.Who would have thought that the "peace" walls would still be up?

Keswick Comeback

Fri, 02 Sep 2011 13:22:00 +0000

There was one principal local council by-election held on Thursday 1st September. We took a seat off an Independent. In the only parish or town council by-election result reported to ALDC we held a seat.

Elections in Allerdale Borough council in Cumbria can at times be strange. In the Keswick Ward, for example, they had, without contest, elected one conservative, one Labour and one Lib Dem councillor in 2007 in a three councillor ward, all out election. In 2011 the same individuals were elected, again without contest but the Lib Dem from 2007 stood without party label. His lack of party label reflecting that at the same time he stood against our selected candidate for the county seat in a by-election, split the vote and allowed the conservatives to take the seat off us. He then resigned from the Borough due to ill health to cause the by-election!!

We stood the former Town Mayor who had been our unsuccessful candidate in May for the Cumbria County Division by-election, this time he had more success. After some years of uncontested elections Keswick felt the full brunt of a Lib Dem By-election campaign. We took it seriously, fought it seriously and won. We did three leaflets, postal vote letter with instruction leaflet and a good polling day operation. The candidate was made to canvass and canvass again rather than deliver – always a good decision from the agent. With Martin’s election we now have a foot back in the door after we lost all representation on Allerdale council in May. Allerdale remains exactly half Labour (28 of 56) and they failed to take overall control.

Elsewhere in Cumbria we had a good result in the Kendal Town Council, Mintsfeet Ward. As part of the Westmorland and Lonsdale parliamentary constituency we take all parish council elections extremely seriously. Here we looked at our early canvas returns and changed what we did in response to what we were being told on the doorstep. The first 50 contacts will give a you snap shot of what’s happening in a campaign, use it - don’t ignore what it’s telling you

For analysis of byelections for the year to date see our new by election analysis page

Below are PDF copies of the literature used in the by-election

Federal Conference: Ideas and Inspiration!

Fri, 02 Sep 2011 12:00:00 +0000

Party conference is a great time to learn new ideas and pick up a bit of motivation from Liberal Democrats campaigning in the rest of the country.

Download and print out ALDC's Conference Planner for our full guide to training and fringe events for this year's September Conference.

Come and visit us in the Exhibition Hall - we're at Stand 104 in the main Hall 4. Let us know how ALDC is doing and tell us how we can help you be a more effective Liberal Democrat councillor or campaigner.

ALDC Fringe Programme

Saturday 17 September 2011, 8.15pm, ICC 10B
ALDC Annual General Meeting and Campaigner Awards 2011
Party President Tim Farron MP presents the 2011 Campaigner Awards for the best campaign literature in the last year. Drinks available.

Sunday 18 September 2011, 1.00pm, ICC 8A
ALDC Members Reception (Members Only)
Join Nick Clegg MP and Andrew Stunell MP at our annual members reception in partnership with the Co-operative. "How can partners encourage and empower volunteering in our communities, to the co-operative and mutual benefit of all?" Refreshments provided.

Monday 19 September 2011, 6.15pm ICC 8A
Community politics for 2011 and beyond
Come and hear how we can use community politics in 2011 to shape both our local communities and our distinctive identity as a party. Speakers include Paddy Ashdown, Tim Farron MP, Hilary Stephenson and others. Drinks available.

Monday 19 September 2011, 8.00pm Jury's Inn 106
Localism & the Green Deal
Turning the Green Deal into a Great Deal for Councils Cllr Keith House, Liz Hutchins (FoE), Ben Earl (B and Q) Chris Davies MEP. Refreshments provided.

Inspired

Winning in 2011
How we won in Portsmouth, Eastleigh, Hinckley & Bosworth and Oadby & Wigston against Labour and the Conservatives. If you are a candidate, sitting councillor or campaigner or campaign team member, you will benefit from their experience.
Jury’s Inn room 114 – Tuesday 9-15 to 10-45
Cllr Keith House – Leader Eastleigh, Cllr Gerald Vernon-Jackson - Leader Portsmouth, Cllr Stuart Bray - Leader Hinckley and Bosworth, Cllr John Boyce - Leader Oadby and Wigston

Facing a new challenge – Defending your council seat in 2012
If you are standing for re-election in 2012 this session is a must for you
Room 113/115/117 - Sunday 9-15 to 10-45 and
Tuesday 9-15 to 10-45 - Jury’s Inn room 102
Dave McCobb, Elections and Skills & Cllr Mark Alcock, ALDC

This is just a part of the over 50 hours of training that ALDC is involved in this year!

Download and print out ALDC's Conference Planner for our full guide to training and fringe events for this year's September Conference.

G8 Grants 2012 (Scotland)

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 12:00:00 +0000

G8 Grants for Local Campaigning (Scotland)

The "G8 Grants" Committee is now seeking applications for funding for "Stage 1" grants in Scotland. Stage 1 for England and Wales is now closed. Later in the year we hope to be running a "Stage 2" round of grants, subject to funding.

2012 Local Elections in Scotland: Rewarding Early Campaigning

We know from experience that early campaigning activity works. We want to reward those that are starting early on their campaign for 2012 and are therefore making grants to local parties to reward early campaign activity in the summer and autumn of 2011 and help finance their campaign during the autumn.

- funding is for wards we are defending in 2012, and for gains where a local party can put forward a strong case for targeting
- where people have elections by 1/3rds we are keen to support wards that we are defending in 2012 but that we lost in 2011.

To be eligible for a grant we will need to see most of the following in place:

- delivery of literature has been taking place in summer 2011, and a literature plan in place up to the elections.
- knocking on doors has been taking place in summer 2011, and that a plan of knocking on doors, and phoning voters is in place up to the elections
- a candidate is in place, or you are well on track towards getting a candidate in place as early as possible
- you have agreed a clear and realistic strategy across the authority for the 2012 elections, and which wards will be targeted.

Link to application form

If you need further information about G8 , please email Eleanor Ritchie eleanor.ritchie@aldc.org

The deadline for applications is 28 September 2011

Real Time By election Analysis Launched

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 12:00:00 +0000

ALDC has for many years provided local election By-Election analysis for the rest of the party. Up to now this information has been shared with the rest of the party at internal party meetings and to ALDC’s members every six months via our Local Campaigner publication Given that we accumulate the data for this analysis it seemed like common sense to develop our service online. We are now launching to ALDC members a “real time”, week by week analysis of our by-election performance for the year to date in a new “By-election Analysis” section of our www.aldc.org/elections website. So now our online by-election service is in five parts:

1. Forthcoming By-elections - When you tell us when there are by-elections coming up (you can do this online) we will list them on our website in date order and this forms the basis of those subsequently printed in Lib Dem news.

2. Results - we publish the results of these by-elections usually around lunchtime on Friday on our website and in the following weeks Lib Dem news. The results and forthcomings can be sent to you each week as an email on request, again usually on a Friday afternoon.

3. By election Commentary – every week we give a commentary on the more interesting or informative by-elections. This is published here in Lib Dem news (this article) and online at http://www.aldc.org/elections/by-elections-commentary/

4. Campaign Stories. For those campaigns of particular merit or interest we ask the organisers of the campaign to write a more extensive report and publish some in our Local Campaigner publication and others in http://www.aldc.org/campaigner/campaign-stories/

5. By - Election Analysis – see above.

We also give advice and support to members who are facing a by-election, including our “Winning Your Local By-election” publication.

In order to make this service as effective as possible, ALDC needs to be informed about by-elections as early as possible. You can do this on the phone or online whether you are a member of ALDC or not.

When the campaign is over please let ALDC have copies of your by-election artwork and copies also of any opposition artwork, email them to john.bridges@aldc.org

Read All About It! 25/8/2011

Thu, 25 Aug 2011 16:02:00 +0000

Recommended reading for Liberal Democrat councillors and local campaigners from the last seven days:

In general political news, Neil Monnery reports that Nick Clegg's approval ratings have gone up dramatically during August amongst Liberal Democrat supporters.

Richard Morris and Nick Thornsby highlight an article in the Evening Standard that complains about the Liberal Democrats getting in the way of the Tories - something that many Lib Dems will be pleased about.

On Liberal Democrat Voice Chris Rennard asks us to remember what was happening in politics four years ago and why we shouldn't lose heart now.

In the local government world:

The LGA has an overview of the work councils are doing to help those places hit by the riots to get back to normal and to improve local communities.

The government is currently consulting on proposals to allow councils to charge utility companies and anyone else who wishes to dig up roads during rush hour.

The BBC Scotland website profiles the Lib Dem Leader of Edinburgh City Council Jenny Dawe, including her history of golf club snake slaying!

In Shropshire, long-serving Liberal Democrat Peter Phillips is stepping down from Shropshire Council after 30 years of service.

Finally, for those who want to know more about the Localism Bill there's a useful 'plain English' guide to the Localism Bill which you can download as a PDF.

Federal Conference: Training for Councillors

Tue, 23 Aug 2011 12:00:00 +0000

Party conference is a great time to take part in training to help you succeed as a Liberal Democrat campaigner and councillor. Training in Birmingham is all free and available to all Party Members. Most of it is just outside the conference "secure area" so you don't event have to be registered for Conference to attend.

Download and print out ALDC's Conference Planner for our full guide to training and fringe events for this year's September Conference.

Thanks to Jonathan Swift for kindly giving permission to use this photo.

Here's just a small part of ALDC's 50 hours of training.

Training for Lib Dem Councillors

Working Smarter for Councillors
As councillors and campaigners we have very limited time, this session will help you make best use of your time. Ideal for all local election candidates and councillors.
Jury’s Inn room 114 – Monday 4-00 to 5-30

Power of the Small Group
If you are a small voice by number in your council group or in viewpoint then this session is your guide to winning the argument.
Jury’s Inn room 114 – Tuesday 11-00 to 12-30

Next Generation Alumni
Update training session for the participants of Lib Dem Next Generation 1-5 and Lib Dems on previous Leadership Academies.
Jury’s Inn room 114 – Sunday 9-15 to 10-45

Why should anyone vote for me in May?
This special session workshop will work through developing your message for next year's local elections. Ideal for all local election candidates, councillors, agents and campaign organisers.
Hyatt Regency Hotel Allegro – Saturday – 2-30 to 5-30

Winning Ways 1: Campaigning in your Community
In communities across the country there are improvements just waiting for a successful campaign to bring them about. If you are a candidate, campaigner, councillor or Member of Parliament this is your chance to update your knowledge and skills needed to work with people to bring about change.
Jury’s Inn room 112 – Sunday 9-15 to 10-45 and Tuesday 2-30 to 3-45

Winning Ways 3: A Record of Action – Delivering on Community Politics
This session looks at how we use Community Politics to get the best for our residents and our area. Ideal for all local election candidates, councillors, agents and campaign organisers.
Jury’s Inn room 112 – Sunday 2-30 to 3-45 and Monday 9-15 to 10-45

Winning Ways 4: The Best Person for the Job
How can we build and sell the profile of our candidates, make the electorate see that our candidate is the best person for the job, and how you can do this between now and polling day. Ideal for all local election candidates, councillors, agents and campaign organisers.
Jury’s Inn room 112 – Sunday 4-00 to 5-30 and Monday 11-00 to 12-30

Getting Technology Right

CONNECT for Councillors
See the party’s new campaign database system CONNECT (VAN) in action. Focus on how CONNECT can empower Councillors to campaign more effectively in your community.

Soprano Room, Hyatt Regency Hotel - Saturday – 2-30 to 3-45

Room 101, Jury’s Inn - Monday - 9.15 to 10.45

MyCouncillor Basics

Now is the time to get your ward website up and running. Regardless of where you are in the country there is now an expectation that local representatives will have a website. Come here and learn how easy it is to set up and manage a free MyCouncillor website through ALDC (for ALDC members)

Jury’s Inn room 114 – Sunday 2-30 to 3-45

MyCouncillor Advanced

This session is for users of the My Councillor websites provided free to ALDC members. This session will explore ways of making the most of your website and look at the latest technological developments.

