ALDC

A Spring in Our Step

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 16:12:00 +0000

On the 213th anniversary of the first peaceful transfer of power between two democratically elected leaders (Washington and Adams), British liberal democracy enjoyed a rather quiet tally of one principal by-election and two reported contests for a total of three Town Council seats. The former resulted in a Tory hold, whilst of the three Town Council seats, two now find themselves occupied by the Liberal Democrats.

Tory dominated Fenland District Council’s by-election in The Mills saw the Conservatives hold on despite a dramatic 11% decline in their vote, the majority of which fell to UKIP. The Liberal Democrat campaign varied A3 and A4 literature, with EARS, Mosaic, and partial telephone canvassing making up the hi-tech end of the effort. Whilst canvass coverage was slightly depressed due to inclement weather, a blanket Eve of Poll and targeted Good Morning held the Lib Dem vote steady and ensured a good second place for well-respected local campaigner Chris Howes. Nestled in the constituency of North East Cambridgeshire, a former Liberal stronghold and parliamentary seat of Clement Freud, one wonders whether Fenland Lib Dems stand on the verge of further successes in the future.

The Mills was also the venue for a double-contest for Chatteris Town Council. Caused by the death of one Conservative councillor and the resignation of another (a co-opted councillor whose party affiliation, if any, remains unclear), we are pleased to report a Lib Dem gain in the form of Town Councillor Diane Baldry, who came within 16 votes of first place.

Finally, fast times indeed at Winsford Town Council, where the victory of Alfred Beverly Theron (pictured, right) in the town’s Wharton ward, took the council into Lib Dem control for the first time in its history. Jumping four places from their last result, the traditional ingredients of Liberal Democrat success – numbers on the ground, effective canvassing, local issues, and a dedicated team – took the seat from a Tory party that is still failing to regain the trust of voters on the doorstep, despite the deep unpopularity of the Labour government.

Election Law Helpline

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 12:00:00 +0000

ALDC will be running the Election Law Helpline service for the Party throughout the 2010 General and local election period. It is vital that everyone in the party stays on the right side of the law throughout the campaign, and we'll be here to help you do this. The Agents and Organisers Assocation has kindly supplied information to help us with this role, (you can also buy a copy of their Agents Manual through our shop), and their helpline is being diverted through to ALDC during the campaign period.

What sort of advice and information will be available?

Practical issues around election law - nominations, DNOs, imprints, expenses, freeposts etc.
Detailed queries about election law issues.
Guidance on issues such as libel and deformation.
Advice if you are threatened with legal action.

There are three ways you can access advice:

1 - Online

ALDC members can browse our up-to-date advice resources in our members' website. Most of the relevant information is contained in the "Advice" section of our website. Articles can easily be found through the "topic" flags on the right side of the site or use the search at the top of the site.

Below we've listed links to the most frequently asked pieces of information. If you're not a member of ALDC, why not join us - by monthly Direct Debit it's only £1.50 a week.

2 - By email

Email us your queries and we'll make sure that the most appropriate person deals with your query as quickly as possible. Contact us via this form to make sure your request gets to us as soon as possible. (Emailing an individual staff member is not recommended, as you might catch us on a day when they're not in and your response will be delayed).

3 - By Phone

Phone us on 01422 843 785 between 9.30am - 5.00pm Monday - Friday to be put through to the next available advisor. Outside these hours an answerphone message will take any queries. If you get the answerphone during the working day it may mean that there are more phones ringing than there are staff in the office, so please be patient!

How will we deal with your request

We will try to deal with all requests as soon as possible. Our normal standard is that advice received before 2.00pm on a working day is dealt with that day, or for requests received after 2.00pm on the following morning. However please be patient with us during busy periods.

We are not lawyers and will will not be able to give formal legal opinion, but we can help talk you through the issues and what needs to be considered.

There are systems in place for more complex and urgent cases to be referred to specialist advisers elsewhere. We will advise you if this is what we intend to do with your query.

Frequently Asked For advice:

Imprints for election leaflets in 2010
Election expense limits - long campaign, short campaign and council elections
Eligibility to be a council candidate
Approving council candidates
Appointing your General Election agent (this is a zip file to download)
Local election nomination forms

You can also find links to some of the campaign essentials here from our website.

Well done to Northumberland

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 16:19:00 +0000

Cllr Richard Kemp, Liberal Democrat leader in Local Government, has congratulated Liberal Democrat led Northumberland Council on picking up four key awards last night.

The awards ceremony, jointly designed by the LGA and held at 11 Downing Street, recognised the country’s most innovative councils who work with other parts of the public sector. Each winner will share in a £3 million pot to spread their pioneering ideas and best practice around the country.

Northumberland won in the following categories:

Keeping children and young people safe in the community - for engaging with children and young people, understanding the risks they face and working with them to protect the most vulnerable. Northumberland gets £560,000 to spread ideas and good practice.

Achieving more through partnerships – working with the Fire Service and Sure Start to set up a Community Fire Station and Children’s Centre – delivering real community benefits at a reduced cost. Again, Northumberland will get £560,000 to spread good practice.

Northumberland Council also won two awards for bright ideas:

Strengthening Families – a community family skills programme for mothers, fathers, carers and young people. It was piloted in a local prison, bringing families together before the prisoner’s release. It strengthens the family unit and reduces the risk of re-offending.

Taking control of care – empowering adults to control their own care – for establishing a virtual carer’s centre in a rural and sparsely populated area; and to bring local projects together.

Cllr Kemp said: “Northumberland has shown that Lib Dems, where they are in power, deliver innovation while improving services and reducing costs.”

Peter Black: A Liberal Democrat vision for Wales - a personal view

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 16:11:00 +0000

In a previous article I started to discuss where local government will fit into a newly empowered Welsh Assembly, making laws within the ambit of the twenty fields of competence granted by the Government of Wales Act 2006.

I argued that there is a wider debate as to what structures we need to deliver services to a nation of 3 million people and in particular whether 22 local councils and seven health boards are appropriate vehicles to spend the bulk of the Assembly’s £15 billion budget.

My view then (and now) was that we most probably need bigger and fewer Councils but that the main debate should be around the democratisation and accountability of service delivery as much as its efficiency. In contrast, the Welsh Government’s agenda is becoming much clearer as we approach the next set of Assembly elections.

My concern is that in Labour and Plaid Cymru we have two very centralising parties whose objective is to emasculate local government. Already, we have heard calls for social services and education to be taken off local councils, whilst the intentions of other parties towards reorganisation remain secret. Ministers are seeking or have acquired legislative competence over the governance arrangements of schools and also over many new aspects of local councils but are not saying what they will do with it.

In fact there seems to be a cross-party consensus that there will be a reorganisation of local government in Wales after the 2011 Welsh General Election, the problem is that nobody wants to talk about it until then and the chances of any coherence emerging from any of the other parties as to how they see the future structure of local government is negligible.

Motives are particularly important in this process. Everybody acknowledges that having 22 Councils means that a number are too small to achieve economies of scale and that there needs to be some reform to address this. However, there is no consensus on what the future map of Wales should look like.

My view is that this issue needs to be addressed before the 2011 Welsh General Election not just because there is a need for a debate but also because how a party plans to reform our democratic structures goes to the heart of their vision for Wales.

Firstly, what is the role of the Welsh Government and of the Welsh Assembly? Following a successful referendum, their role is to set out policy, to make laws and to deliver that through guidance and funding decisions. It is not their role to directly deliver services, nor in my view should they seek to set up other arms-length bodies or add to the role of existing bodies by passing over to them functions currently delivered by Councils.

Secondly, how do we give people greater control over the decision-making process in their own areas? There are in fact many ways that this can be done but I would suggest that the starting point is to enable the democratically elected bodies that serve local communities, in this case the Welsh unitary authorities.

These councils should be more accountable, constituted on a scale that can deliver services efficiently and encompass a broader range of responsibilities so as to produce a more strategic and joined up approach to governance.

To achieve this I would envisage reforming local government so as to create eight or ten unitary councils elected by the single transferable vote system in multi member wards. There would be fewer Councillors, approximately a third less, making between 800-900 across Wales but in return they would be better remunerated so that they could devote a substantial amount of time to delivering and scrutinising services and acting in a more strategic way. Each Council would be run by a full time Cabinet with no more than ten Councillors in each executive body and have a number of strategic directors.

I would disband the heath boards and pass their functions to the democratically elected Councils, thus creating a single health and social care function that would eliminate duplication and waste and be accountable to local electors not the centre.

I would transfer all of post 16 education back to Councils so that they could deliver the 14 to 19 agenda as a seamless whole and incorporate the very important vocational education delivered by FE colleges into their service provision.

I would also give Councils greater strategic control of transport within their area including the power to deliver cross-modal transport solutions and a wider economic development remit. As part of this I would suggest that it should be these bigger unitary authorities who should be delivering regeneration initiatives such as Communities First on behalf of the Welsh Government, not the Government micro-managing it from the centre.

There are many other central government functions that might be better delivered by such a strategic locally elected body. That is a matter for further discussion. My purpose here is to start a debate and to get people thinking about a way forward.

I am an instinctive democrat. That means that I believe in empowering local people and giving them a chance to influence the direction of services in their own area. Democracy may have its flaws and at a local level I am sure that everybody can come up with a horror story that involves their local Council but ultimately it is for the electorate to cast the final verdict and with proportional voting that becomes much easier.

Instead of national politicians treating local government as scapegoats and indulging in playing blame games, let us find a way to work together as equals and in a way that for once delivers the sort of transparency and accountability that was promised when devolution was first voted on in 1997.

Cllr Peter Black AM is Swansea Councillor for Cwmbwrla and

Welsh Assembly Member for South Wales West. He is also the

Welsh Liberal Democrat Local Government Spokesperson
peterblack.blogspot.com

That’s a bit better

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 18:22:00 +0000

There were eight principal council elections held on the 25th February. The Lib Dems gained two seats - one from Labour and one from the Tories. Labour held one seat and gained three from the Mansfield Independent Forum. The Tories held one seat. There were four Town and Parish Council results reported to ALDC. Two were Lib Dem gains from the Tories and one was a Lib Dem gain from Labour. The Tories held one seat.

The Eastwood South Ward of Broxtowe District Council lies in the new Ashfield parliamentary constituency in Nottinghamshire where Geoff Hoon has recently announced his retirement – before he was soundly beaten.

We won the county seat last June with 49.7% of the vote so mopping up one of the District seats should perhaps come as no surprise, but it’s still a welcome fillip in the run up to the General election and an opportunity for some intensive Voter ID and general doorstep contact. The majority of our vote last June in the county election came from the Lib Dem held Eastwood North district seat so the large, historically Labour voting council estate in Eastwood South presented a challenge. Our enthusiastic team focussed on voter contact on foot and the phone and a massive poster display together with the usual literature campaign. A great result that bodes well for May!

In the Fenstanton Ward of Huntingdonshire District Council, our candidate fought hard in 2007 getting within twelve votes of the Tories. He did not give up, he carried on campaigning month in month out producing Focus. His persistence has proved that genuinely working all year round really works. When this by-election was called the Tories went into overdrive aware that their MP was in difficulties over expenses but to no avail.

Unfortunately it was not all good news. In the new Central Devon parliamentary constituency and Mid Devon district council we failed to hold our seat in Yeo, losing badly to the Tories.

Alex Folkes: Tories failing on open & local government

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 11:50:00 +0000

I went to a recent LGIU conference where the three party local government spokespeople were parading their commitment to localism.

Ok - I'm more than a little biased and felt that the Lib Dem proposal for decentralisation, as evidenced by our record in office around the country, was the most believeable.

I asked John Denham why, after 13 years of Labour centralisation, we should start to believe his promises of more power for local councils now? All would be different if Labour get re-elected, he promised.

But what of the Conservatives? Caroline Spelman certainly talks the right way. But I fear that the Conservatives in office make her promises little more than empty words.

Here in Cornwall the Conservatives campaigned last year with a ton of leaflets pledging to freeze council tax for two years. Last week they voted to raise it by 2.9% and they have set provisional figures of 2.5% and 2.25% for the next two years.

The Conservatives in Cornwall also pledged a culture of transparency and openness. But once again their record has been fairly much the opposite. We have found out that they have a secret list of 80 primary schools which are under threat of closure (although at first they denied it existed and still refuse to let anyone see it). They also at first denied (and have now been forced to admit) that there is a list of council buildings they want to sell off. And when it came to the budget, they cut off debate after just an hour and a half with more than 15 councillors from all sides wanting to speak or ask questions.

But it is the threat to localism which really shows that Ms Spelman's words mean nothing.

A new unitary authority brought the danger of centralism with all meetings and decisions taken at County Hall in Cornwall. We were promised that this would not be the case and that local community networks would flourish and One Stop Shops in every town would open into the evening and at weekends to provide full access to all council services. But the comunity networks were put on hold for 6 months and the One Stop Shops are seeing opening hours cut and services centralised.

And ask for meetings taking place close to the people they affect... Residents of Launceston who want to attend the planning meeting that will decide on a waste transfer station in the town will face a 100 mile round trip to Truro - despite there being nothing else on the agenda.

The lessons seem clear. Whatever the Conservatives may promise on local government (and their promises do sound good), on taxation, openness and localism you simply cannot believe a word they say.

Alex Folkes is Cornwall Councillor for Launceston Central
lansonboy.blogspot.com

Chris White: Kill puffins and paint horizontally to save money

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 11:45:00 +0000

Local newspapers in western Hertfordshire exploded on Friday evening with news that the county council had lost a court case. It was chasing an invoice for £335 in a dispute with a water company over a broken manhole cover. The county council had had to put up a couple of cones to warn passing motorists and apparently cones are expensive things to handle.

The water company felt that this was excessive and the council and the utility had seen each other in court. The costs of the case were awarded largely against the council and were reportedly £110,000.

Debate has raged. The Tory Administration has told me that they find my remarks to the press ‘unhelpful’ (I would have preferred ‘outrageous’ but ‘unhelpful’ will do). Anyway: not all the costs were lawyers’ fees – some were internal to the council. Furthermore, it was a test case, although mysteriously they could not identify any council that was willing to help Hertfordshire with its costs.

It is becoming apparent that this was a process that had grown its own legs. While the politicians are accountable the system is responsible. Councils employ lawyers to sue people and sue they do. We pay for their activities.

So, how much control can politicians hope to have over a council’s operations?

In some ways we have moved a long way since (in my political lifetime) a Chief Executive tried to demand that councillors wore visitors’ badges when on council premises.

We are in charge, we are told. But, as was said famously by Dorothy Thornhill: you can get your hands on the levers of power but find the levers aren’t attached to anything.

Our current budget round has uncovered a crop of curiosities. We discovered that the county council erects lampposts and then paints them once they are vertical – much more expensive than painting them while still on the ground. When quizzed, officials told us ‘they might get scratched’ if painted the common sense way.

We discovered that the pedestrian crossings are all being converted from pelicans to puffins – a distinction without a difference for most pedestrians. And the bus stop signs are being renewed because the travel help line number has changed. Heaven forefend that the council should invest in a few sheets of stickers.

These are highways and transport examples – a service that is relatively transparent. As for opaque departments like adult care and children’s services, it is anyone’s guess how many millions are being thrown away because elected members are unable to get close enough to the front line.

True: budgets are scrutinised. But the vast majority of councils budget incrementally. They start with last year as a base and then tweak the figures up or down.

The devil is in the base budget. In the tough years ahead, we will need to be asking searching questions not about growth and savings but about the areas we don’t normally look at.

Cllr Chris White is Hertfordshire County Councillor for St. Albans Central and
St. Albans City & District Councillor for Clarence
He is also a member of the ALDC Management Committee
chriswhite.mycouncillor.org.uk

This article was first published on Liberal Democrat Voice

Richard Kemp: Abroad starts at your front door

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 12:00:00 +0000

I hope that after 4 years most Lib Dems know that I am the Lib Dem Leader at the LGA. Not so many will be aware that I am also the portfolio holder for European & International Affairs. I was volunteered for the job when we needed to mainstream our E & I work and make it more relevant to the wider local government family and I happily decided at accept the position. Interestingly the portfolio holder for the Welsh LGA, Chris Holley, is also a Lib Dem. Perhaps it’s just something about practising what we preach!

Much of the work inevitably involves European activity. European legislation is so important to us as 50% of the Westminster legislation that affects councils originates in Brussels. Increasingly however with the political work in CoR and Congress now being dealt with comprehensively both within the LGA and by our local politicians in Brussels I have been able to look at the international work in more detail.

As a result of pressure from the LGA the DFID Select Committee chaired by Malcolm Bruce (another example of practising what we preach?) has suggested to the Government that Councils should be used a lot more in Internal Aid activity.

We offer a win/win/win situation.

A win for the Country in need. We can supply officers and councillors with current and relevant experience to provide real help. It was local government staff, fire-fighters, for example that were first into Haiti.

A win for the Government. We can do it far more cost effectively than the usual agencies of private consultancies and NGOs. Often we will put in at least some of the resources ourselves.

A win for the local council. We can get two benefits. The horizons of our staff and members will eb tested and expanded leading to more innovation and new ideas. We can develop a knowledge of custom and practice in those countries which can guide our work with the diaspora communities in our communities.

We are currently coordinating local government aid to Zimbabwe with more than 30 Councils offering to help. We are looking at long-term support to Haiti with again 30 Councils (but different ones) offering to help there. We are about to conduct the first peer review of another LGA (South Africa) with the World Bank looking to provide more support through us to other LGAs so that they have competent and strategic development partners. I have just assisted with a review of how local government works on a Pan Africa basis and will be hosting a conference in Nigeria in March. Margaret Eaton, the Association’s chair has been leading a review of the Commonwealth Local Government Forum which is our major route for working with others to provide local government aid.

Some people ask, "Why should we help when times are hard?" Most members of the public (and surely every Lib Dem?) reply when they see the devastation of Harare or in a different way Haiti – we have no choice – we must be there.

So what is your council doing in both European and International activity? Could you do more to help provide a win/win/win situation in your area?

Cllr Richard Kemp is Liverpool City Councillor for Church and
Leader of the Local Government Association Liberal Democrat Group

Seven Votes Swings Seat…. again

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 16:39:00 +0000

There were six principal council elections held on the 18th February. Labour held one seat and the Tories two. We lost two seats to Labour but gained one from the Tories There were four Town and Parish Council results reported to ALDC. A Tory hold, two Lib Dem holds and a Lib Dem gain from Plaid.

In the Pendre Ward of Bridgend Council in Wales we managed to lose to Labour by just seven votes having won the seat by seven votes just two years ago. We ran a good literature and doorstep campaign but we needed to use the phone before and on polling day. In retrospect the campaign must be kicking themselves for only starting to knock up at 3pm. When we won by seven in 2008 it was a straight fight between us and Labour. This time, as is usual in by-elections, a wider range of parties stood. With four non-Labour candidates to choose from, first past the post allowed the anti-Labour vote to be split.

Leeds City Council is run by a joint Con/Lib Dem administration. In the Hyde Park and Woodhouse Ward we ran a very intensive campaign with plenty of help but we were defeated by a uniformly negative Labour campaign attacking the administration. We weren’t helped by an existing councillor in the ward who had been elected as a Lib Dem defecting to Labour in the final week of the campaign. Though the turnout was low it was not untypical of the ward, which is part student part social housing. The bin strike and the closure of a local school did not help.

In the Ivybridge Filham by-election for South Hams District Council in Devon we took a seat from the Tories. It may have been complacency from the Tories – or perhaps their activity was largely covert using direct mail and phoning – but our people reckon the Tories only did one leaflet and hardly any door knocking. We did an A4, an A3, blue letter, eve of poll, good morning leaflets. We phoned every house in the ward and knocked on every door in the ward and on polling day we knocked up every D and P at least three times.

Sadly I have to report another seat we were defending where we failed to stand a candidate! Birstall Watermead Ward of Charnwood Borough Council in Leicestershire.