Jury’s Inn room 114 – Tuesday 2-30 to 3-45

ALDC's full Training Programme consists of over 50 hours of training - Download and print out ALDC's Conference Planner for our full guide to training and fringe events for this year's September Conference.

If You're Campaigning - We want to give you money!

Tue, 23 Aug 2011 12:00:00 +0000

The "G8 Grants" Committee is now seeking applications for funding for "Stage 1" grants in England and Wales. Separate information will be sent out for grants in Scotland.

The application process is simple and the criteria for grants are kept as basic as we can!

HURRY - the deadline is 29 August 2011.

Rewarding Early Campaigning

If you have elections in May 2012, we will give you a grant for the work you are already doing - we just want you to start early!

To be eligible for a grant we will need to see most of the following in place:

Link to application form

Help to Attend Kickstart (2013 and 2012)

If you have elections in May 2012 OR May 2013 (the English Counties and Unitaries) then we will help people attend the Kickstart Training Weekend in November.

We are keen to support campaign teams to develop their skills and ensure they have the right plan in place to win in 2012 and 2013. We will be providing grants to pay for 50% of the cost of attending the important Kickstart Training weekend 25-27 November 2011 in Birmingham. Priority will be given to teams who don't have the group funds available to pay for this and the limit is two subsidised places per authority area.

Link to application form

If you need further information about G8 , please email Eleanor Ritchie eleanor.ritchie@aldc.org

LGA Lib Dem Group Election Results

Mon, 22 Aug 2011 12:00:00 +0000

The Liberal Democrat Group in the Local Government Association has announced the results of its elections to group positions and the various LGA commissioners, boards and panels. Those elected are listed below with the results available here and the full breakdown of the results by stage available here.

Group Executive

Group Leader - Gerald Vernon-Jackson, Portsmouth (Elected unopposed)
Deputy Leader (Policy) - Chris White, Hertfordshire (Elected unopposed)
Deputy Leader (Political) - Dorothy Thornhill, Watford
Group Chair - Jill Shortland, Somerset (Elected unopposed)
Group Whip - Howard Sykes, Oldham (Elected unopposed)

Commissions

Fire

Jeremy Hilton, Gloucestershire - Lead
Paul Shannon, Manchester - Deputy

Rural

Stan Collins, Cumbria - Lead
Heather Kidd, Shropshire - Deputy

Urban

Abigail Bell - Hull (Elected unopposed)

Panels

Audit & Scrutiny

David Neighbour, Hart - Lead
Gary Scott, Tendring - Sub (Elected unopposed)

Resources

Keith Whitmore, Manchester - Lead
Sam Crabb, Somerset - Sub

Programme Boards

Children & Young People

Liz Green, Kingston-upon-Thames - Lead
David Bellotti, Bath and North East Somerset
Kath Pinnock, Kirklees - Sub

Community Wellbeing

David Rogers, East Sussex - Lead
Zoe Patrick, Oxfordshire
Doreen Huddart, Newcastle - Sub

Culture, Tourism & Sport

Chris White, Hertfordshire - Lead
Brendan Jameson, South Lakeland
Flick Rea, Camden - Sub

Economy & Transport

Roger Symonds, Bath and North East Somerset - Lead
Richard Knowles, Oldham
Heather Kidd, Shropshire - Sub

Environment & Housing

Keith House, Eastleigh - Lead
Terry Stacy, Islington
Simon Galton, Leicestershire - Sub

European & International
Richard Kemp, Liverpool - Lead
Zulfiqar Ali, Rochdale (Elected unopposed)

Safer Communities

Duwayne Brooks, Lewisham - Lead
Lisa Brett, Bath and North East Somerset
Anita Lower, Newcastle - Sub

Workforce

Stephen Knight, Richmond-on-Thames - Lead
Steve Comer, Bristol
Simon Shaw, Sefton - Sub

Festival Fight

Fri, 19 Aug 2011 15:05:00 +0000

There were two principal local council by-elections held on Thursday 18th August. Both Labour and the SNP held a seat.
In the one parish or town council by-election result reported to ALDC the Tories took a seat off Independents.

There seems to have been a spate of Royal related by-elections. On the 18th August there was a by-election for the City Centre ward in which Holyrood House falls in Edinburgh. Last week it was Windsor castle. It is also where most of the venues for the Edinburgh festival lie and this may have led to the drop in turnout from 51% in 2007 to 24% in 2011. The election was called following an SNP resignation. We currently hold one of the three seats in the ward but dropped back in line with other results in Scotland this year. The Tories were ahead on first preferences but the SNP overtook them on transfers.

In the Page Moss ward of Knowsley Metropolitan Borough Council in Merseyside we made modest progress, but Labour still won with 82% of the vote.

Read All About It! 19/8/2011

Fri, 19 Aug 2011 14:30:00 +0000

Recommended reading for Liberal Democrat councillors and local campaigners from the last seven days:

In national news that affects local government:

PFI schemes have come under further criticism following a report from the Treasury Select Committee.

The BBC have a discussion on their website on whether political parties will become extinct.

The Association of Police Authorities sent an open letter to the Home Secretary criticising her over comments she made comparing Boris Johnson’s high profile role following the riots and the lack of an equivalent position in the rest of the country.

The Department of Health is making a record £800 million investment in medical research.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission has highlighted the lack of women in senior posts in the public and private sectors, with a staggering 5,400 women missing!

Around the country, some of our local councillors have been very busy.

A very brief post on Councillor Iain Roberts’ MyCouncillor website is a good reminder that ‘restorative justice’ is nothing new and some Lib Dem councils, such as his in Stockport, have been doing it for years.

Councillor Alex Folkes from Cornwall uncovers the size of his council’s bill for new vehicles - £5.5 million in two years.

Finally, the first official biography of Nick Clegg comes out at the weekend and last week extracts appeared in the Mail on Sunday. You can read more about it here. Don’t forget that if you buy the book through this link then you are helping ALDC as we receive a small commission.

Winning Ways - Training at Conference

Thu, 18 Aug 2011 14:19:00 +0000

Party conference is a great time to take part in training to help you succeed as a Liberal Democrat campaigner and councillor. We're all learning to operate in the different circumstances of campaigning as a Party that's in Government, so keeping up with new skills and ideas is more important than ever.

Training in Birmingham is all free and available to all Party Members. Most of it is just outside the conference "secure area" so you don't event have to be registered for Conference to attend

Download and print out ALDC's Conference Planner for our full guide to training and fringe events for this year's September Conference.

Thanks to Jonathan Swift for kindly giving permission to use this photo.

Here's just some of our 50 hours of training.

Make the most of Saturday!

On Saturday afternoon we have two workshop sessions which take up the whole afternoon.

Winning Ways!

We've developed a set of six training modules, each of which are being repeated twice during conference which identify areas of campainging which we we need to see more of, or need to be improved or changed.

Winning Ways 2: In Touch All Year Round
It's never been more important to communicate effectively with the residents in your ward. Get an overview of the different techniques ranging from Focus to social networking, via direct mail and the local media. Find out more about the advantages of each approach and how to choose the best technique for your different messages.
Jury’s Inn room 112 – Sunday 11-00 to 12-30 and Monday 2-30 to 3-45

Winning Ways 3: A Record of Action – Delivering on Community Politics
This session looks at how we use Community Politics to get the best for our residents and our area. Ideal for all local election candidates, councillors, agents and campaign organisers.
Jury’s Inn room 112 – Sunday 2-30 to 3-45 and Monday 9-15 to 10-45

Winning Ways 4: The Best Person for the Job

How can we build and sell the profile of our candidates, make the electorate see that our candidate is the best person for the job, and how you can do this between now and polling day. Ideal for all local election candidates, councillors, agents and campaign organisers.
Jury’s Inn room 112 – Sunday 4-00 to 5-30 and Monday 11-00 to 12-30

Winning Ways 5: Voter ID
Most pre-2010 historic voter ID data is now less reliable and many canvassers in May found it harder to get accurate information from voters. This course will go over the basics of voter ID and look at how to approach it in the new environment.
Jury’s Inn room 112 – Monday 4-00 to 5-30 and Monday 9-15 to 10-45

Winning Ways 6: Targeting Voters
You have lots of data you have collected about your electorate; this session will give you ways to use that data to target your voters throughout the year. Ideal for all local election candidates, councillors, agents and campaign organisers.
Jury’s Inn room 112 – Monday 2-30 to 3-45 and Tuesday 11-00 to 12-30

Getting Candidates Right

Finding Council Candidates
More than ever finding the right candidate to WIN elections is critical. Use this programme to identify new and different potential candidates including from people who may not even yet be Party members.
Jury’s Inn room 114 – Sunday 4-00 to 5-30

Candidate Approval and Selection
Approving and selecting council candidates properly is vital in ensuring we have candidates that will represent the party well to the electorate and reducing potential for embarrassment later. This training course will tell you what you need to do as well as good practice from elsewhere.
Jury’s Inn room 114 – Monday 11-00 to 12-30

Tories Eton alive

Fri, 12 Aug 2011 15:45:00 +0000

There were three principal local council by-elections held on Thursday 11th August. The Lib Dems and an Independent each gained one seat off the Tories and Labour held the third. In the two parish or town council by-election results reported to ALDC an Independent took a seat off the Tories, and the Lib Dems held one seat.
In the Windsor and Maidenhead Unitary council ward of Eton and Castle - and yes it includes Eton College and Windsor castle - we took a seat off the Tories with a dramatic swing. Only a couple of months after the local elections there was a by-election - the Conservative councillor who won in May got a better offer and resigned.
So how did we do it? We did standard leaflet, target mailing, canvassing and election day campaign – as we did in the local elections in May.
We ran on very local but strong issues: anti-social behaviour, paving slabs and pot holes and parking.
We had a very strong candidate with a great credentials; 25 years a local resident , Teacher at Eton and governor at a local girls school, green and a known blogger.
We ran an internet campaign with

an improved website – based on wordpress
a strong email list campaign
a facebook and twitter campaign.

- making sure that they were all integrated.

The absence of Eton’s sixth form voters and the low turnout from the grace and favour properties on the Windsor estate may, or may not have favoured us.

Other coverage has appeared in the local press and on the BBC website.

There seem to be a spate of Royal related byelections. There is a by-election next week for the ward in which Holyrood House falls in Edinburgh. It's a SNP vacancy following a resignation. We currently hold one of the three seats in the ward.

In the London Borough of Islington we had a tougher time against Labour despite the resignation of the sitting Labour councillor after she had been charged with fraud. In the St Peters ward we retained second place but fell back.

Other Byelections

North Devon DC, Fremington

Read All About It! 10/8/2011

Thu, 11 Aug 2011 17:02:00 +0000

Recommended reading for Liberal Democrat councillors and local campaigners from the last seven days:

With the news dominated by riots in London and other cities around the country, that is where this week’s Read All About It! will start off.

In the latest edition of his news email Hughes News, Deputy Leader Simon Hughes talked about the effect the riots had on his own constituency and about Nick Clegg’s visit to talk to local residents.

On a visit to Birmingham, Nick Clegg also called for people to work together to ensure there was no repeat of what has happened.

On Liberal Democrat Voice, Stephen Tall wrote about the debate on the causes of the riots and whether it’s all about the economy.

On her own blog Caron Lindsay made a plea for a liberal response to the riots.

On LocalGov you can read about the package that DCLG is putting together to help those areas affected by the riots:

Away from the riots there have been other bits of news this week of interest.