Election campaign essentials

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 16:15:00 +0000

To help make your campaigning as easy as possible, we’ve gathered together some of the essential campaign tools, paperwork and information that you’ll need as the campaign goes on. Do let us know if there is anything else that you need and we will add it in.

Campaign artwork tools

Liberal Democrat fonts: Helvetica Neue & Andrew Garratt only (zip file)
Liberal Democrat fonts: other useful fonts (zip file)

Liberal Democrat logos (zip file)
Liberal Democrat General Election Campaign Logo
Liberal Democrat clipart
Liberal Democrat colours

Buy PagePlus software

More campaign resources also available on the Liberal Democrat Members’ Site

Campaign template artwork

A4 Focus templates
A3 Focus templates

Canvass leaflets
Posters

Good morning & eve of poll leaflets

Essential paperwork

Delegated Nominating Officer (DNO) form (PDF)
Election expense forms – General Election long campaign (MS Excel)
Election expense forms – General Election short campaign (MS Excel)
Election expense forms - Council Elections (MS Excel)

Postal Vote Application Form (PDF)

Nomination papers will be available from your local council for both the Local and General Elections.

Official guidance

Electoral Commission guide to the 2010 Council Elections (PDF)
Electoral Commission guide to the 2010 General Election (PDF)

Postal vote code of conduct (PDF)
Draft guidance to police on interaction with political parties during campaigns (zip file)

Liberal Democrat Guidance

Campaign Planning Guide
ALDC Council Candidate’s Handbook (PDF)

Guidance on election imprints
Election expense limits
Guidance on appointing a General Election agent and on expenses (zip file)

Julie Morris: Epsom Calling

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 15:55:00 +0000

Well, Epsom and Ewell actually. Channel 4's Best-Place-To-Live-In-The-UK in 2004 (or was it 2005?) but relegated to 4th place more recently.

It is a unique form of government we have in this borough: controlled by Residents' Association councillors for more than 70 years which are a group of so-called independent councillors mostly registered as Residents Associations of Epsom & Ewell. We call them the Residents' Party. There are 23 RA, 10 Lib Dem, 4 Tory and 1 Labour. The Lib Dems are strong in the Epsom area and the RA in Ewell. The Conservatives - undoubtedly our long-term threat - have 1 Epsom-based councillor, one RA defector from Ewell and two others representing a Ewell ward. The 1 Labour councillor took a seat from us in a by-election - she was a previous Mayor and well known - but the by-election being held the day after David Cameron's son passed away didn't help us either.

Until 1999, the Conservatives did not stand in local elections here, (something about an unwritten agreement with the RA that they would leave the borough in their capable hands), but since one Chris Grayling's arrival as our MP and the ever-growing unpopularity of Labour, they are gaining strength and field candidates at every opportunity. Mostly, they are chipping away at the RA majority, but they are extremely aggressive and underhand at both election time and in the council chamber. We are under no illusions they aim for worldwide domination.

A flavour of what we are dealing with here might best be illustrated by the following. Residents' Party non-councillor officials had become used to holding meetings at the Town Hall, free of charge. The whole system was reviewed and they now have to pay. However, a Motion to council brought by the Tories demanded they were charged for meeting room hire on a retrospective basis for as far back as records sensibly go (it's more than a year with the sum of money involved around £3,000). The decision on the Motion was brought to the Strategy & Resources Committee where Residents' Party councillors, with their majority representation, decided to support the recommendation which was that they should not be charged. All other branches of political parties would have had to pay for meeting room hire. It's clearly abuse of Town Hall facilities, with the final decision on retrospective charging being made by those who have a personal and prejudicial interest in the outcome. Residents' Party councillors did concede that it might be a good idea that a body other than themselves was consulted but ultimately a full council meeting (with all the opposition members voting against) agreed not to pursue the matter.

The Residents' Party is a unique animal. At least with recognised political parties, there's a level playing field to start with.

Cllr Julie Morris is Epsom & Ewell Borough Councillor for College Ward
and Liberal Democrat Council Group Leader
epsom-ewell-libdems.org.uk

Chris White: My first lap dance hate mail

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 16:25:00 +0000

I got my first lap-dancing related hate mail the other day. The writer (who was not anonymous) suggested that I had nothing better to do with my time and argued that I belonged in the Stasi.

One of the hazards of politics is that you occasionally take a clear public view and someone doesn’t like it. My crime was to have issued a statement in support of the new rules on sexual encounter establishments.

Since the 2003 Licensing Act, lap-dancing clubs had been subject to the same licensing regime as pubs and restaurants – in particular, there was a presumption in favour of a licence being granted and objections could only be raised on a limited range of grounds.

Residents could not object to a lap-dancing club on principle or because it was something they didn’t want in their neighbourhood. This, with the strong support of the Local Government Association, has now changed.

There are major issues for Liberals here. Do we support people being able to object to pubs on principle? Clearly not. Do we support people who might object to a pub being opened near a school? Probably not although we would not be tolerant of a pub which was keen to sell alcohol to school children.

So: on what grounds can we object to lap-dancing? Because it involves exploitation? The evidence for this is doubtful. And if we are worried about exploitation we should deal with that rather than intervene in adult entertainment, freely entered into by both performer and consumer. Rules to protect performers are possibly overdue although many of the well-known names are meticulous.

Perhaps we could object because it objectifies women? All sorts of things do that, from top shelf magazines to channels freely available on cable and satellite. We also live in a culture that objectifies and commodifies men – a fact that marketing people around footballers and male models have not been slow to grasp. Most Liberals would balk at banning all such materials.

What about crime? There is usually a suggestion that these establishments are associated somehow with serious crime and prostitution but the evidence is again poor. The clientele tend in fact to be of little interest to the police compared with the assorted drunks and hoorays they have to cope with on a Saturday night.

So we are left with the niceness test. Some people (possibly a majority of women) find these clubs distasteful and don’t want them near their homes or children. Or possibly husbands.

This sort of objection is one ultimately of planning. As such it is arguably fair enough.

But it is a fine line and you can see why there are those who find the new rules illiberal.

This article was first published on Liberal Democrat Voice

Candidates Handbook 2010

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 13:33:00 +0000

Liberal Democrat candidates are being sent a free "Candidates Handbook" from ALDC, with details of the election campaign, how to survive, and essential contact and election law advice. This is a new publication from ALDC and aims to ensure all our candidates have the essential information for the election at their fingertips.

The Handbook was sent out by post in the last two week - so if you or your candidates didn't receive, then it's because ALDC hasn't been given details of your candidates!

We'll be sending out the Handbook to every candidate we're notified of before the deadline for nominations - WHILE STOCKS LAST.

Election Briefing emails are also being sent to all candidates - from now on every 10 days - so it's vital that we have email addresses for candidates.

Please help us by letting us know who your candidates are. Do it online here, or if its easier just send an email or attachment to david.ball@aldc.org with your candidates.

Don't worry that someone else has sent these in already - it's better to receive the information twice than not at all.

Don't forget to cc:aldc your best campaign literature - just think much easier it would be if we didn't have to re-invent the wheel every time!

Copy us in when you're sending a PagePlus or PDF file - cc@aldc.org.

Thanks for your assistance!

Lib Dem Council Group of the Year

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 12:00:00 +0000

Please note the deadline for nominations for the Liberal Democrat Council Group of the Year 2009 has been extended to 5pm on Monday 1 March 2010.

Does your authority or group have a track record - or have you promoted a specific policy - in any of the following areas over 2009?

Lewisham Lib Dems winning at the awards last year.

Tackling Anti-Social Behaviour
Helping children and young people
Supporting culture, leisure and regeneration
Improving local housing
Improving Transport
Improving social care services
Council Group of the Year Award

The winner of the Council Group of the Year Award will be the Group that demonstrates the best overall work as a Lib Dem Council Group or Lib Dem controlled council.

Green Council Group of the Year Award

We would like to see you demonstrating how Lib Dem groups practice environmental awareness. You should also include a separate section specifically on action to tackle climate change.

Backbencher of the Year

This is the award to the back-bench councillor who has made the greatest contribution to their community and their council. Group leaders are free to nominate members of their group, supplying a short statement of why they should win the award.

Vice Presidents Award

This will be awarded to the group that is active, feisty, operating in difficult circumstances who the Vice Presidents consider worthy of special mention and recognition. This award is intended to recognise groups who would not otherwise seek such recognition.

How to enter

You will need to submit a note setting out what your group/member has done to qualify for each award you wish to apply for.

Each note should be no more than 4 sides of A4 paper, and may also be accompanied by up to 3 attachments, to a total of not more than an additional 6 sides of A4 per award. (A maximum of 10 sides of A4 per award)

All submissions and attachments must be in an electronic, print and email-ready format. Each set of files must be separated according to which award they are in application for. Please note we do not accept submissions in MS Publisher.

Submissions should be sent to Ed Fordham, LGA Liberal Democrats, Local Government House, Smith Square, London SW1P 3HZ, together with the attached form, which must be signed by your Group Leader.

Should you have any specific queries, please contact the LGA Lib Dem Group office on 020 7664 3235 or email libdem@lga.gov.uk

The awards will be presented at the Liberal Democrat 2010 Spring Conference in Brimingham.

Download the Application Pack

Birmingham Opportunities

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 12:00:00 +0000

This year's Liberal Democrat Spring Conference is in the City of Birmingham, 12-14 March 2010. The event is open to all Liberal Democrats. Day delegate rates are available if you are within a day's travel distance of Birmingham.

ALDC has a busy programme at the Conference, largely focussed on the important general and local elections that we face in a couple of months.