The Information Commissioner has ruled that Freedom of Information requests received by Twitter should be dealt with in the same way as other requests.

Some councils are looking at using the new Localism Bill to extend the ban on smoking in public places to parks, play areas and streets.

LocalGov covers a report by the Financial Times which shows that PFI adds £20billion of interest to the cost of public sector infrastructure projects.

MPs have called for an end to the NHS Electronic Care Records (ECR) system describing it as “unworkable”.

Housing Minister Grant Shapps has announced plans to make it easier to evict 'neighbours from hell'

Eric Pickles has launched a consultation in to how councils will take control of council tax benefits, but under certain conditions:

Around the country:

The Labour leader of Greater Manchester Fire Authority has been criticised for claiming £20,000 of expenses in a year.

And in North Yorkshire, the Conservative group researcher is in court accused of smuggling drugs in to the country via his address at County Hall.

ALDC Artwork Templates 2011-2012

Thu, 11 Aug 2011 12:00:00 +0000

Following on from the success of our 2011 artwork pack, ALDC has again commissioned a series of FOCUS and campaign material templates for use by Liberal Democrat campaigners. These are exclusively available to members of ALDC.

Pack 1 was released at the start of August:
The templates include: a range of A4 focus templates (to add to the A3 templates produced last year), and a wide variety of materials for "knocking on doors" - surveys (national and local), single issue door-knocking and candidate calling leaflets. - all of which have been produced in black and white, two colour (for RISOs) and in full colour (Colour RISO or commercial printer). All the FOCUS leaflets have variations to allow for single and for two and three member wards and election campaigns, and different pull outs for fighting the Tories and Labour.

The templates use a standard set of fonts, which you need to install on your computer first - or the templates won't work correctly!

Remember you need to "log-in" as an ALDC member to download these files - your log-in details are the bottom of your weekly Campaigner email.

ALDC members can download PDF and PagePlus files of all the Pack 1 templates from our website here.

If you're not a member of ALDC please join us! Join today, without any paperwork here.

Kickstart Scotland 27 August 2011

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 15:04:00 +0000

Kickstart Scotland 27^th August – Perth – Salutation Hotel

The full programme will be on the Scottish Parties website later this week at: http://www.scotlibdems.org.uk, but the draft agenda includes:

- Basic Skills for new candidates / recruit - Peter Barrett

- Reinvigorate seasoned campaigners

- Running the council, getting back to campaigning

- Using administration to further Liberal Democrats cause

– Elizabeth Riches and Paul Edie

- Succession planning

– Fred Mackintosh and Caron Lindsay

- New media – Caron Lindsay and Fraser MacPherson

- Briefing by Alison McInnes NE perspective.

Keynote speaker Cllr Gerald Vernon-Jackson - Leader Portsmouth City Council, Leader (elect) Liberal Democrat Group Local Government Group (England)

To book please send cheque for £10 for ASLDC and LYS members or £15 for none members, for each person along with their contact details to:

Caron Lindsay

139 Buchanan Crescent,

Livingston,

EH54 7EF.

One of our Political Officers from the team at ALDC, Cllr Mark Alcock, will also be in attendance to provide advice throughout the day.

Super Somerset

Fri, 05 Aug 2011 16:13:00 +0000

There was one principal local council by-election held on Thursday 4th August. The Lib Dem gained one seat off the Tories. In the two parish or town council by-election results reported to ALDC the Lib Dems made two gains from Independents.
In 2009 we lost the South Petherton Division, of Somerset County Council in the Yeovil Constituency by just 94 votes. In Thursday’s election we had a strong candidate in Paul Maxwell who is the district councillor for Eggwood in the division. The Tories tried the same tactic and stood one of the two councillors for South Pemberton on the District council. We had the advantage of some great issues. The Tory county council were trying to close a Library in South Pemberton. The Tories tried to convince voters that they were campaigning to save it!! Voters saw through this and three days before polling day the independent campaign group put out a newsletter endorsing our candidate. Third party endorsements are very powerful !!!
The Crewkerne recycling centre that is used by most residents, charges for people to use it !! If this were not bad enough a week before polling day they upped the charge from £1.20 to £2. Two great issues that we used to the full.
We never stopped reminding people that there were only 94 votes in it and we successfully squeezed the 222 green votes polled in 2009 down to 104.
We achieved a remarkably high level of voter contact and with a good evening eve of poll and good morning leaflets we ran an intensive polling day that produced a remarkably high turnout to add to the 60% from the postal vote.
The Tories tried to disown responsibility for the decisions they were making on the County, but it did not work. Let’s hope this is the first of many to come.

Conference: Localism the New Opportunities

Wed, 03 Aug 2011 14:50:00 +0000

Localism the New Opportunities
A Conference for Liberal Democrats

Book Now

On Friday 21st October 2011, in Westminster, an important one day conference will take place for Liberal Democrat involved in local government. This is a conference and workshop for Liberal Democrats to look at the new opportunities provided by the Localism Bill.

Guest Speakers:
Rt Hon Nick Clegg, Deputy Prime Minister
Lord Victor Adebowale, Chief Executive, Turning Point
Gordon Lishman CBE, Author of the 1970 Community Politics Resolution to the Liberal Assembly
Andrew Stunell OBE, Lib Dem Minister DCLG
Helen Williams, Deputy Director of Neighbourhoods, National Housing Federation
Cllr Richard Kemp CBE, Deputy Leader, Liverpool Liberal Democrats
Chaired by Cllr Gerald Vernon-Jackson, Leader LGA Liberal Democrats

Bevin Hall, Local Government House, Smith Square, London SW1

Who should attend?

Liberal Democrats who are: • Councillors • Community activists • Campaigners • Health Trusts and Housing Association Board members • School Governors

Taking place at: Local Government House, Smith Square, City of London SW1P 3HZ

Programme

9.30 Reception and Coffee

10.00 Introduction.
Cllr Gerald Vernon-Jackson, Leader of the Liberal Democrats in Local Government

10.20 An external perspective.

The challenges to politicians in the localism agenda by: Lord Victor Adebowale, Chief Executive, Turning Point Helen Williams, Deputy Director of Neighbourhoods, National Housing Federation Followed by Q and A

11.00 Speech by Rt Hon Nick Clegg followed by Q and A.

11.45 Making things happen the Lib Dem Way
The long term view – Gordon Lishman
Legislation into action – Andrew Stunell MP
Inside the Council Chamber – Cllr Richard Kemp
Followed by Q & A

12.45 Lunch

13.30 Workshops
Localism the Whole council approach - Carl Minns
Cabinet Member for your Ward – Cllr Erica Kemp
Housing and neighbourhoods – Cllr Richard Kemp
Integrating Town Hall and Campaigning – Howard Sykes.

15.00 Finish

Book Now

Kickstart 2012 and 2013

Tue, 02 Aug 2011 12:00:00 +0000

Registrations are now open for ALDC's Kickstart Training Weekend - 25-27 November 2011, near Birmingham. This is our main training event of the year and a great opportunity to ensure your team is a winning team at your next local elections - click here to go direct to the online booking form.

FACT:
In the couple of years years almost all of us face local elections of some sort. Scotland, Wales, English Mets and Districts and London in 2012, English Counties in 2013.

FACT:
To win in challenging circumstances your team needs the skills and information to campaign effectively. You need a campaign plan that can build success across subsequent elections.

FACT:
It is never to early to start. Experience has shown us that starting early, and campaigning continuously will reap rewards.

SOLUTION:
ALDC’s Weekend Kickstart event takes place on 25-27 November 2011. Each year it is the most important training opportunity each year for Lib Dem volunteer campaigners. It's proven to work - with Lib Dems going on from Kickstart to win in subsequent elections.

WHAT YOU GET:
Over 20 hours of training – both advanced and beginner.
Over six hours for your team working with an experienced mentor to develop your campaign plan.
A weekend's accommodation at the Holiday Inn (M6 Junction 7 near Birmingham), food and training rooms. (There's even time for both the pool and the bar...). The weekend starts at 6:00pm on Friday and finishes 2:30pm on Sunday.

WHO SHOULD ATTEND:

Kickstart is great if you can bring along your campaign team. Imagine a whole weekend of campaign planning with expert help without any interference! This year we're encouraging everyone with elections in 2012 and 2013 to attend.
Individual campaigners are also welcome - they will work together in small teams to develop plans and ideas.
Experienced campaigners and new campaigners. It’s a great way to develop ideas and bring on new people.

HOW MUCH DOES IT COST:

Kickstart is financially supported by the G8 process, so the cost is right down to the minimum we can charge.
Save £60 by sharing a room – (twins and doubles available!)
G8 will can provide grants to groups to subsidise attendance - for people with elections in 2012 AND 2013.
We have a small number of HALF PRICE places for groups starting off (see below).
WHY NOT ask your council group to pay or pay half of your costs – it could be the best investment they make all year?

If you're near to Birmingham we have some low-cost non-residential rates - not available to book online but contact emma.hall@aldc.org

HOW DO I BOOK:
You can book now – online at ALDC’s website – click here to go direct to the booking form. Remember you need to LOG IN as an ALDC member FIRST to receive your members discount which will then be applied automatically.
More information from Emma Hall – 01422 843 785 emma.hall@aldc.org

50% DISCOUNT
ALDC has set aside a fund to pay for a small number of half-price places available for groups who are starting off. This is only for councils where we have NO COUNCILLORS or very few Councillors (e.g. one or two wards).

If you are interested in taking us up on this please contact anders.hanson@aldc.org before 9 October 2011 deadline.

G8 Grants 2012 and 2013

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 14:01:00 +0000

G8 Grants for Local Campaigning (England and Wales)

The "G8 Grants" Committee is now seeking applications for funding for "Stage 1" grants in England and Wales. Separate information will be sent out for grants in Scotland.
Later in the year we hope to be running a "Stage 2" round of grants, subject to funding.

For stage 1, two types of grant are available:

A. 2012 Local Elections in England and Wales: Rewarding Early Campaigning

To be eligible for a grant we will need to see most of the following in place:

Link to application form

B. 2012 Local Elections in England and Wales, and 2013 County and Unitary Elections in England: Kickstart Training We are keen to support campaign teams to develop their skills and ensure they have the right plan in place to win in 2012 and 2013. We will be providing grants to pay for 50% of the cost of attending the important Kickstart Training weekend 25-27 November 2011 in Birmingham. Priority will be given to teams who don't have the group funds available to pay for this and the limit is two subsidised places per authority area.

Link to application form

If you need further information about G8 , please email Eleanor Ritchie eleanor.ritchie@aldc.org

The deadline for applications is 29 August 2011

Where we work we can still win

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 12:00:00 +0000

There were four principal local council by-elections held on Thursday 28th July and one on Tuesday 26th . The Tories held three seats, the Lib Dem held one and Labour gained one off Independents. In the only parish or town council by-election results reported to ALDC an Independent took a seat off the Tories.

In Warrington we got hammered in May 2010, but not quite as badly as other areas in the north. We ended up with a majority of one for the LibDem/Con coalition that had been running the council. In May 2011 it got worse and we lost further seats and control of the Council. Our remaining councillor in the Poulton North ward resigned having taken a job in the south of England. We knew it would be a tough fight and stood our very popular councillor who had lost in May after seven years on the council. He has a tremendous reputation in the ward.

We did a full canvass in our two best and highest turn-out polling districts and quite a lot in another. We did not canvass the other two small polling districts, which have poor turnout and are mostly Labour. We delivered everywhere. We did three Focuses and an Eve of Poll. On polling Day we did a good morning leaflet to Ds and Ps and then two knock ups with different leaflets until after 9pm. We did a Postal voter letter and insert 'How to do it' card and an eve of poll handwritten letter to supporters.