"Campaign Essentials" Training - focussed on winning in 2010
Winning in the Last Week (9.15am)
Maximising the Postal Vote (11.00am)
Running an Effective Polling Day (14.30pm)
8 Weeks to Go (16.00pm) (briefing from Andrew Stunell and Hilary Stephenson)

Councillor Training - helping develop our Councillors
Finding and Recruiting Good Councillors (9.15am)
Inducting and Mentoring new Councillors (11.00am)
Council Budgets in the New Era (ALDC and IDeA) (14.30pm)
Managing a Coalition (ALDC and IDeA) (16.00pm)

All training is free to attend and open to any member of the Liberal Democrats registered for Conference

ALDC Fringe Programme

Friday 12 March 2010
20.00-21.15 ICC Hall 6, Climate Change: Keeping up the Pressure
ALDC and LIberal Youth discuss how campaigners can keep up the pressure for real progress at Copenhagen II. Speakers include: Simon Hughes MP and Kirsty Schneeberger (UK Youth Climate Change Coalition).
Don't miss the Local Government Reception at 22.00 including the Council Group of the Year awards 2010.

Saturday 13 March 2010
13.00-14.00 ICC Hall 8A, Meet the Next Generation Councillors
Old meets new! We are bringing together established council leaders and the cohorts from the young and newly elected 'new generation' of Lib Dems in local government for a series of round table lunch discussions - join us! Lunch included.

18.15-19.30 ICC 7A, Winning in the Wards
876 Lib Dem Councillors face re-election in important local elections on 6 May 2010. Local Elections Chair, and General Election Campaign Vice-Chair Andrew Stunell MP, and Director of Campaigns Hilary Stephenson outline how Lib Dems are campaigning for success this May.

Come and meet us at the ALDC stand in the main exhibition hall, we're right next to the coffee and catering area at Stand numbers A16 and A19. Once again we're joined by our friends at the IDeA. ALDC and IDeA staff and mentors will be on hand to provide advice, information and practical help on the ALDC website and myCouncillor system.

Shame: One in Six By-Elections Uncontested in 2010

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 17:29:00 +0000

After last week’s slow start to the month, February’s electoral schedule gathered pace with a total of seven principal council by-elections and a pair of Town Council results reported to ALDC this week. Four of the seven were retained by their incumbent parties, and of the remaining three Labour and the Tories exchanged two, with the final being a Conservative gain at the expense of an Independent.

The pick of the results was our successful defence of Aylesbury Central ward of Aylesbury Vale District Council, in the Buckinghamshire constituency of Aylesbury. The campaign of Graham Webster polled more than 50% of the popular vote – a 20% majority over the Tories, for whom this ward was an important local target. A wide variety of Literature, and growing use of telephone canvassing and election software, add to the legacy benefits of a highly successful campaign. The Tories’ transparent attacks on the previous incumbent backfired on the doorstep, as their lurid allegations of corruption were exposed for what they were and depressed the Conservative vote by a further 6%.

Related to the Aylesbury Central defence was the valiant Lib Dem effort in Aylesbury’s Luffield Abbey Ward. With few resources on the ground, the campaign of Ian Metherell placed just twenty votes behind a ‘kitchen sink’ UKIP campaign featuring party leader, and now PPC for the area, Nigel Farage. A complacent Tory effort still succeeded in holding this very rural Buckingham ward.

The Labour hold in Easington Ward of Durham County Council was no great surprise, our emphasis in this ward being the development of a viable party organisation. With valuable assistance from Easington PPC Tara Saville, the Harrison campaign made the most of limited resources to peg a respectable third place in an area with historically minimal Liberal Democrat activity.

In Town Council terms Labour held in London Colney, despite some high-quality artwork from LD candidate Vibs Nazeri.

Two wards in Telford and Wrekin, College and The Nedge, went without Lib Dem candidates yesterday. We have now failed to stand a candidate in three out of eighteen by-elections in 2010. If we had failed to stand a similar number of PPCs at the 2005 election, then a total of 109 seats would have been completely uncontested. The ALDC’s advice on this will never change: always, always, always stand a candidate.

We must defend the arts against right-wing cuts

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 16:56:00 +0000

Keynes was both a serious Liberal and a serious man. His work in two world wars and their aftermath is the stuff of legend. His contribution to economic thinking, recently somewhat vindicated, makes him a giant. Bertrand Russell found him intellectually formidable.

But he also built the Cambridge Arts Theatre and was the first Chairman of the Arts Council, created by the postwar Labour Government.

It would be too easy to say merely that a great man needs a hobby like anyone else. The Classical world and civilisation since have shunned the suggestion that somehow culture was an add-on, like sitting down to watch the X factor after a tiring week. Greek culture was defined by Homer. The Romans (or at least the ones who wrote about these things) saw beyond ‘bread and circuses’.

So the gathering of cultural luminaries in the House of Lords last week was not, by any measure, just a ‘jolly’. Familiar faces from film, old rockers and young soul performers rubbed shoulders with television actors, impresarios and even a specialist in high fashion jewelry.

Jane Bonham-Carter had organised, with the assistance of Nick Clegg’s office, something which was as much a political statement as a chance to see and be seen. Yes: the Party was launching a policy statement ‘The Power of Creativity’. More importantly it was making a statement that the arts matter. And that cultural people can and should support the Liberal Democrats.

Nick’s speech, covered last week in brief on LDV, was especially significant. In it he gave a clear pledge to maintain arts funding at current levels – something increasingly doubtful in the other two main parties, bent on cuts while sparing the largest spending departments the trouble of even modest belt-tightening. He also reminded us that the cultural sector was capable of new industries like video games, in which we have a considerable competitive advantage.

Culture is not an add-on. Nor is it a Disney theme park. It is a vital part of the life of the nation and of local communities. So when a right wing think tank suggests that a cut of 50% in cultural spending would not be noticed and when local council budget-making targets the arts development officer rather than the costly managers to whom he or she reports, it is time to speak up loudly.

Nick did this and hundreds were there to hear him. Let us hope that the Federal Policy Committee, which likes to remind us of how important it is in producing the Party’s General Election manifesto, was listening.

This article was first published on Liberal Democrat Voice

Total Place - a real way forward

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 16:54:00 +0000

I hope by now that every Lib Dem Councillor knows something about Total Place. Although it is described as a Treasury idea that is not correct, although the Treasury are providing important backing for it. This was an idea that originated with the Leadership Centre for Local Government and has been enthusiastically supported by us. So what is it?

Total Place asks two basic questions:

How much does the public sector spend in totality on dealing with a problem?

What outputs and outcomes do we need to achieve if we are satisfactorily to deal with that problem?

Then it goes on to ask the killer question. If we need to achieve those outputs and outcomes with that money would we organise ourselves the way that we do now?

The answer to the third question is inevitably NO!

Let me give you one simple example. The output we want to achieve to reduce crime is to keep 20 year old men who leave prison from reoffending. Unfortunately 80% of them reoffend within two weeks and a very high proportion of them end up back in prison. To try and keep that man out of prison will involves the work of 13 different people from 9 different organisations. Although I don’t know yet how much money that involves common sense says it must be a very expensive way of achieving very poor outputs?

So the ultimate aim of Total Place will be to ensure that the public sector as a whole builds its services around the needs of the clients and communities they serve rather than around the needs of the servicing organisation. This is of paramount importance, of course, to the most deprived people and communities who depend on public services the most.

Our early findings are fascinating. Overtime a new layer of government, quango or agency is involved in a project 20% of their budget goes out in administration. By the time something happens on the ground only 50% of the sum promised by the Government may be sued to deal with a problem. Intuitively Lib Dems have always known this. It is why we have railed against the centralisation of government and the creation of quangos. Now we are getting the proof to match our assertions.

This is important work for councils who are taking the lead in the 13 official TP pilots and the 40+ unofficial ones. If we are to wrap services around communities and individuals then it is councillors and their staff who knows those individuals and communities best. This programme gives you the chance to shape the services that you know are needed. This gives us the chance to assert the primacy of local councillors in decision making about local circumstances.

BUT there are two possible problems. Are we good enough to take that lead? Coming up with hard evidence, innovative solutions and strong delivery across all the public sector in our area is not a skill that we possess in abundance at either officer or member level. Will the rest of the public sector let go. Already there are signs of institutional fight back as organisations forget the principles and seek to defend their budget and their staff.

A Total Place review across public sector services across London suggests that thinking through and merging or deleting structures could save £5 billion. Thus perhaps a saving of more than £50 billion across the UK as a whole. At a time of no growth for the foreseeable future just think what we could do with £50 billion realigned to the real needs of the community and not the posed needs of the providers.

Cllr Richard Kemp is Liverpool City Councillor for Church and
Leader of the Local Government Association Liberal Democrat Group

Where we mess up, we lose

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 17:01:00 +0000

There were four principal council elections held on the 4th February. The Tories held one seat. The Lib Dems held one seat but also lost two seats to Labour. There were three Parish council elections reported to ALDC.

Rarely, thankfully, do we have to report on an utter disaster, but that was the case in the Holmewood and Heath by-election in North East Derbyshire. In 2007 two Labour councillors were elected for the ward un-opposed. In fact they had been unopposed for the last 20 years and only Labour had ever been elected in this coal mining and largely council housing renting area. In April 2008 there was a by-election that we won with 42% and a 26 vote majority. Our sitting councillor resigned after 14 months non-attendance due to ill health and we failed to stand a candidate to defend the seat. The problem may have come from the ward switching from the North East Derbyshire constituency to Bolsover in the boundary changes but whatever the reason conceding without a fight borders on the politically criminal.

Further bad news came in the form of a loss to Labour in the Queens Park Ward of Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council. The Lib Dem’s in Blackburn form part of a joint administration. The seat was vacant beacuse the councillor resigned - he had been expelled from the Group for non-attendance and he subsequently resigned from the Council The council's weekly bin collections and Housing Market Renewal scheme were popular, its gritting and ensuing bin collection problems were not - particularly when polling day itself involved snow related traffic problems.

The line was finally drawn at the Whyteleafe Ward of Tandridge District Council in Surrey, where recently appointed PPC David Lee led the party to a successful defence. A general ‘anti’ vote drove the UKIP vote share well beyond the likely return on their limited campaign, and a half-hearted Tory effort failed to register dramatically. The Labour party failed to field a candidate. Creating a legacy of new canvass data, in addition to returning a Liberal Democrat Councillor to Tandridge DC, makes the Lee campaign a bright spot in an otherwise dreary February week.