Labour threw the kitchen sink at us, accusing us of an unnecessary, expensive election and of secret deals to build on green land. They did six leaflets including three full colour glossies - one an A3. They were mostly negative attacks on “Con/Dem cuts” eg save the NHS petition; save Peel Hall Park petition (based on a made up story that Lib Dems were talking to developers!!!) They put up a Leeds based college student as their candidate.

The Tories put up a candidate who did three leaflets.

This is a ward we have won with large majorities in the past – 743 in 2008 with 59.9% of the vote. The fact that Labour can still get that close, with a weak candidate, shows that Labour people are still voting tribally, are getting better at campaigning but can still be beaten.

Other byelections:

Bush Hill Park - London Borough of Enfield

Beardwood with Lammack - Blackburn and Darwin UA

Stanmore Park - London Borough of Harrow

Snatchwood - Torfaen County Borough Council (Tuesday result)

Read All About It! 29/7/2011

Fri, 29 Jul 2011 15:56:00 +0000

Recommended reading for Liberal Democrat councillors and local campaigners from the last seven days:

This week the government launched the 'Big Society Bank' which will help fund social enterprises and charities.

The government has also launched the Draft National Planning Policy Framework, to mixed reviews. This framework will see the scrapping of Planning Policy Guidance (PPG) and various other documents and advice, with just one document.

The l atest set of Enterprise Zones have been officially announced by the government for Sheffield, Birmingham, Bristol and Leeds.

The Liberal Democrats in the Greater London Assembly have announced plans for electric vehicles to be used throughout the capital by 2020.

Councils throughout the country have submitted their dates for when the public will be allowed to inspect the accounts for each local authority.

The discussions over police commissioners continues whilst the House of Lords decides whether to support the bill or not. ALDC Management Committee members Cllr Chris White has written a piece for Lib Dem Voice on whether the Conservatives will even put up candidates.

In Reading, Lib Dem Cllr Warren Swaine has had his party membership reinstated over a remark he made on Twitter.

Simon Titley writes for Liberator with his take on the reasons why we performed so badly in the local elections in May.

Jo Swinson MP has managed to gain news coverage both in this country and in the United States for her campaign for body confidence and against the digital manipulation of photographs in this regard.

Mark Pack reports on moves by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (Nick Clegg to you and me) to lengthen the timetable for parliamentary elections and as a result the various deadlines associated with the election.

Birmingham 2011: ALDC Highlights

Wed, 27 Jul 2011 12:00:00 +0000

Liberal Democrat Federal Party Conference takes place Saturday 17 - Wednesday 21 September 2011, in Birmingham. All Party members can attend, more details on registration are available from the main party website here.

Come and visit us in the Exhibition Hall - we're at Stand 104 in the main Hall 4. Staff and volunteers will be on hand from Saturday through to Wednesday to help with advice, information, membership information and technical queries.

Thanks to Jonathan Swift for kindly giving permission to use this photo.

ALDC Fringe Programme

Saturday 17 September 2011, 8.15pm, ICC 10B
ALDC Annual General Meeting and Campaigner Awards 2011
Party President Tim Farron MP presents the 2011 Campaigner Awards. £500 for the top prize sponsored by RISO and Midshires. Submit your campaign materials for an award here.

Sunday 18 September 2011, 1.00pm, ICC 8A
ALDC Members Reception (Members Only)
Join Nick Clegg MP and Andrew Stunell MP at our annual members reception in partnership with the Co-operative.

ALDC Training Programme

ALDC have 22 training session and six workshops at this Autumn’s conference in Birmingham.

Winning Ways

We are running a set of six ‘Winning Ways’ training sessions, these sessions will be run twice once in the morning and once in the afternoon:

Winning Ways 1:
Campaigning in your Community
In communities across the country there are improvements just waiting for a successful campaign to bring them about. If you are a candidate, campaigner, councillor or Member of Parliament this is your chance to update your knowledge and skills needed to work with people to bring about change.

Jury’s Inn room 112 – Sunday 9-15 to 10-45 and Tuesday 2-30 to 3-45
Cllr Jeanette Sunderland ALDC - Shaun Roberts Campaigns Department

Winning Ways 2:
In Touch All Year Round
It's never been more important to communicate effectively with the residents in your ward. Get an overview of the different techniques ranging from Focus to social networking, via direct mail and the local media. Find out more about the advantages of each approach and how to choose the best technique for your different messages.

Jury’s Inn room 112 – Sunday 11-00 to 12-30 and Monday 2-30 to 3-45
Cllr Anders Hanson ALDC – Cllr Adam Williams

Winning Ways 3:
A Record of Action – Delivering on Community Politics
This session looks at how we use Community Politics to get the best for our residents and our area. Ideal for all local election candidates, councillors, agents and campaign organisers.
Jury’s Inn room 112 – Sunday 2-30 to 3-45 and Monday 9-15 to 10-45
Cllr Howard Sykes – Isobel McCall ALDC

Winning Ways 4:
The Best Person for the Job
How can we build and sell the profile of our candidates, make the electorate see that our candidate is the best person for the job, and how you can do this between now and polling day. Ideal for all local election candidates, councillors, agents and campaign organisers.
Jury’s Inn room 112 – Sunday 4-00 to 5-30 and Monday 11-00 to 12-30
Cllr Tim Pickstone - Cllr Claire Hudson ALDC

Winning Ways 5:
Voter ID
Most pre-2010 historic voter ID data is now less reliable and many canvassers in May found it harder to get accurate information from voters. This course will go over the basics of voter ID and look at how to approach it in the new environment.
Jury’s Inn room 112 – Monday 4-00 to 5-30 and Monday 9-15 to 10-45
Cllr John Bridges ALDC - Ian Horner

Winning Ways 6:
Targeting Voters
You have lots of data you have collected about your electorate; this session will give you ways to use that data to target your voters throughout the year. Ideal for all local election candidates, councillors, agents and campaign organisers"

Jury’s Inn room 112 – Monday 2-30 to 3-45 and Tuesday 11-00 to 12-30
Cllr Mark Alcock ALDC – Tim Pollard Campaigns Department

CONNECT for councillors

See the party’s new campaign database system CONNECT ( VAN) in action. Focus on how CONNECT can empower Councillors to campaign more effectively in your community.

Soprano Room, Hyatt Regency Hotel - Saturday – 2-30 to 3-45
Room 101, Jury’s Inn - Monday - 9.15 to 10.45
Austin Rathe, Elections and Skills & Cllr Anders Hanson, ALDC

MyCouncillor

MyCouncillor Basics
Now is the time to get your ward website up and running. Regardless of where you are in the country there is now an expectation that local representatives will have a website. Come here and learn how easy it is to set up and manage a free MyCouncillor website through ALDC (for ALDC members)

Jury’s Inn room 114 – Sunday 2-30 to 3-45
Laura Willoughby – Cllr Anders Hanson ALDC

MyCouncillor Advanced
This session is for users of the My Councillor websites provided free to ALDC members. This session will explore ways of making the most of your website and look at the latest technological developments.

Jury’s Inn room 114 – Tuesday 2-30 to 3-45
Cllr Tim Pickstone ALDC

Council Candidates

Jury’s Inn room 114 – Sunday 4-00 to 5-30
Steve Hitchins ALDC – Cllr Anood Al Samerai

and once you have found your potential candidates:

Jury’s Inn room 114 – Monday 11-00 to 12-30
Laura Willoughby – Cllr Anders Hanson ALDC

Email

Keeping in Touch – by Email!
Workshop to look how best to use email in our campaigning and communications.
Looking at the emails we send, collecting addresses and different systems we can use. Ideal for all local election candidates, councillors, agents and campaign organisers.

Jury’s Inn room 114 – Monday 2-30 to 3-45
Cllr Tim Pickstone ALDC

Councillors and council groups

Working Smarter for Councillors
As councillors and campaigners we have very limited time, this session will help you make best use of your time. Ideal for all local election candidates and councillors"

Jury’s Inn room 114 – Monday 4-00 to 5-30
Cllr Erica Kemp

Power of the Small Group
If you are a small voice by number in your council group or in viewpoint then this session is your guide to winning the argument.

Jury’s Inn room 114 – Tuesday 11-00 to 12-30
Cllr Jeanette Sunderland ALDC

Next Generation Alumni
Update training session for the participants of Lib Dem Next Generation 1-5 and Lib Dems on previous Leadership Academies.

Jury’s Inn room 114 – Sunday 9-15 to 10-45
Cllr Erica Kemp

Campaign Workshops

Police & Crime Commissioner elections
The Police & Crime Commissioner elections are coming up and we need to be prepared. This session will help highlight the policies and messages that will allow us to maximise our vote.

Hyatt Regency Hotel Allegro - Saturday – 11-00 to 12-30
Hilary Stephenson Campaigns Department

Hyatt Regency Hotel Andante – Saturday – 2-30 to 5-30
Rhiannon Wadeson Campaigns Department - John Bridges & Cllr Mark Alcock ALDC

Hyatt Regency Hotel Allegro – Saturday – 2-30 to 5-30
Cllr Howard Sykes ALDC & Shaun Roberts Campaigns Department

Using the Localism Bill to boost your campaign
The Localism Bill offers some real campaigning opportunities for Liberal Democrats in their local community. Key tips and a chance to discuss how you can use this with Andrew Stunell MP and the LGA Lib Dem Group.

Jury’s Inn room 114 – Sunday 11-00 to 12-30
Andrew Stunell MP – Rob Banks LGA

Lib Dem Council Group Researchers
An opportunity for Lib Dem Council group political assistants and researchers to get the latest briefings and to learn best practice from colleagues in other authorities.

Jury’s Inn room 114 – Monday 9-15 to 10-45

Workshop on Organised Independents
This is a workshop on how other groups have worked to combat organised independent groups. Ideal for all local election candidates, councillors, agents and campaign organisers.

Jury’s Inn room 114 – Tuesday 4-00 to 5-30
Cllr Chris White - Cllr Claire Hudson ALDC

Inspired

Jury’s Inn room 114 – Tuesday 9-15 to 10-45
Cllr Keith House – Leader Eastleigh, Cllr Gerald Vernon-Jackson Leader Portsmouth, Cllr Stuart Bray Leader Hinckley and Bosworth, Cllr John Boyce Leader Oadby and Wigston

Facing a new challenge – Defending your council seat in 2012
If you are standing for re-election in 2012 this session is a must for you

Room 113/115/117 - Sunday 9-15 to 10-45 and
Tuesday 9-15 to 10-45 - Jury’s Inn room 102
Dave McCobb, Elections and Skills & Cllr Mark Alcock, ALDC

We have to believe we can win, to convince others

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 15:01:00 +0000

There were two principal local council by-election held on Thursday 21st July. The Tories held one seat and Plaid Cymru held the other. In the only parish or town council by-election results reported to ALDC the Tories took a seat off the Lib Dems.

At times in Welsh elections there can be an “anyone but Plaid” mentality from both activists and voters. By-elections naturally encourage a wider field of candidates than usual and this was the case in the Glyder ward of Gwynedd Council and split that vote. This Bangor ward divides into two; a council estate and a largely Welsh speaking area. We canvassed around 95% of the houses but needed to get on more doorsteps in peoples first language. Our candidate was a well-known local figure and Bangor City Councillor. We fought on local issues, notably the terrible state of local roads and pavements. This is a both a frustrating and encouraging result. In May we lost our deposit in the Arfon Welsh Assembly seat that includes this ward, so a huge improvement but frustrating that we fell just 13 votes from victory.

In the very rural Remenham, Wargrave and Ruscombe ward of Wokingham Unitary Authority in Berkshire, one of the two sitting Tory councillors resigned to cause a by-election. Four days earlier she won a seat in the neighbouring Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead!! She could have resigned in the run up to the May local elections, rather than afterwards. If that had happened, then the by-election could have been run on the same day as the local elections. Strangely we pointed this out to the electors who were none too amused.

Our vote share dropped from the election held on the same day as the general election to a figure comparable to previous local elections. Turnout was below normal for the ward possibly due to the unforecast heavy rain during the afternoon and evening, yet the postal vote turnout was 61%.

Labour and UKIP both did one leaflet to the central parts of the ward, both for the first time. The Greens did nothing. We did two leaflets, some canvassing, target letters to non-Tories in two tranches (postal voters, non-postals). The Tories did full canvass for the first time ever, one leaflet, target letters (postal and non-postal).

This ward, whilst in Wokingham Authority, is in the Maidenhead parliamentary seat and as such had some attention up to the 2005 General Election but had not been high on our priority list. Our aims were thus limited; we maintained our second place, trialled some key messages (which worked well for us) and got everybody helping after the May elections – all achieved.

Read All About It! 22/7/2011

Fri, 22 Jul 2011 15:15:00 +0000

First the good news, and that’s the poll from ICM which shows the Liberal Democrats up 4% to 16%. OK, so it’s only one poll but it’s a start.

On to other news:

In today’s Times, 115 Liberal Democrat councillors have called for the scrapping of plans for Police and Crime Commissioners. You can read more about the story at LocalGov, thereby saving you having to pay News International for the privilege of reading the story.

The government has announced plans for a coastal communities fund using money raised through the Crown Estates. This will allow people to bid for funds to support economic development along our coasts.

Andrew Stunell has written for Liberal Democrat Voice about the government’s plans to relocalise business rates and and at Huffington Post UK about the government’s first boost to social housing in over 30 years.

Around the country,

Hertfordshire County Council’s Conservative Deputy Leader says what he really thinks about consulting and involving local residents on issues “in local government, there’s a feeling you’ve got to involve the public. I think perhaps we try to involve the public for too long.”

In news from Liverpool, the Liberal Democrats there are leading the charge in trying to curb Labour’s gravy train of allowances at Merseytravel, the local Integrated Transport Authority.

Within the Liberal Democrats,

Linda Jack joins the debate on the reform of public services and Peter Downes writes about the overspend on academies.

Get an exclusive look at VAN, the party's new campaign tool

Fri, 22 Jul 2011 12:00:00 +0000

Development of the party's new campaign management and voter contact system from the Voter Activation Network (VAN) is now underway and we’ll be writing to you next week with more information.
In the meantime, we’re running a series of demonstrations online for local party Data Officers, Treasurers and Chairs.

We’ll run through the basic system and some specific areas of interest to people holding these positions. Please feel free to sign up to which ever session works for you though.

Please click on the link for the session you would like to attend and register online. You’ll be sent an email with details of how to join the demonstration.

If you’ve got any questions, please email campaigns@libdems.org.uk

Yours sincerely,
Jake Holland
Head of Campaign Development

Local Party Data Officers

Date: Monday, July 25, 2011
Time: 6:00 PM - 7:00 PM BST
Reserve your space at: https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/171391694

Date: Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Time: 6:00 PM - 7:00 PM BST
Reserve your space at: https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/225007566

Local Party Chairs

Date: Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Time: 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM BST
Reserve your space at: https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/410245198

Date: Thursday, July 28, 2011
Time: 6:00 PM - 7:00 PM BST
Reserve your space at: https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/507682598

Date: Friday, July 29, 2011
Time: 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM BST
Reserve your space at: https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/505868318

Local Party Treasurers

Date: Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Time: 6:00 PM - 7:00 PM BST
Reserve your space at: https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/658619390

Date: Thursday, July 28, 2011
Time: 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM BST
Reserve your space at: https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/688109198

Date: Friday, July 29, 2011
Time: 6:00 PM - 7:00 PM BST
Reserve your space at: https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/158117598

Police and Crime Commissioners: Lib Dem candidates start here

Fri, 22 Jul 2011 12:00:00 +0000

The Liberal Democrats are inviting potential candidates for the new Police and Crime Commissioner posts, which, if the legislation is passed, are expected to be elected in May 2012.

The party wants to encourage the widest possible range of applicants so the membership can select from the best possible choice of candidates.

So if you’re interested in applying, you need to be an approved Parliamentary candidate:
The Bill to create directly elected Police and Crime Commissioners is currently before Parliament. The first elections of Police and Crime Commissioners are expected in May 2012.

The English Regional Parties will be inviting applications to be candidates for Police and Crime Commissioners in the autumn. All candidates will be required to be on the Party’s list of approved parliamentary candidates. Therefore anyone who may be interested in being a candidate who is not currently on the Party’s list of approved parliamentary candidates should now apply for approval.

Applications for approval should be made by Friday 29th July to enable them to be considered by September.

Application packs for approval can be obtained from the English Candidates Office, 4 Cowley Street, London, SW1P 3NB candidates@libdems.org.uk - 020 7227 1204

Last chance to save 30% off conference booking

Thu, 21 Jul 2011 16:12:00 +0000

Liberal Democrat Autumn Federal Conference

17-21 September 2011

Birmingham

If you’ve not already signed up, this is your last chance to save up to 30% on members’ registration rates. Register online by 29 July to take advantage of fantastic offers. Don’t forget - full week, weekend and day passes are all available to members online so make the most of your time at conference by registering in advance. You’ll receive your pass and any papers straight to your door, avoiding any queues at on-site registration.

Liberal Democrat Local Government Conference Bristol 2011 in Photos

Thu, 21 Jul 2011 12:00:00 +0000

June 2011 saw the 2011 Local Government Conference, at Clifton in Bristol.

Friday saw a range of satellite events, including a Liberal Democrat "Group Leaders Day", and a training day for Liberal Democrat Council Group Researchers. In the evening Welsh Liberal Democrat Leader Kirsty Williams AM addressed the annual LIberal Democrat Local Government Dinner.

Over 200 Lib Dem councillors and local activists from around the country attended the main conference on Saturday 18 June. Parliamentary speakers included the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg MP, Deputy Parliamentary Leader Simon Hughes MP and ministers Andrew Stunnel MP and Paul Burstow MP.

The day was a packed agenda of training sessions and policy workshops including councillor skills training (e.g. public speaking, time management and more) and campaigning training such as 'talking to voters' and 'building the team'.

More photos from the event are at ALDC's flickr site here. The 2012 Lib Dem Local Government conference takes place Friday 15 and Saturday 16 June 2012.

Solid result in Norfolk

Fri, 15 Jul 2011 15:56:00 +0000

There was one principal local council by-election held on Thursday 14th July and the Tories held the seat. There were no parish or town council by-election results reported to ALDC.

The Tory Parish, District and County councillor for Old Catton Division of Norfolk resigned from just his county seat. In reality the ward is a largely suburban fringe of Norwich, but falls into Broadland District Council where we have one councillor. In campaigning terms it’s virgin territory for us outside the parliamentary 2009 by-election and two freeposts in the 2010 General Election.
With a small local party, stretched by holiday and health absences we set out a series of clear objectives for the campaign, high amongst which was building up the ward’s organisation and training.

From a slow start we ran a four leaflet campaign, with a target leaflet to postal voters and a “Today is Polling Day” leaflet across the whole ward. Where we were less good was on canvass contact and work on the postal vote, both key to success in any election. Canvassers on the final week felt that with more doorstep contact the result could have been even better.

This was particularly frustrating as the Tories not listening message was clearly getting through. In West Norfolk a huge local campaign against an incinerator had been completely ignored and we reminded the Catton voters of this, with a number of developments in the area about to be decided.

The Tories only seemed to put out one glossy A4 but Labour put in a lot of effort, wheeling in two MPs, to do less well than they did in May. The result, for consistency, is compared with the county elections in 2009. However by comparing it against the district result in May it shows a drop in the Labour vote of 2% and our vote up 12%.

An encouraging night.

Read All About it! 15/07/2011

Fri, 15 Jul 2011 12:00:00 +0000

Recommended reading for Liberal Democrat councillors and local campaigners from the last seven days:

You've probably noticed there has been some news recently about News International ..... The story is changing by the hour, but here are some specific Lib Dem angles:

In The Guardan's Comment is Free, Julian Astle writes: Phone-hacking scandal shows why Britain needs the Liberal Democrats

Here's Nick Clegg's speech on the future of the media in full (from Lib Dem Voice) and here's the full text of a letter sent by Simon Hughes, Tim Farron and Don Foster to Rupert Murdoch.

Elsewhere in the news:

Chris Huhne: We must invest in energy to keep lights on (BBC Video)

Cheques Saved as banks fail to come up with suitable alternative (Daily Mail)

In local Government (all from the MJ):

Welsh councils told to review school plans

Council asks residents to carry out waste collections (Rossendale)

Birmingham on course to slash carbon emissions

And elsewhere:

James Morris MP: We mustn't sub-contract "niceness" to the Lib Dems (Conservative Home)

And Friend's of the Earth's report on how we can halve the amount amount of waste we produce: Talking half as much rubbish

Next Generation 6: Call for Participants

Fri, 15 Jul 2011 12:00:00 +0000

We're currently recruiting for the 2011-2012 "Liberal Democrat Next Generation" programme. This is an excellent opportunity for younger and ambitious Lib Dem councillors to develop your leadership and political skills.

Next Generation is now in its sixth successful year. Uniquely, it is developed within party tradition, by party political experts, creating a political development opportunity for participants. Next Generation provides the support and continuous personal development that ensures councillors have the right skills to transform into the sort of leaders required to reinvigorate the local political scene.

'Next Gen' is designed for those who have already shown a proven commitment to the ideals of local government and have demonstrated flair or potential for leadership at a local level and have the capacity to develop politically. It offers privileged access to senior party members and the best of policymakers, an open door to model authorities and the most experienced of mentors and an understanding of communications skills presented by the best the party has to offer.

As well as offering the practical skills of leadership, this programme is also designed to raise individuals' profiles within the local and National Party.

This year long programme is delivered in partnership between the Local Government Liberal Democrat Group, the Leadership and Localism team and the ALDC.

Previous Lib Dem cohorts have visited authorities across the country as well as attending a dedicated training weekend at Warwick Business School, and 2 days in Westminster. Many have gone on to either lead their council, contribute high-quality policy ideas to the Party, or continue cementing an important network of politically motivated Lib Dems in local government.

The 2011-2012 programme will consist of:

- two '3 day' events (ie 2 nights away), including a study visit of Lib Dem-run councils, and a residential study weekend

- two '2 day' events (ie 1 night away), including a day in Westminster and a day at the Lib Dem Local Government Conference.

The programme is free to participants, and all travel, accommodation and food costs are paid.

How to apply:

We are limited to the number of people we can have on the course. For more information and to apply online please fill in the link here (and click on the Lib Dem button!)

The Localism website is suffering an intermittent fault - in which case please go straight to the online form below.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/libdemng2011

The deadline for the Lib Dem applications is Friday 19 August 2011 (with some flexibility for late applications). If you would like to chat informally about the course please contact Tim Pickstone at ALDC on 01422 843 785.

Picture above is the Next Gen 5 group meeting with Chris Huhne last November.