The only other principal election this week was an unremarkable Conservative Hold in the Newchapel Ward of Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council. The Tories held off UKIP by only 60 votes, an early indication, perhaps, of the electoral dangers currently facing the Conservatives in 2010’s new political climate.

Where should power lie in a devolved nation?

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 14:39:00 +0000

Liberal Democrats have always been clear on where political power should reside. We are democrats and we are instinctive supporters of decentralisation and empowerment. We trust people to make their own choices and to run their own lives, or do we?

A few years ago I sat on the Party’s commission to look at public services. It was an unwieldy body that struggled to find focus and despite the fact that it was tasked to produce federal policy it delivered instead pages of English-only imperatives that served only to pad out its main thesis, that we should be empowering local people not turning public services into a money-making venture for private entrepreneurs.

In many ways the public-private argument is superfluous to the thrust of this article. At the end of the day who delivers a service is secondary to who controls and directs it and why they are doing so. The big surprise for me in all the discussions on the public service commission was the reluctance of some very good liberals to propose that English Councils and English Regional Government take on responsibility for the delivery of many public services that are currently within the ambit of central government.

The argument was that it was inappropriate to devolve these services down even though many of them are already being delivered by the Welsh and Scottish Governments. It was the sort of reluctance that later characterised the very weak proposals put forward by John Prescott for North East England, a proposition that was so poor that it deservedly got the thumbs down in my opinion.

Here in Wales there is a different debate. We have a devolved administration with limited law-making powers. We are currently engaged in a process that will lead to a referendum on whether we acquire full law-making powers on those areas devolved to us or not. Actually it is more complicated than that but I do not want to bore you. Needless to say, even after that vote the Welsh Assembly will have fewer powers than the Scottish Parliament.

The debate we are all avoiding however, is where local government fits into this scenario. At the moment we are assuming that the newly empowered Welsh Assembly will just take the place of Westminster in the constitutional mix and that is very much how we have played it to date. But there is a wider debate as to what structures we need to deliver services to a nation of 3 million people and in particular whether 22 local councils and seven health boards are appropriate vehicles to spend the bulk of the Assembly’s £15 billion budget.

My view is that we most probably need bigger and fewer Councils but that the main debate should be around the democratisation and accountability of service delivery as much as its efficiency. Accountability drives efficiency. It is one reason why the Assembly does not actually deliver services itself but funds others to do so. However, as a body the Welsh Government is demonstrating an increasing propensity to interfere in the work of elected bodies and in doing so remove local accountability.

It seems to me that in a liberal model of devolved administration, the government makes the laws and locally elected bodies deliver the services at the most appropriate level and without the duplication we have now. Thus, if for argument’s sake we were to revert to eight Unitary County Councils it would be logical for them to take over the running of the health service in their area from the health boards.

Is it appropriate for wider economic and transport powers to be given to such Councils? Should we task them with control over further education as well as sixth forms? Should they take over the role of Cadw on heritage in their area? Would we want them to have greater powers in terms of the environment and biodiversity? And if we were to settle on a model of say 15 local Councils how would we treat them?

This is a debate that still has to take place in Wales and it is inextricably linked in with getting the structures right so that we can deliver economies of scale at the same time as accountability and transparency. Even in a small nation the National Assembly is too big to do most of this properly and yet even the Welsh Liberal Democrats do not yet have a clear idea of where we want to end up, even if our instincts are entirely the right ones.

Cllr Peter Black AM is Swansea Councillor for Cwmbwrla and

Welsh Assembly Member for South Wales West. He is also the

Welsh Liberal Democrat Local Government Spokesperson
peterblack.blogspot.com

Lib Dems Sweep through in Councillor of the Year Awards

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 12:00:00 +0000

Liberal Democrats won three of the nine awards in the LGIU’s first Councillor of the Year Awards.

Alexis Rowell, from Camden, won the Sustainability Councillor of the Year award. He was described by judges as, “a “real terrier”; and noted that he is “someone who won’t let you forget about the climate change agenda. He is a very visible champion of these issues and his local persistence has made him well known in Camden and beyond.”

Alex Folkes from Cornwall, has won the New Councillor of the Year Award with judges saying, “that he was an impressive candidate and had made a clear difference to the council and political group. Alex has been active on scrutiny committees, an assiduous case worker and in such a short time, an effective local campaigner.”

Carla Butler from Lewes, has won the young councillor of the year award with judges saying, describing her as “someone special”, and they were impressed that, “she had achieved so much in the few years that she has been on the council, which includes serving as the youngest elected mayor of Newhaven and Chair of the Council”.

Cllr Richard Kemp, the Leader of the Liberal Democrats in Local Government has welcomed the news:

“All three of these councillors are young, energetic and thoroughly liberal. I know that other Lib Dems also came close in other categories which were judged by an all Party group of councillors and other local government experts. Our strength in this award ceremony bodes well for the future of both local government and liberal democracy. I hope Lib Dem groups and councils will consider joining LGIU not only because it clearly recognises Lib Dems but because it provides a first call service to councillors”.

PagePlus download now available

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 14:40:00 +0000

PagePlus - the desktop publishing software used by Liberal Democrat campaigners - is now available to download from the Serif website.

Previously, the software was available to purchase on disk only via the ALDC shop, however Serif have now discontinued the physical disks. Instead, Serif have agreed with ALDC and the Campaigns Department an exclusive offer where Liberal Democrat campaigners can now download the software instead.

To purchase and download the software, go to:
Liberal Democrat PagePlus download offer

Great start to the New Year

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 16:34:00 +0000

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

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

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

MPs should keep out of local rag debate

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 12:00:00 +0000

MPs were debating what are sometimes called ‘council newspapers’ last week. None was supportive.

At first sight it is easy to see why. Administrations exploit the legislation which forbids party political propaganda on the rates. So long as the rag doesn’t actually say ‘Vote Conservative’ it is usually quite within the letter of the law. So a publication featuring mainly the leader of the council and only positive stories may irritate the opposition (and the voter) but will not cause the monitoring officer to stir.

But this isn’t why it is open season on these publications. Trinity Mirror and other regional publishers have started claiming that council magazines and newspapers are undermining the free local press.

Some MPs seem to have bought this: a cynic may be forgiven for thinking that they are merely trying to improve their local press coverage by denouncing (a) the council – usually a sure fire way of currying support – and (b) their dismal magazines.

The debate in Westminster Hall carefully avoided too many facts. Indeed the Audit Commission report on council periodicals was published only a few days later. This concludes firmly that there is no case to answer.

In particular:

While over 90 per cent publish a periodical almost all are published once a month or less frequently (in fact the majority are published quarterly or even less often); and
47 per cent contain private sector advertising – including those with very limited or occasional advertising.

It adds, however, that few periodicals are published sufficiently frequently to be viable media for most local advertising.

Local newspaper owners anyway have a tremendous cheek. The downturn in advertising is, of course, due both to temporary economic conditions and to a permanent change in technology. Property pages, for instance, were once a vital resource for a homebuyer. Now we use Google.

And they haven’t helped themselves. The distribution networks are ropey, with large areas, especially flats, left uncovered in any particular footprint. And the content is sometimes laughably poor: often, ironically, a council press release reprinted without challenge or investigation. Increasingly even local politics is left by the wayside as human interest stories predominate. Readers are bored and councils, obliged to get certain messages out by law, prefer to rely upon their own resources.

Opposition parties meanwhile have long realised that the Letters Page is for geeks and that their chances of a getting a message across are random – or, in too many cases, negligible because of the party political bias of the editor or publisher. We learned to rely on Focus because we could not rely on local papers.

That doesn’t mean that all council publications are a good thing. The Audit Commission warns about editorial content. But those of us who do object to what our local council does know that this is best done at local level and not by MPs whiling away the hours in Westminster.

Cllr Chris White is Hertfordshire County Councillor for St. Albans Central and

St. Albans City & District Councillor for Clarence
He is also a member of the ALDC Management Committee

chriswhite.mycouncillor.org.uk

This article was first published on Liberal Democrat Voice

Less than 100 days to polling day...

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 12:00:00 +0000

There was two principal council by-election held on the 21^st January. The Conservatives held the Erewash BC, West Hallam and Dale Abbey ward. In this by-election the Lib Dems came a very credible second place having not stood last time around, the result showed Gary Hamson the Liberal Democrat candidate polling 506 votes, which was a 37.6% of the vote share.

The second by-election was in the Airedale and Ferry Fryston ward of Wakefield MBC. The Liberal Democrat candidate Paul Kirby’s campaign team delivered a range of literature including Focuses and Blue letters, and there was some telephone canvassing that resulted in Paul receiving 603 votes an increase of 8.3%, moving in to second place above the BNP with Labour holding the seat.

There was just one Parish and Town council election result reported to ALDC, in the Lickhill ward of Calne TC. This result was in a ward were UKIP beat the Lib Dems into third place in 2007 election, which led to the Tories winning. Since then there has been three by-elections in Lickhill ward, which is the largest Town council ward and three great Lib Dem wins! If the Liberal Democrats win the Priestley by-election on Calne TC, which is being held on 11th February it will give the Lib Dems control of Calne TC.

With less than a hundred days to polling day, we all need to up our game in all campaigning whether it is in council or parliamentary elections, which could both, be on 6^th May. On ALDC’s website you will find all the templates and artwork examples you will need along with the campaigns department literature which will save you time and effort that you can use knocking on doors.

No offer is the right offer

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 14:44:00 +0000

Tomorrow night (27^th January) Liverpool City Council will adopt a council tax rate for the next financial year at exactly the same level as for the current year. A key component of that zero increase is the decision of the LGA and Local Employers to make no pay increase offer this year.

In the private sector there has been a gross drop in pay of more than 7% since the recession hit. This is a combination of no wages (jobs lost) or reduced wages by cuts in basic pay levels, perks or hours worked. Workers as a whole have felt great pain. By and large against this back drop public sector workers have not done to badly. The 1.4 million employed through local government negotiators have received at least a 3.25% increase with a bit more for those at the bottom and a bit less for those at the top. The remainder of the public sector have had an increase of at least 4.5%. So the LGA had to ask itself two questions when deciding what to do this year:

Is it morally justified to ask people whose pay and conditions have got worse to pay to safeguard pay and conditions for those who have done not brilliantly but OK?
How can we afford to keep going the services which are desperately needed by those in most need at a time when income of all sorts has fallen?

No-one wanted to take the step we did. We also recognise the unfairness of it. Teachers, whose pay is met through national negotiations but which come from the council budget will get 2%+ this year whilst school caretakers will get nothing. Our response is simple – we believe that the Government should not have kept to the three year pay plan which was agreed when times were better.

Looking ahead on public sector pay there is no good news. Labour will keep pay increases to 1% although we will soon see inflation at a rate of almost 3%. Tories don’t actually ahev a declared policy although they are making an alarming series of noises which I believe will mean major cuts to staffing levels and to public sector pay. Lib Dems have the Vince proposals of a maximum of £400 per year increase which applies to a cleaner as much to a chief executive. This clearly means that low paid will get a higher albeit modest increase proportionately than the higher paid. Not quite what I was suggesting but perfectly acceptable and definitely should now be supported.

Top employees salaries are now a mess. Again there are two questions to be asked a moral one and a practical one:

What the h**l do they need £150,000+ for? This applies to everyone. I don’t know what anyone does with that sort of money which far exceeds what any of us needs.
How do we operate in a market where there is considerable traffic from the public to the private sector and where there is clear evidence that senior staff could earn considerably more by making such a move?

In the short term the answers are obvious. There must be pay restraint and the restraint must be greater at the top. In the longer term society as a whole needs to work out why a banker is worth 50 times more than a nurse who might save your life.

Cllr Richard Kemp is Liverpool City Councillor for Church and
Leader of the Local Government Association Liberal Democrat Group

Power 2010 - Vote Now

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 12:00:00 +0000

Power 2010 is a non-Party campaign to promote democratic change - find out more at their website - www.power2010.org.uk

Power 2010 are currently running a national "vote" to see what people's priorities are for democratic reform.

At the moment, "Stronger Local Government" is down in 7th place, so it could do with our votes!

If you want to get local government higher up the agenda for democratic reform, vote today at: www.power2010.org.uk/vote

Keep Up with our Councillor Columnists

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 12:00:00 +0000

Over Christmas ALDC has been busy recruiting some volunteer Councillor Columnists, to write in the headline "editorial" section of our website www.aldc.org.

There are four online so far:

Cornwall Councillor Alex Folkes explains why Cornwall is Different.

Peter Black AM talks about the link between Wales and Local Government

Bury Councillor Richard Baum talks of his frustration with some Home Truths on Gritting

and Gateshead Councillor Jonathan Wallace tell us, well, a Day in the Life of Jonathan Wallace

Have a read, and feel free to comment or tell us or the Councillors what you think! - open to all Lib Dem Councillors as well as ALDC members.

Could you be a Councillor Columnist?
If you think you could do better we'd love to hear from you! We're basically asking for a commitment to write a monthly column about being a Liberal Democrat Councillor (or why not - a candidate or agent or staff member). All offers welcome, but it would be great to hear from more women councillors, group leaders, executive members, BME councillors political assistants, young councillors, new candidates - anyone with something interesting to say!

Email Anders at anders.hanson@aldc.org or speak to him on 01422 843 785.

Interviews, grills and pledges: Thursday in action

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 12:00:00 +0000

The last time I did a big interview for the BBC, it wasn't broadcast, despite having put in a large amount of work and research for the programme (it was Panorama over a year ago - I was interviewed about opencast mining). I am a bit more hopeful that the interview I did this morning will be broadcast. It was for the BBC Politics Programme, North East edition. Mark Denten interviewed me about how the proposed conference centre for Gateshead will be paid for. I'm not going to go into the details of it now. I'll save it for another day. I feel a little more confident that this interview will be broadcast. Fingers crossed for Sunday. The programme starts on BBC1 at midday.

The 2 photos above were taken at the interview. In the 2nd one, it looks like I'm playing the air guitar! Maybe I thought I was performing at the nearby Sage Concert Hall!

Inevitably I took an interest in the camera they were using. Meanwhile, Mark asked me if all my stories on my blog about jam making and growing our own food was spin. Sadly, it is all for real! And with 5 tonnes of manure due shortly for our allotment, this politician for one will be up to his eyeballs in muck shortly!

Then to the Civic Centre where a group of children from Fellside Primary School grilled us on life as a councillor. We were told to expect questions about what time we get up in the morning and when do we eat dinner. We ended up instead with questions about whether we need qualifications (Council Deputy Leader Ian Mearns said no but pointed to me - as the only Doctor in the Council village - saying that I had a bagful of them: "Not sure if they have helped me!" I joked); what age do you have to be to stand; is it a privilege to be a councillor and what are our greatest achievements (I think mine was to survive the grilling!)

Shortly before full council we did the next part of our promotion of healthy lifestyles. We had to write on a note something we were pledging to change in our lifestyles to make us healthier. The note then went on to a display where everyone could read it. I announced I was giving up nibbling between meals. So out go the cheese, chocolate shortcake (with caramel), salami (yes, I confess, one of my favourite nibbles, but they are very very thin!) and other such foods. Eating is to be done at meal times, unless it's health fruit etc.

Photos below - my ward colleagues Cllr John McClurey and Cllr Marilynn Ord and I agree to change our lifestyles for something healthier:

Cllr Jonathan Wallace is Gateshead Councillor for Whickham South & Sunniside Ward
jonathanwallace.blogspot.com

A day in the life of Cllr Jonathan Wallace

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 12:00:00 +0000

I was in the bizarre situation yesterday of walking to a meeting in the morning in Gateshead because it was quicker that using any vehicle on the roads. I was supposed to be in Gateshead at 9am. I am taking part in a health promotion drive with other councillors and it starts with a health check. That was my 9am meeting. The bus I got from Sunniside took me as far as the Teams when I decided that the traffic was so congested it was time to put my legs into action and walk the rest of the route. The last I saw of the bus was when I got to the end of the Redheugh Bridge. I could see it in the distance, barely moved from the bus stop where I had decided to get off.

I was of course late by then. Arrival time was not helped by my turning up at completely the wrong place for the health check. For some reaon I have St Mary's visitor centre next to the Tyne Bridge as the venue. People there knew nothing about it. A phone call to the Civic Centre and I discovered it was meant to be in the Old Town Hall. Fortunately not too far to walk but I was now running very late. The health check was rushed through so I could get to a 10am meeting in the Civic Centre. For any political opponents hoping the health check showed me at death's door, I am sorry to disappoint them. Apart from a need to marginally reduce my waistline, I am in fine health, ready to do battle!

The reason for the visit to the Civic Centre was to attend planning committee and represent Councillor Peter Maughan who was opposing a planning application to build a house on the old farm on Whickham Highway. Peter had been called away on business so he kindly offered the task to me! Such was the ferocity of my argument and the skill with which I presented Peter's case opposing the application in such a superbly convincing way that the application was agreed unanimously!

Back home for a bit of news release writing. And for the foodies amongst you, I also plucked and gutted a pheasant, given to us by one of the other allotment holders. A few jars of homemade jam and chutney will be winging their way to him shortly.

Having ripped the innards out of this formerly feathered friend, I was in the mood to head back to Gateshead Civic Centre for some politics and a group meeting to decide on motions for council next week. I had a vague idea about a motion about holding general election counts on the day after polling day, following the "vile" claims by Labour chief bruiser Nick Brown MP that suggested the Lib Dems are politically corrupt. But my idea was as popular in the group as Gordon Brown is at a Labour love-in so I didn't push it. Given that it was barely a twinkle in my eye, never mind a fully formulated motion, I didn't feel I had wasted any time on it. We opted instead for a motion on the impact of the recent winter weather.

After the group, I went along the corridor to the Gateshead Lib Dem executive meeting and gave my media and communications report. Mention was made of the coverage I got on the non-demolition of the Gateshead Multi-Storey Car Park (known for its starring role on the Michael Caine classic "Get Carter"). This same coverage had ruffled one or two feathers amongst some Labour members, one of whom before Christmas had made a passing remark to me in a corridor in the Civic Centre. At least then I was only ruffling feathers, not plucking them!

My day ended back home when we decied to watch the 2nd dvd of "Victorian Farm" which included a bit about pheasant shooting and cooking. Ideas have now been generated for forthcoming dinners!

Cllr Jonathan Wallace is Gateshead Councillor for Whickham South & Sunniside Ward
jonathanwallace.blogspot.com

Defections galore

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 14:13:00 +0000

This week we can report three defections to the Liberal Democrats in key councils around the country.

The first is the decision by Cllr Brian Haley, the Labour Cabinet Member for the Environment in the London Borough of Haringey, to quit his post and join the Liberal Democrats. Haringey is a key council for the Liberal Democrats with Lynne Featherstone as one of the MPs in the area and with Labour holding a tiny overall majority on the council. To attract such a senior councillor is a real coup for the party in the area.

The second and third defections are the husband and wife team Keith and Diane Bennett who have left the Conservatives on Cannock Chase District Council and joined the Liberal Democrats. They are both chairs of council committees and will be a welcome addition to our growing council group. The Liberal Democrats are the largest party on the council and also hold the leadership.

Unfortunately, a defection has also taken place in the opposite direction with Cllr David Theobald of the London Borough of Sutton moving from the Liberal Democrats to the UK Independence Party (via a week spent as an Independent).

Thank you to Cllr Matt Davies, Cllr Tony Williams and David Boothroyd respectively, for the information.

Top priorities for new Tory MPs

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 12:00:00 +0000

A new survey by ConservativeHome has show what political priorities the party's potential new MPs are likely to have. The survey interviewed 250 candidates from the Conservative party's most winnable seats. The results are telling and perhaps show up the dividing line between the two parties more starkly than anything else

Whilst Liberal Democrats might not disagree that "reducing the budget deficit" should be a top priority, it is the items that were placed at the bottom of the list that are the most interesting. In bottom position with just eight candidates saying it is a top priority is reducing Britain's carbon footprint - something that would no doubt be near the very top for any Liberal Democrat candidate, and doesn't say much for Cameron's greenwash of the Conservative party. Other issues that languish near the bottom are many that are of interest to Liberal Democrats in local government - affordable housing, schools and better road and rail services. Again, all areas which the Liberal Democrats would be likely to prioritise.