LGA Group Elections - Nominations close

Thu, 14 Jul 2011 16:03:00 +0000

The Nomination for the LGA Lib Dem Group Elections 2011 have now closed

The remaining election timetable is as follows:

22 July    Ballot papers despatched
15 Aug    Ballot closes
19 Aug    Results announced
1 Sept     Posts take effect.

Nominations
Group Executive
Group Leader                        Vernon-Jackson, Gerald    Portsmouth
Deputy Leader (Policy)          White, Chris                       Hertfordshire
Deputy Leader (Political)        Ali, Zulfiqar                        Rochdale
                                               Kidd, Heather                    Shropshire
                                               Thornhill, Dorothy Watford
Group Chair                            Shortland, Jill                    Somerset
Group Whip                             Sykes, Howard                 Oldham

Commission Leads

Fire                                          Aspden, Keith                  York
                                                Hilton, Jeremy                  Gloucestershire
                                                Price, Roger                    Hampshire
                                                Shannon, Paul                 Manchester

Rural                                       Collins, Stan                    Cumbria
                                                Cordwell, John                 Gloucestershire
                                                Dobinson, Adrian            Mendip
                                                Kidd, Heather                  Shropshire
                                                Scott, Gary                      Tendring

Urban Bell, Abigail Hull

Panels
Audit & Scrutiny Neighbour, David Hart
Scott, Gary Tendring

Resources                             Crabb, Sam                       Somerset
                                              Keith, Whitmore                 Manchester
                                              Maines, Chris                     Lewisham
Programme Boards
Children & Young People      Bellotti, David                     BaNES
                                              Candler, Martin                  Stockport
                                              Cawood, Gloria                  Somerset
                                              Downes, Peter                   Cambridgeshire
                                              Golton, Stewart                  Leeds
                                              Green, Liz                          Kingston
                                              Hubbard, Jon                     Wiltshire
                                              Maines, Chris                     Lewisham
                                              Morgan, Penelope              Worcestershire
                                              Pinnock, Kath Kirklees
                                              Simon, Tom                        Camden
                                              Whittle, Paul                       Fareham
                                              Wright, James                    Norwich

Community Wellbeing            Bryant, John                      Camden
                                              Huddart, Doreen                Newcastle
                                              Martins, Rabi                      Watford
                                              Patrick, Zoe                        Oxfordshire
                                              Rogers, David                    East Sussex
                                              Scott, Gary                         Tendring

Culture, Tourism & Sport      Crossley, Paul                    BaNES
                                             Eades, Philip                       Poole
                                             Golton, Stewart                   Leeds
                                             Jameson, Brendan              South Lakeland
                                             Rea, Flick                           Camden
                                             White, Chris                        Hertfordshire

Economy & Transport           Ali, Zulfiqar                          Rochdale
                                             Ball, Jon                              Ealing
                                             Bill, David                            Leicestershire
                                             Connett, Alan                      Teignbridge
                                             Cordwell, John                     Gloucestershire
                                             Kidd, Heather                      Shropshire
                                             Knowles, Richard                Oldham
                                             Rosentiel, Colin                  Cambridge
                                             Stewart, Ian                         Cumbria
                                             Symonds, Roger                  BaNES

Environment & Housing        Dobinson, Adrian                Mendip
                                             Galton, Simon                     Leicestershire
                                             House, Keith                        Eastleigh
                                             Lawrence, Angela               Vale of White Horse
                                             Roodhouse, Jerry                Warwickshire
                                             Scott, Gary                          Tendring
                                             Stacy, Terry                        Islington
                                             Trent, Tony                         Poole

European & International Ali, Zulfiqar Rochdale
Kemp, Richard Liverpool

Improvement                         Higgins, Theresa                Essex
                                             Neighbour, David                Hart
                                             Shortland, Jill                      Somerset
                                             Williams, David                   Richmond

Safer Communities               Brett, Lisa                           BaNES
                                             Brooks, Duwayne               Lewisham
                                             Lower, Anita                       Newcastle
                                             Porgess, Paul                     Stockport
                                             Thomas, Claire                   Hull

Workforce                            Comer, Steve                       Bristol
                                            Hay, Colin                            Cheltenham
                                            Knight, Stephen                   Richmond
                                            Shaw, Simon                        Sefton

Down in Dorset, Soaring in Sawley

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 12:00:00 +0000

Although the latest by-election results saw the sad loss of a Liberal Democrat seat in Purbeck District Council in Dorset, the results in two other wards were quite encouraging.

The by-election in Lytchett Matravers was in Annette Brooke’s Mid Dorset and North Poole constituency, and was gained from the Conservatives for the first time last year. The by-election was caused by the sudden resignation of that same councillor for health reasons, and this (along with the national situation) conspired to help us lose the seat. However, a hard fought campaign with a good candidate and much regional support kept the swing down to just 5%. Sadly, this now means that the Conservatives move to be the largest party on a council where we have minority control.

In Derbyshire, we had an impressive 11% increase in our vote in a vacancy caused by the death of a local Independent. Sawley is a large village on the Nottinghamshire border and was once good territory for the party. This is the first time the local party has managed to run a campaign on this scale which included regular Focuses, surveys, postal vote letters and plenty of canvassing. As in Dorset, it was achieved thanks to lots of help from the surrounding area (a tip for other by-elections contests is to make sure people from outside of your area come and help). Although we didn’t win, the local party are pleased that their hardwork paid off and they got a result well beyond their highest expectations.

Finally, in Peckham in Southwark we ran another intensive campaign capitalising on the compelling life story of our candidate. Peckham born and bred, Jennifer Blake is a former gang member who has now turned her life around and runs a charity helping local young people get out of lives dominated by guns and gangs. Whilst this was a great campaigning opportunity and her personal story was a major part of the campaign, (much more so than the party she represented), our choice of candidate showed that our campaign was genuinely about the community and trying to improve the area. We were rewarded with the highest increase in the Lib Dem vote in a Labour held ward since July last year (the last being in Darlington).

It’s difficult these days to say “where you work you win,” as many councillors found out in May that working hard certainly doesn’t guarantee you victory anymore. However one thing that’s clear from this week’s by-elections is that running an intensive campaign that genuinely engages voters with issues they care about, (and with a candidate who they can relate to), certainly helps get you nearer to winning.

Read All About It! 8/7/2011

Fri, 08 Jul 2011 15:39:00 +0000

Recommended reading for Liberal Democrat councillors and local campaigners from the last seven days:

This week saw two big bits of news from the government (if you ignore the drama of The News of the World).

The first was the publication of the Dilnot Report on adult social care which you can read about on the BBC, which Paul Burstow MP wrote about on Liberal Democrat Voice.

The other was hidden news but one that many Liberal Democrats will be very pleased with, which is the government surpassing the target to cut carbon emissions by 10%. A good sign that this government may well meet its aim to be the greenest ever.

In the local government world:

The voluntary sector is urging the government to press ahead with plans to allow local communities and the third sector to take over the running of local services.

In Edinburgh, the Liberal Democrat led administration is pressing ahead with plans to complete the first phase of their new tram system.

The government is planning to make more information available on schools, hospitals, GPs and the courts as part of a drive for more transparency.

With police commissioner elections looking likely for next May, it's worth considering Theresa May's claim that reforming the police could save £2.2 billion.

Funds of over £1 million are to be spent to help support the development of the new council Health and Wellbeing Boards.

A government commissioned report is also calling on more early intervention to help improve the lives of children from deprived areas.

News from the rest of the world of politics includes a plan by Scottish Labour to make sure that all their council candidates undertake a minimum amount of canvassing or face deselection. The original story was in The Times (£), but you can read more on ConservativeHome. This is also linked to a plan to rebrand Scottish Labour as the 'Irn-Bru of modern politics'.

Finally, welcome news to the many Liberal Democrat councillors faced with the same issue is news from ConservativeHome that Eric Pickles is to look in to the demand by the Information Commissioner that councillors should have to register as a data controller.

LGA Lib Dem 2011 Group Elections

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 14:50:00 +0000

Nominations for the 2011 LGA Lib Dem group elections are now open, nomination form is attached. If you are interested in representing your colleagues at a national level or just want to know a bit more, read the short summary below and then go to the following web address for a full guide to the elections: http://www.libdemgroup.lga.gov.uk/lga/aio/18947767

If you would like to stand for a post, please complete the form (download a form here) and then either print out, sign and post/fax back (details on form) or else email it back to libdem@local.gov.uk and ask your proposer and seconder to email their consent separately – Nominations close on 12 July.

Why should I stand in these elections?
Because you would get the opportunity to:
• Represent Lib Dem councillors at a national level
• Be involved in high level ministerial and parliamentary meetings
• Voice directly your council or council group’s concerns in Westminster
• Influence the strategy and policy of the LG Group
• Access senior party figures and help develop party policy
• Receive research & support from LG Group officers and the Lib Dem office

What will be required of me?
• Commitment to Lib Dems and to local government
• Ability to attend regular meetings in London for a period of two years (you must check with your authority whether they will cover your travel expenses it is an approved duty of LGA membership) which are usually held during office hours
• Listen to and represent Lib Dem local government views at meetings and feed back to councillors
• Lead specialist conferences, prepare briefing materials and press statements as appropriate
• To set out a work programme each year, to be agreed by the Lib Dem Group.

How do I apply?

1. Choose the position(s) for which you would like to apply. You can apply for more than one role but you can only accept a position on one board, panel or commission (the group executive is not included in this).
2. We advise that you then check with your authority that they consent to cover your expenses whilst you are attending meetings on their behalf. It is an approved duty of LG Group membership that they should do so.
3. Send in your completed nomination form or ask your proposer and seconder to email libdem.info@local.gov.uk between 28 June and 12 July 2011. Proposer and seconder must be from different LG Group member authorities.
4. Send your electoral address to libdem.info@local.gov.uk by 12 July. This must be one side of A5 and in pdf format. Endorsements are not permitted.
5. Get campaigning. Talk to as many Lib Dem councillors as you can but you cannot incur personal expense for things like phone-banking or commercial emailing. The ballot will open on 22 July and close on 15 August.

Holding our own

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 13:49:00 +0000

There were two principal local council by-elections held on Thursday 30th June. The Tories held both seats.
There were no parish or town council by-election results reported to ALDC.

Wandsworth is not the strongest borough in London for active liberalism, so it was not surprising that the by-election in the Thamesfield ward was fallow ground for us - residents saw their first active Lib Dem campaign for 30 years. We went in with our eyes open and with achievable objectives. We held our vote despite a massive squeeze in this Labour /Tory marginal and built our organisation.
It always helps to have a good issue and the Tory administration introducing charging for use of a kids playground in the borough was a godsend.
Just to put the icing on the cake an ex Tory councillor defected to us in the middle of the campaign citing her concern about the charging decision.

One of the advantages of virgin territory is that techniques that have become a feature of Lib Dems campaigns across the UK, such as “blue letters” are a novelty to local focus and their impact is more marked. In Thamesmead we did a second blue from the ex Tory councillor about the parks charging issue. The Tories hated it and even announced a review of the charging policy in an eve of poll leaflet in a last minute attempt to defuse the issue.

One of our achievable objectives was to harvest data and recruit new members and deliverers. We started with nothing, no historic data at all. We now have contact information from above 20% of the electorate, which should provide the basis for future recruitment and team building. We even recruited some during the campaign. Organisationally we have developed the delivery walks and maps. We knocked and dropped surveys across the whole ward - with follow up letters, and delivered an item of literature every week for seven weeks. This gives us a strong sense of the key local issues to continue our campaigning.

The important thing, having received help from all over London, is not to let the hard work go to waste. Wandsworth Lib Dems now need to develop and build campaigning in the ward towards the 2014 London Borough all out elections.

Where we don’t win, this is the sort of campaign we should aim for.

Other principal results:

Broxbourne BC, Cheshunt Central

Read All About It! 29/6/2011

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 16:51:00 +0000

Recommended reading for Lib Dem councillors and local campaigners from the last seven days:

There’s been a range of good bits of news for Liberal Democrats in both national and local government.

Firstly, the government has proposed that local councils should be able to keep the business rates generated from their area whilst also promising that no councils will lose out financially. A good bit of localising taxation that we support:

The Independent has also covered ‘community budgets’ as another part of our pledge to help local areas operate services more successfully:

The Government has also announced that all new burdens on local government (PDF) must be properly assessed to ensure they are fully funded by the relevant government department. More details from the Department of Communities and Local Government:

Finally, there is the announcement that the coalition government has created more apprenticeships in its first year than expected:

In other news, the Boundary Commission for England has produced its booklet explaining how it will conduct the review of parliamentary constituency boundaries (PDF).