Whilst many of the top priorities may be popular with both Liberal Democrats and Conservatives, these are the sorts of issues that are probably popular with supporters of the other parties too. But areas such as winning powers back from Europe, cutting red tape and strengthening Britain's military would be much lower down the list for Liberal Democrats.

The main results of the survey are shown below, but you can also read the full story about it on Conservative Home.

Lib Dems shortlisted for Councillor of the Year Awards

Fri, 15 Jan 2010 12:00:00 +0000

Congratulations to the Liberal Democrats who have been shortlisted in various categories for the Councillor of the Year awards, run by the Local Government Information Unit and CCLA.

Warren Bradley (Liverpool) – Leader of the Year
Carla Butler (Newhaven) – Young Councillor of the Year
Alexis Rowell (Camden) and Paul Tilsley (Birmingham) – Sustainability councillor of the year
Alex Folkes (Cornwall) and Dennis Meredith (Northants) – New Councillor of the Year
Daisy Benson (Reading) and Alex Perkins (Canterbury) – Online Councillor of the Year
Tracy Ismail (Islington) – Community Champion of the Year

Good luck to all of them and you can find the full details of all the shortlists here. Thank you also to Liberal Democrat Voice for the news.

Home truths on gritting

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 12:00:00 +0000

Three things happened at Christmas which I found depressing. Firstly, after explicit instructions to the contrary, a relative who shall remain nameless (though not blameless...) purchased for me the DVD of Michael McIntyre’s stand up comedy tour, despite me finding him about as funny as a compound fracture. Second, the Christmas turkey was woefully mis-cooked despite my best efforts. And finally, every day for a week either side of the big day I was on the receiving end of ever-angrier phone calls from residents busy tumbling about on icy pavements and falling head first into snow drifts.

The first two of these problems have been sorted. Oxfam have benefitted from the DVD, and next year I’ll have a frozen ready meal for one and go back to bed. But the problem of what to do when it snows remains, because as an opposition Councillor it puts me in a quandary.

Opposition Councillors have three roles – to scrutinise the Executive, to lead communities, and to represent the people in their wards. It’s all fine and dandy when all those things pull in the same direction. When the Executive want to close down our library, we can represent the will of the community and lead the campaign to keep it open, whilst working at the Town Hall to scrutinise the whole thing. But when it snows outside and the Council keep all the main roads open, how can a good Councillor perform all three of his roles when there’s a bloke on the phone threatening to lob snowballs through his window unless a gritter is sent down his cul-de-sac before lunchtime?

It’s a tough one, made harder still because taking a stand against a resident you think is being unreasonable might be risky in electoral terms. It’s all well and good explaining to the angry man on the phone that five new gritting trucks would mean a million pound Council Tax rise, but it often doesn’t work. And if he turns out to have lots of friends, lots of money and access to a leaflet-printing machine, then we may have a problem on our hands come election day.

At times like these I always like to turn to the book of football clichés for advice. It works for election nights, when I am always reminded of the phrase “A Game of Two Halves” before they start counting the postal votes and we snatch victory from the jaws of defeat (or vice versa). For this problem, I have chosen the old adage “Form is temporary but class is permanent.” As Councillors, we all won the last election, so our form is good. But what’s the point of winning if we have to lie to voters to keep them on side? There are times when some home truths are necessary – and for me the snowy weather was one of them. Yes, it’s annoying that not every side-street gets gritted and that the pavements are slippy for a couple of weeks. But on the whole Councils have done OK, and it’s a good lesson in priorities and tough choices. As opposition Councillors we can promise to do two things – make very sure that everything was done right, and where it wasn’t make sure it’s done right next time. Beyond that, we weren’t elected as nannies, so we’re all in this together.

I hope that’s the classy response. Either way I’ve probably lost that angry man’s vote!

Cllr Richard Baum is Bury Councillor for St. Mary's Ward
richardbaum.mycouncillor.org.uk/

Solid Start

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 12:00:00 +0000

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

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

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

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

A nice birthday present for Nick Clegg!

Find a loo

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 12:00:00 +0000

A website has been launched by Andrex which allows people to search for public toilets in their area.

It also lets people search for public toilets near them and to rate ones they've used. It's a useful service and would be a good thing to publicise to residents in Focus leaflets or on councillor websites, particularly in areas where the local council website, (which is often not the place people would think of going), doesn't provide the information conveniently.

Anyone can add new toilets or rate existing ones, and it'd also be good to get some councillors adding in the toilets they know about in their ward.

You can find the site at www.AndrexOnTheGo.com

Sir Chris Clarke Memorial Service

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 16:35:00 +0000

A memorial service is to be held for Sir Chris Clarke, the former Leader of Somerset County Council, who died in December 2009. You are invited to join others to remember Chris at a service of thanksgiving and a celebration of Chris' life and work.

The service will be held on 5th February 2010 at 2pm in Wells Cathedral. After the service there will be tea and a chat in the Town Hall, Wells, BA5 2RB.

LGA Lib Dem Group Budget Briefing Cancelled

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 16:23:00 +0000

The LGA Lib Dem Group has issued the following message cancellling the above event for tomorrow (7 January 2010).

I am afraid to tell you that, due to the worsening weather conditions, Gerald Vernon-Jackson no longer feels confident that he will be able to make it to London from Portsmouth tomorrow and has therefore asked that we cancel this event. Apologies for the short notice, but we thought it best to cancel at this point rather than ask everyone to travel in for what would be a severely truncated agenda.

I will send round any materials that I can gather from the speakers, the accounts department will be refunding all those who have already paid in due course.

Wales and local government

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 13:56:00 +0000

The relationship between the Welsh Assembly and Local Government has often been a fraught one with many ups and downs over the last ten years. When the Government of Wales Act was passed in 1998 many local council leaders were suspicious and wary. Their view was if we are to have devolution then why not devolve powers straight to local government. After all Wales had had unitary authorities since 1996 what was the point in recreating another tier of government? They had a point.

The consequence of that attitude was that for the first term at least the Welsh Government trod very carefully around the sensitivities of councils, ensuring that there were proper protocols in place, consulting on all decisions and delivering some of the best financial settlements Councils have seen for some time, without capping. It helped that Welsh Liberal Democrats formed part of that administration of course.

The second Assembly term, in which Labour ran things as a minority administration was much the same but there was evidence of a hardening attitude towards Councils along the line of the previous Welsh Office and by the third Assembly it was business as usual.

Ministers now talk about initiatives that are far more centralising in effect, such as dictating what charges will be set by Councils for personal care. They talk tough at budget time and threaten capping and within the Labour-Plaid Cymru coalition there is even talk of taking powers off Councils, of directly funding schools, of giving social services to unelected health boards and of getting rid of Councils that do not meet favour.

All of this is made easier of course by the disappearance of Labour’s monopoly in local government. Welsh Liberal Democrats for example help run 12 of the country’s 22 local authorities. But the overriding impression is that the brave new world brought on by devolution is behind us, that being in government in a small country with limited powers causes Ministers to look elsewhere for ways to run people’s lives and that as a result local authorities in Wales are under threat of emasculation.

It has not come to that yet of course but the danger is there and it grows even bigger the longer the two great centralising parties of Wales, Labour and Plaid Cymru remain in government.

Cllr Peter Black AM is Swansea Councillor for Cwmbwrla and

Welsh Assembly Member for South Wales West. He is also the

Welsh Liberal Democrat Local Government Spokesperson
peterblack.blogspot.com

ALDC office closed, but advice still available

Tue, 05 Jan 2010 12:00:00 +0000

Due to today's heavy snowfall across the North of England, the ALDC office in Hebden Bridge is closed today (5th January 2010) and all staff are working from home.

Advice service still available

However, if you do need need to speak to a member of ALDC's political staff then please complete our online form and someone will get back in touch with you as soon as possible.

Alternatively, try using our new improved search facility for your query in the top right hand corner of our website, as the information you need may already be available to ALDC members.

Conservatives - Losing Here

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 13:20:00 +0000

2009 has been the best year for Lib Dem success against the Tories in local government by-elections in this parliament.

There is an old Lib Dem adage “Where we work we win” and this seems to be the initial conclusion of ALDC’s analysis of the 2009 principal local by-elections. With 17 net gains we have had our best year since we made 17 gains in 2006.

The difference in 2009 was that we made 11 net gains off the Tories, helping them to 25 net losses for the year. In 2006 we had net losses of 3 to the Tories but offset this by making 16 net gains off “others” – largely rural independents. In 2009 there were fewer Independents defending; 23 rather than 46 in 2006. In addition the Independents improved their defence rate from a mere 20% in 2006 to around 50% in 2009.

Whilst we have not yet done a full and more detailed analysis of the results (see January’s Campaigner for this) we believe a number of factors to be at play in these results. The theory that “anti-politics” mood would herald success for Independents and smaller parties has not been borne out in real elections. Party organisation really does matter. Without making predictions about the general election the clear message is that doing it by the book works.

Any ALDC member can subscribe to our free By-Elections email - the first, and most comprehensive local by-election report every Friday lunchtime. When you're logged on to the ALDC website manage your account here.

Cornwall - it's different

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 12:00:00 +0000

I would imagine that most Lib Dem councillors only have experience of one council (or at least, only of councils in a particular area). And so we fondly imagine that most authorities must work in the same broad way as our own. Having worked as a Section 9 political assistant for two very political London boroughs, I imagined that my own home county of Cornwall would be similar. Nope. We have independents, we have too many councillors and too many pointless meetings and we 'don't do politics'.

Back in June the Lib Dems didn't do too well in Cornwall. The old County administration actually did most things right but got the crucial bit about communicating that work horribly wrong. And so we came out of the first unitary elections with just 38 of the 123 seats. Yep, you read that right - 123 councillors each representing single member wards. To win overall control, we would have had to have a group larger than the Parliamentary Party.