Plus, Alex Feakes explains on Lib Dem Voice why LEA governors are under threat.

In other local government news:

The BBC reports how many Conservative and Liberal Democrat councillors oppose the cuts in housing benefits.

Could council libraries do better at providing internet access?

Controversially, Wyre Council in Lancashire has scrapped Local Area Forums due to poor attendance and focused instead on existing community organisations.

In Scotland, a bursary scheme has been created for the children of armed forces personnel killed in action.

And in Wales, £6million has been shared between various organisations to help them run more efficiently whilst providing good public services:

In other news, the Evening Standard has news on a report that shows how few younger people understand how university tuition funding works but on a more positive note it’s worth reading this from MoneySavingExpert that explains the merits of the new system and how it works.

Cock a hoop in Cockington

Fri, 24 Jun 2011 15:30:00 +0000

There were eleven principal local council by-elections held on Thursday 23rd June 2011. The Lib Dems gained one seat from the Tories but lost one seat to the SNP and one to an Independent. Independents gained two seats from the Tories, but lost one back the Tories and another to Plaid. The Tories held two seats and lost one to Labour . An independent took a seat off Plaid.
There were four parish or town council by-election results reported to ALDC. Conservatives held one seat and gained one each from the Lib Dems and from an Independent. The Lib Dems gained one seat from Labour.

In Torbay in June the Tories won the Mayoral election and held control of the council. The Tory candidate decided to hedge his bets and stand in a relatively safe Tory ward as well, unlike the Lib Dem mayoral candidate. The Monday after he was elected to both, the vacancy for his council seat , Cockington-with-Chelston was declared and by Wednesday we’d called the by-election.
We were gifted two issues that played well in an area the Tories will have thought of as safe territory.
First the by-election and its cost was unnecessary, due only to the Tories lack of bottle. Second after winning the election in May the Tories gave Special Responsibility Allowances to 20 out of their 22 councillors!!
There were lots of good things to say about our campaign. We started quickly with a prepared leaflet that was only waiting for the photo and name of the selected candidate printed the day after the selection. Focuses, postal vote letters, blue letters, a fulsome endorsement from Adrian Sanders the popular local MP and a full colour A4 followed it. The second leaflet in particular was very, very local verging on a street letter and had a 10 version split in a 5,000 delivery point ward.
The Tories were complacent. Their only delivery was a full colour canvassing “out”. They woke up to the threat in the final week but it was already too late. Labour delivered two leaflets and a calling card, and as in May attempted to imply that we had a local coalition with the Tories. We were forthright in rebutting this lie, which had damaged us in May.

That’s better. Not good but better.

Other principal results:

South Kesteven DC, Deeping St James

Isle of Wight UA, Binstead and Fishbourne

Newcastle Under Lyme BC, Seabridge

Aberdeen UA, Airyhall / Broomhill / Garthdee

Derbyshire Dales DC, Stanton

Wychavon DC, Elmley Castle and Somerville

Great Yarmouth BC, St Andrews

Carmarthenshire UA, Llanegwad

Read All About It! 23/6/2011

Thu, 23 Jun 2011 14:39:00 +0000

Recommended reading for Lib Dem councillors and local campaigners from the last seven days:

This week there have been a few stories in the local government world that Lib Dems should know about. Firstly, there's the good news that the proposal for ‘shadow mayors’ for the 12 biggest cities in England has been scrapped, although plans for referendums next year will still go ahead. The Local Government Chronicle has produced a report that looks at how social enterprises will change the way public services are provided in the future. Michael Gove has set out new targets for GCSE results and pledged that under-performing primary schools should become academies. On Lib Dem Voice an anonymous local government officer writes about the changes the government is making to the planning system. In Wales, discussion continues on whether the country should go down from 22 councils to just seven.

In Liberal Democrat news, Cllr Iain Roberts writes about the party’s new data management system in ‘Thank you EARS, but the VAN is coming’. There is also more in the latest edition of ALDC’s Campaigner magazine. In Cornwall there was good news as a senior Conservative councillor joined the Liberal Democrats, whilst in Christchurch in Dorset, one of our councillors went in the other direction.

In a quick run down of news from Liberal Democrats around the country. The BBC looks at how Lib Dem run Burnley has improved since the riots of ten years ago, including a visit from Vince Cable! Lib Dems in Hampshire have hit out at plans by the Conservative county council to cut Sure Start centres whilst employing a 'broadband tsar' on an £85,000 salary. In Malvern Hills, the Lib Dems have condemned the Conservative council's decision to not involve councillors in their new development framework before it is published.

Finally, we will have more news and photos from last weekend's Local Government Conference on our website soon. But to whet your appetite, over at Freedom Central you can read the speech given by the Leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats, Kirsty Williams AM, at the Local Government Dinner on the Friday night.

You couldn’t make it up

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 16:14:00 +0000

There were eleven principal local council by-elections held on Thursday 16th June 2011. The Lib Dems lost two seats to Labour and one to Plaid. The Tories held two seats and lost one to Labour and one to the Greens. Labour held four seats. An independent took a seat off Plaid. There were no parish or town council by-election results reported to ALDC.

As we approached the Crewe and Nantwich parliamentary by-election in 2008 we focussed our not insubstantial attention on making sure we made some gains in the constituency. Two out of three seats in Crewe South was the result. Since then the new Unitary borough has had some radical boundary changes, prior to the May 2011 elections leading to one of our two sitting councillors choosing to fight Crewe West as some of the “best bits” of Crewe South had ended up in Crewe West. Our remaining incumbent sadly died after nominations closed thereby triggering this re-run.
To add to our woes both the Tory and Labour parties locally have been re-invigorated. Labour have been encouraged by the surrounding elections in May. The Tories won the parliamentary by-election and held the seat at the General Election last year. They now have a far stronger and better party machine than they did in 2008 and would have been difficult to squeeze as we did in 2008,had we tried. In fact we didn’t. A campaign that costs £114 is rarely one geared to wining or holding a seat. It probably did not help that despite a decent record to defend as councillors our record of action counted for little. We had failed to communicate it to the electorate over several years. The A4 front page of the March 2009 Focus, for instance, consisted of a wordsearch competition for the names of 10 previous Mayors of Crewe and Nantwich. You couldn’t make it up. In the boundary changes Crewe South Ward went from a three member ward to a two member ward so it’s debatable whether we lost one or two seats but, we definitely have two fewer councillors. Crewe South result.

In Newcastle we had two wards where deaths of candidates led to campaign re-runs. In Byker, where the Tory candidate had died during the May Campaign, Labour held on with ease.
In 2008 we won Westerhope with 53% of the vote. In 2009 two of our councillors resigned the party whip. In 2010, on the day of the General Election Labour took the third council seat off us with a majority of 185. The leader of “Newcastle First” was then the Tory candidate. In May 2011 our remaining ex-councillor Neil Hamilton, who had lost in 2010, was to stand again but died in his home on polling day. This left a new Lib Dem candidate to face a sitting independent elected as a Lib Dem. The Labour vote fell from 2010 but our vote was fatally split.

Other byelections on 16th June 2011

Staffordshire CC, Burton Town

Dumfries and Galloway UA, Abbey

Gwynedd UA, Arllechwedd

Conwy UA, Uwchaled

Rochford BC, Hullbridge

Rushcliffe BC, Manvers

Derbyshire CC, Eckington

Read All About It! 16/6/2011

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 14:27:00 +0000

Recommended reading for Lib Dem councillors and local campaigners from the last seven days:

The big political news this week has been the changes to the NHS reforms. A full briefing and campaign artwork is available on the ALDC website and Huddle, but for two different sides of the story there’s the praise for Nick Clegg’s role in amending the reforms and Alan Milburn’s attack on the lack of reforms. For further political balance, it’s worth reading a report done by the London School of Economics on the impact of Labour’s policies on the NHS.

This week’s changes to the NHS reforms have led to a few articles assessing the Liberal Democrat performance in the coalition, and that of Nick Clegg in particular. Inevitably, the left-wing press sees the Lib Dems as having sold out and the right-wing press sees the Lib Dems as having too much power. From a positive perspective though, some of the best articles include one from the Huddersfield Examiner saying Nick Clegg needs to be given credit for tempering the Tories and Solution Focused Politics brings together praise for the Lib Dems in the coalition and praise for Nick Clegg as Deputy Prime Minister.

In local government, there are two big stories this week:

Firstly, the news that local government workers are likely to go on strike on 30^th June over changes to pension schemes.

Also, Eric Pickles confirmed that councils won’t need to reinstate weekly bin collections where these have already been scrapped:

The arrest of a blogger for filming a meeting of Carmarthenshire County Council has provoked a debate on freedom of speech and openness of local democracy, as well as an amusing spoof news story about the incident.

Finally, this week saw the 40^th anniversary of Bob Russell’s time in politics from being elected as a Colchester Borough Councillor in 1971 to his time as the local MP since 1997. The BBC reports here on the celebrations.

Postal Vote Priority

Mon, 13 Jun 2011 16:06:00 +0000

There were four principal local council by-elections held on Thursday 9th June 2011. The Tories held two seats and gained one from the Lib Dems. There were no parish or town council by-election results reported to ALDC.

The Chelmsford Central Division by-election for Essex County Council was caused by the death of the Lib Dem councillor. In May the two borough wards that form the county division had elections. In Moulsham Lodge - a historically safe Lib Dem ward we won. In Moulsham and Central the Conservatives won. The aggregate vote put the Tories around 480 ahead just a few weeks ago. We did a very full campaign, but so did both the newly invigorated Tories and Labour. Labour in particular did far more than usual; very negative and national, no local issues.

As usual in local by-elections the postal vote was critical. 63% of postal voters voted! Yet the overall turnout was only 29%. Our efforts were hampered by a slow start on our canvassing, and particularly phone canvassing of postal voters in the weeks immediately following the local elections. Our response on the doorstep was notably better than for the May borough elections and we edged closer to the Tories but we still failed to squeeze the resilient Labour vote. Labour was 10% higher than 2009 but slightly lower than the 20.2% they got in May.

In Scotland the Tain and Easter Ross ward of Highland council reflected the national swings to the SNP. In 2007 the Independents (a strong force on Highland council) topped the poll to win a seat over quota and the Scottish Lib Dems picked up the second, the SNP who had been third on first preferences got pipped at the post by another Independent for the third. In the by-election the SNP surged but an Independent hung on to win at the fourth stage.

The two wards that were held by the Tories in Kensington and Chelsea, Brompton and Queens Gate were both well established, and the results surprised nobody.

Read All About It! 10/6/2011

Fri, 10 Jun 2011 15:27:00 +0000

Recommended reading for Lib Dem councillors and local campaigners from the last seven days:

Within the Liberal Democrats there's been a few big stories this week:

There's a thought-provoking post on Lib Dem Voice from London activist Rob Blackie about his attempts at building a liberal movement along the lines of the movement for change that Barack Obama built in the United States. He uses a very real example from a current council by-election - Jennifer Blake - and there are other examples of these 'liberal heroes' on his blog.

Figures unveiled by the Financial Times shows that the Liberal Democrats are now outperforming the Labour party in donations from private individuals.

In the local government world:

The Communities and Local Government Committee has criticised the government's proposals for localism and accused them of being incoherent.

A survey by YouGov has found that 40% of councils do not have plans to deal with the squeeze on local councils' finances. Something which won't surprise those Liberal Democrats who have seen the way the other parties have axed frontline services as the 'easy' option to dealing with their budget.

In general political news:

Education Minister Lib Dem Sarah Teather MP is asking for the opinions of party members on the Bailey Report that is looking at the commercialisation and sexualisation of children.

David Cameron has outlined some of the changes to the proposed NHS reforms (with more due in the coming week) and there is a fuller briefing on the NHS reforms in a briefing on the ALDC website.

In Scotland, Willie Rennie MSP calls for radical action on alcohol misuse that goes further than minimum pricing.

An article from the Chief Executive of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) calls for the lifting of red tape to help the Big Society become a reality.

On another area for saving money - procurement - the government is looking at centralising procurement across the whole of Whitehall to help save £3 billion.

Read All About It! 3/6/2011

Fri, 03 Jun 2011 13:34:00 +0000

Recommended reading for Lib Dem councillors and local campaigners from the last seven days:

There's been some discussion recently about how the party moves on from the recent local election results.

Rob Hayward has given his analysis on the Liberal Democrat performance in the council elections on Conservative Home, which gives you an idea of the take of someone in another party.

However, as part of the internal discussion, Bill Le Breton has written about how he thinks community politics can reform the coalition’s prospects. ALDC members can download a PDF of the original “The Theory and Practice of Community Politics” and you can browse some of the the other early ALDC and ALC publications in the file library on our website.

In the last week, the Liberal Democrats also appointed their three senior campaign posts as part of the restructuring announced previously.

For the elections anoraks out there, we bring the exciting news that the House of Commons Library has produced their annual report on the local elections, including a host of interesting statistics. Similar briefings are available to download for the elections in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and the Alternative Vote referendum.

In local government news:

The controversial restructuring and outsourcing of services at Suffolk County Council has run in to trouble.

Local Government Chronicle writes about the number of councils interested in issuing bonds to raise money for local investment and pay off debts.

Suggestions that the government might offer financial incentives for councils to re-introduce weekly bin collections (or to stop the move to fortnightly) have met with mixed reviews.

Finally, we finish this weeks’ Read All About It! with the sad news of the sudden death of Deputy Director of Campaigns for Scotland Andrew Reeves. It seems timely to include a link to this ‘Meet the Bloggers’ post about him from Lib Dem Voice from just a month ago.

Patsy Calton Award

Fri, 27 May 2011 12:00:00 +0000

The Women Liberal Democrats are looking for nominations for the Patsy Calton Award 2011. Do you know of a woman/ women in your group, local branch or local party that should be celebrated?

The Patsy Calton Award aims to celebrate female activism at all levels within the Liberal Democrats. From MEP's, MP's, PPC's, AM's. MSP's to councillors and activists, we are looking for someone who is an inspiration to others and their achievements deserve to be rewarded. We hope that this will encorage other women to become involved in politics in some way.

Here is a form that explains exactly what the Patsy Calton Award is and how you can nominate someone.

We look forward to your nominations and learning about the fantastic achievements that women around the country have made. Deadline for nominations is 1st August 2011.

Read All About It! 27/5/11

Fri, 27 May 2011 12:00:00 +0000

Recommended reading for Lib Dem councillors and local campaigners from the last seven days:

National issues:

The biggest political news of the week from a Lib Dem point of view is Nick Clegg’s speech on the NHS. Widely praised in the media, although less popular with Conservatives, the speech is worth a read.

The Daily Telegraph environment correspondent enthuses about Chris Huhne’s work on climate change.

Academies and free schools are to be allowed to reserve places for pupils from less well-off backgrounds.

Within the party, we had three bits of news:

The party announced that it’s new headquarters from August will be at Great George Street just off Parliament Square.

The party has also announced the appointment of a new Director of Marketing – Collette Dunkley.

Plus, in Scotland Willie Rennie has been elected as our new leader.

In Local Government:

The post-election shake-up has seen us take the leadership in Bath & North East Somerset and North Devon, continued to lead a coalition with Labour in Calderdale and agreed a new one with the Conservatives in Derby and Chorley.

The Municipal Journal reports on a favoured topic for Lib Dem campaigners – the state of potholes.

The government has announced plans to reduce red tape in planning decisions with planning officers giving their opinion on how they should be able to take more local needs in to account when making decisions.

Plus, rural areas will receive extra funding to improve broadband services.

Bristol 2011 - Local Government Conference

Fri, 20 May 2011 12:00:00 +0000

Liberal Democrat Local Government Conference 2011

Saturday 18 June 2011, Clifton, Bristol

Satellite events, and dinner on Friday 17 June 2011.

ALDC and the LG Liberal Democrat Group invite you to the main Liberal Democrat event of the summer, our Local Government Conference at the the Engineers' House, Clifton, Bristol.

Now that the elections are over, it is time for Liberal Democrats involved in local government to take stock and move forward.

A huge thank you to everyone who has already registered, for everyone else you've got FOUR DAYS left to register at the cheap early rate!

We have now published a draft programme. Highlights include:

Speakers:
These include the Deputy Prime Minister and Liberal Democrat Leader, Nick Clegg MP, and Local Government Minister Andrew Stunell MP.

Campaigner Training:
ALDC's campaign training includes sessions on: Talking to the Voters, Learning from Opposition Tactics, Campaigning on Local Issues and a 2012 Strategy Workshop. We have some special sessions to learn about what worked where we won in 2011 and the Party's Director of Elections and Skills Hilary Stephenson willl discuss tactics over the coming months.

Councillor Training:
Once again we're joined by the expert team from Midas Training, who will be running a full day of skills sessions for Lib Dem Councillors. ALDC training for councillors includes: Working in a Split Ward, Effective Opposition and Ward Leadership.

Policy Sessions:
from the LG Liberal Democrat group these sessions will look at Education, Health and Social Care, Finance and Police Commissioners.

Friday Programme:

On Friday 17 June 2011 there are a number of 'satellite events'. We expect this to include:

Group Leaders' Day (see below)
Council Group Researcher's Away Day (contact Rob Banks - rob.banks@local.gov.uk)
Next Generation 5 Seminar Day (invite only)

In the evening we have the annual Lib Dem Local Government Dinner, also in the the Engineers' House, Clifton, Bristol. Speaker to be confirmed, but an excellent opportunity to catch up with colleagues old and new in a relaxed setting. (£30 per head).

Accommodation is available nearby at the Avon Gorge Hotel and the Rodney Hotel. Special rates are available to conference attendees. More details on our booking form.

Group Leader Programme:

A special day for Group Leaders (and Deputy Group Leaders) takes place on Friday from Lunchtime (12.00 noon arrival and lunch).

The session will have two aims:

to share experiences of the 2011 Local Elections, and discuss together how we plan for success in future years
training/learning sessions which will include: Opposition Strategies, Leadership and Motivation and Building the Team for the Future.

Group Leaders will also be preparing for a special session with Nick Clegg which will take place, together with some one-to-ones on Saturday.

Practical information:

Advance registration is £45 - with a massive £10 discount if you're a member of ALDC - so just £35 if you register before the end of May 2011.

If you are in Group Membership of ALDC, its "3 for 2" - buy two places and get the third for free. Council Group Researchers can register at the cheaper rate as previously.

Register online, via credit or debit card here. ALDC members need to LOG IN FIRST and your discount will be automatically applied.

Unfortunately our online system can't cope with the Group Members 3 for 2 offer, so you need to phone us on 01422 843 785!

Read All About it! 18/05/2011

Thu, 19 May 2011 12:00:00 +0000

Recommended reading for Lib Dem councillors and local campaigners from the last seven days:

National issues:

Willie Rennie confirmed as new leader of Scots Lib Dems (Scotsman)

Julian Huppert MP writes on Trident: We don’t need to keep fighting the Cold War (Lib Dem Voice)

Clegg unveils plans for elected House of Lords (BBC)

Deputy PM faces widespread hostility from Tories and Labour in pushing through elected second chamber (Guardian)

Chris Huhne briefs MPs on long-term carbon target (BBC)

Carbon budget welcomed (Friends of the Earth)

Local Government:

Birmingham City Council care funding cuts unlawful (BBC)

Labour urges councillors to form coalitions with Lib Dems (Independent)

Unions threaten 750,000-strong June walkout (MJ)

Campaigning

Three reasons to respect the Liberal Democrats (Conservative Home)

(Labour's Post Election) Scorecard (LabourList)

Local Elections 2011 - Tell us what you think!

Fri, 13 May 2011 15:10:00 +0000

Please help us learn and improve from the 2011 local election results by taking our short online survey. We know how much everyone hates long surveys, so its deliberately short, but if you want to write more then there is space to do so.

The survey has TWO aims:

to assess how the support and help provided by ALDC and the rest of the Party was helpful to candidates and campaigners, and to see how this can be improved.
to ask you what you think worked or did not work in the election campaign

We will use the aggregated information to inform the work of ALDC and the rest of the party, but otherwise your comments are anonymous and will not be attributed.

TAKE THE SURVEY NOW

Thank you for your help.

ALDC

Less than 90 days to polling day…

Two difficult elections lead to two defeats

The Doorstep Challenge

Campaign Countdown 3

Half Price ALDC Membership for Candidates!

Job Opportunities at ALDC

Communications Officer

Who's Up in 2012

Councillors up in 2012 - At a Glance

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Councillors up in 2012 - In Detail

Principal Local Byelection Analysis for 2011

Defence by Party for all of 2011

Our performance against other parties in 2011

Cumulative votes cast in the whole of 2011

Campaign Countdown 2

G8 Grants for 2012

Campaign Countdown 1

New free booklet from ALDC - Introduction to Connect

Time to reflect

Christmas Opening Times

Where there's a Wells there's a way

Another successful Kickstart event

One up One down

Nominations open for the 2012 LGiU and CCLA C'llr Achievement Awards

Four votes away from four holds

The French Revolution

Scottish Seven Vote Stunner

Battling Bude

Always stand a candidate

Set SMART targets for your by-election

Don't Miss Out! - One Day Lib Dem Localism Conference

Localism the New Opportunities A Conference for Liberal Democrats

Book Online Now

Who should attend?

Liberal Democrats who are: • Councillors • Community activists • Campaigners • Health Trusts and Housing Association Board members • School Governors

Book Now

Tell us who your Candidates are!

Leaflets are not enough

Kickstart Weekend - cheap rates end this Saturday!

Autumn Arrivals

Strong candidates, strong records, strong results

ALDC Campaigner Awards Winners

ALDC at Autumn Federal Conference 2011

Ashcroft’s Polling suggests that Lib Dem hard work could make the difference

Phoenix rises again

Federal Conference - Highlights for Councillors and local campaigners

Saturday 17 September 2011, 8.15pm, ICC 10B (Conference Centre, just after the Rally)

Training Highlights

Conference Photo Opportunities

SMF at the Lib Dem Conference 18-21 September 2011

Read All About It! 9/9/2011

Read All About It! 2/9/11

Keswick Comeback

Federal Conference: Ideas and Inspiration!

Inspired

G8 Grants 2012 (Scotland)

Real Time By election Analysis Launched

Read All About It! 25/8/2011

Federal Conference: Training for Councillors

Training for Lib Dem Councillors

Getting Technology Right

If You're Campaigning - We want to give you money!

Rewarding Early Campaigning

Help to Attend Kickstart (2013 and 2012)

LGA Lib Dem Group Election Results

Festival Fight

Read All About It! 19/8/2011

Winning Ways - Training at Conference

Make the most of Saturday!

Winning Ways!

Getting Candidates Right

Tories Eton alive

Read All About It! 10/8/2011

ALDC Artwork Templates 2011-2012

Kickstart Scotland 27 August 2011

Super Somerset

Conference: Localism the New Opportunities

Localism the New Opportunities A Conference for Liberal Democrats

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Localism the New Opportunities
A Conference for Liberal Democrats

Localism the New Opportunities
A Conference for Liberal Democrats