The good news was that the Tories didn't win overall control either - with 50 seats. There were 32 independents - of whom 31 decided to operate as a group and to go into coalition with the Tories - and three Mebyon Kernow councillors. Not a single Labour member was elected and the former MP for Falmouth and Camborne got just 254 votes, coming third in the ward in which she stood.

Our biggest concern going into the election was that the council would be officer controlled. So we spent a long time (probably a bit too long) sorting out a manifesto and delivery plan to hand to officers on day one. Of course, we never got that chance. The Conservatives asked us to join a rainbow coalition to run the council 'for the good of the people of Cornwall'. We chose not to take them up on that offer. Not because we wanted to be pointlessly oppositionist (if that's a word), but because we believed that whoever was in control, they needed decent scrutiny and alternative ideas put forward.

Taking this course of action has, however, meant that we have been denied any seats of power at all. Of course we are not in the cabinet. But we have no scrutiny, planning or licensing committee chairs or vice chairs either and there are a plethora of 'panels' which sometimes try to exclude us altogether.

In London, I was used to watching robust political debate on just about everything. Here in Cornwall, that is an extremely rare thing. There is a desire to get consensus wherever possible and, whilst admirable in intent, it can lead to not taking any risks or not taking a decision at all. It means that in many cases officers take the lead and go unchecked. We're working hard to battle against this tendency, but the constitution is set up in such a way as to restrict opportunities for debate whilst, perversely, encouraging more and more meetings.

I said earlier that we went into the election with a definite manifesto. The Conservatives didn’t and so we asked early on for their plans for the Council. We especially wanted to know how the demands of the Independents in coalition would be dealt with. We now have a draft of the Council's business plan but no political manifesto and nothing concrete to judge them against. Perhaps they are playing safe, but I suspect they will rue the decision. With no stated ambitions there is drift. The first acts of the new administration were to vote through a review of allowances, to put all localism on hold and to reject a call to sign up to the 10:10 campaign.

Seeking consensus means that the budget process is much more open than was the case in London. We already have draft proposals for this year and the three that follow. But surely a sharper political mind within the Conservative camp would have realised that closing public toilets, introducing fortnightly rubbish collections and cutting community grants wouldn't sit well with voters, particularly when also pushing for a £16,000 taxi budget for the Council Chairman.

That’s where we stand at the moment. Next time (if ALDC allow me another column) I’ll talk about our efforts to bring decision making closer to the people.

Alex Folkes is Cornwall Councillor for Launceston Central
lansonboy.blogspot.com

Tell us Your Candidates!

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 12:00:00 +0000

New Years Day is 125 days to the important local elections in London and much of the rest of England on 6 May 2010. We do not need to tell you that these are vital elections for both the Liberal Democrats and the people that we represent and campaign for.

Candidate Support Programme - For the first time we'll be sending out a Liberal Democrat "Candidates Handbook" in January free to all Lib Dem candidates in the local electons. It will contain all the essential advice that candidates need about elections, staying on the right side of the law, campaign planning, and crucially where to go for more help. This is being accompanied by monthly Election Briefing emails

But we can only send the information if we have the candidates. Register your candidates this weekend online here.

Advice and Support - We are here to provide advice and support for all Liberal Democrats on anything to do with elections - election law, campaign techniques, procedures - or anything to do with being a councillor. Ask for advice online (we have a same day/next morning policy for all advice requests) or phone us 9.15-5.15 during the week on 01422 843 785. ALDC members of course have an enhanced advice service with access to online resources and information.

Templates and Campaign Ideas - as the election gets nearer we will be continuing to provide ALDC members with weekly campaign ideas, templates, council motions and best practice artwork - if you're not a member you should be!

Sir Chris Clarke OBE 1941-2009 - An Obituary

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 12:00:00 +0000

Sir Chris Clarke dedicated decades of his life to the simple task of helping people make the most of their own lives and in particular to giving society’s less fortunate the chances they need to escape the traps of their misfortune, whether imposed by poor education, ill health or just a social environment that offered too little hope.

Chris also played a leading role in the renaissance of British liberalism, helping to build the party’s heartland in the South West of England. He was (as a Councillor for 22 years and Leader of Somerset for 8 years) a terrific exponent of community politics, making Somerset a beacon for the localised form of politics that the Liberal Democrats put to such potent use, first in making huge gains in local government elections and then in taking an unprecedented number of parliamentary seats, generally based on their local successes.

For Chris Clarke though electoral success was not the purpose of politics. His own motivation was always to make a real difference to the lives of ordinary people. Political commentators were quick to see the significance of the Lib Dem gains that saw them take control of Somerset County Council in 1993. Combined with the by-election shocks in Newbury and Christchurch, the writing was on the wall for a domino effect where the Conservatives would lose their local power-bases and then their Parliamentary seats to the Liberal Democrats across the Shire Counties.

The significance of the victory in Somerset was not lost on Chris Clarke, but from the outset he and his colleagues were driven by what they could do for the County. What followed became further beacons to inspire Lib Dems around the country. The new administration, led by Chris, invested heavily in education and social services, determined as they were to give young people a better start in life and open opportunities for people to live life to its full potential.

For many, this era was the Lib Dem golden age. Led by Paddy Ashdown in Westminster and with real power on the ground through local government leaders like Chris Clarke, the party exuded new confidence and credibility, matching their fizz of policy ideas to a record of action in public office. The party’s focus was on making a difference through a patchwork of ground-breaking, innovative, local ideas. Somerset, time and again, was the beacon of good practice.

It was clear to Chris that more needed to be and could be done. This underlay his determination to organise South West local authorities into the South West Regional Assembly, to work harder at maximising the potential of local governance. No surprise then that his energy, drive, patience and warm, natural charisma soon led him to lead the new Assembly.

As the leading voice for Somerset and the South West, Chris inevitably got more involved in national politics, pressing the case for more to be done both for the region and for what had become his main focus, the disadvantaged. Chris was always tremendously popular with his Liberal Democrat colleagues around the country. It wasn’t long though before he had earned respect across all the parties and among government officials. So it was no surprise when in 2001, Chris became the leader of the Liberal Democrats’ local government base through the Local Government Association. He was already leading a cross party and cross government programme to improve social inclusion, bringing local and central government together to pursue a common agenda around Chris’ most passionate cause.

Chris also devoted considerable personal energy to securing better funding for local public services, through significantly improved government grant and through a fairer local tax system. The tax system unfortunately remains largely intact (though not in Scotland, where reform won through), but the difference that was made to local services such as schools, thanks to billions of pounds of additional investment is now very clear to see.

In 2005 Chris stood down as a County Councillor and moved to Gloucestershire. He withdrew from party politics but remained fully engaged in public life and his efforts to improve public services continued. Chris took on the role of Chair of South Gloucestershire Primary Care Trust and until his death was acting Chair of Arts Council South West. Through his support for the Arts, Chris secured funding to support the Bristol based digital art project, Submerge, which gives young people hoping to build careers in digital media the chance to display their talent.

In addition to his long career in public life, Chris Clarke worked as a marketing and general business management expert in private industry, including 19 years working for Clarks (no relation), the international shoe company.

Chris was awarded an OBE in 2001 and then a Knighthood, in 2005, for services to local government. He described his visit to the Palace to pick up his award, surrounded by his family, as one of the happiest days of his life.

All who knew Chris will remember him as a great liberal, a hard working councillor, and as a disarmingly modest man driven by a passion for helping others, whose dry humour and sharp mind won friends and influenced people, in the best possible way.

Chris was also a devoted and protective family man and is survived by his wife Liz and children Tim and Angela. Also by his first wife Sheila.

Sir Chris Clarke was born 24th March 1941 and died on 15th December 2009, aged 68.

Written by Nick Rijke: ndrijke@hotmail.com

Lib Dem Children & Young People Conference

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 12:00:00 +0000

The Liberal Democrat Group in the Local Government Association is organising another residential conference for Children's and Young People's services. It is being held at the National College for School Leadership's Learning and Conference Centre in Nottingham on 5th-6th February 2010.

This event is recommended for all Liberal Democrats with an interest in education, children and young people's services, but especially for portfolio holders or opposition spokespeople in these areas. It will be attended by leading Liberal Democrat councillors from across the country, as well as the party's parliamentary spokespeople on education.

More details, including the price and a booking form is available as a PDF from the LGA Lib Dem Group website.

Winning in Warrington

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 14:52:00 +0000

We achieved an amazing 63% of the vote in a parish council by-election in Great Sankey. This parish is in the key parliamentary seat of Warrington South and this will be a boost to Jo Crotty’s chance of becoming their next MP. The by-election was called by the Conservatives who were confident of taking the seat from us. However we ran an intensive campaign of regular leaflets, good mornings and blue letters. We also made special efforts with the postal vote and this proved crucial with roughly 50% of those voting doing so by post – important on what was a very cold polling day.

Earlswood and Whitebushes is a former Lib Dem held ward just south of the town of Redhill in Surrey. Since we lost the seat it has gained a reputation for close by-election contests. This time we came within 78 votes of beating the Conservatives, with the same candidate having lost by just 41 votes two years ago. With a keen campaign team in the borough, lets hope that next time we finally make it.

Christmas

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 12:00:00 +0000

ALDC's office is closed from the end of Wednesday 23 December 2009, and will re-open in the morning of Monday 4 January 2009.

An answer-phone will take messages, but these will not be checked until the new year.

If you have any urgent queries, please use the advice form on this website, which will be checked periodically, and very urgent issues dealt with accordingly.

The MyCouncillor system is being maintained through the holiday period. If you experience any urgent issues please use the advice form above.

Can we take the opportunity to wish all our members and friends a

VERY HAPPY CHRISTMAS

AND BEST WISHES FOR 2010

Lib Dems take overall control of Cheltenham

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 12:00:00 +0000

Liberal Democrats have taken overall control of Cheltenham Borough Council, thanks to the defection of a Conservative councillor to our group. We previously ran the council under no overall control.

Councillor Klara Sudbury is both a borough councillor and a Gloucestershire County Councillor and will now join both the party and our groups on both councils.

In a statement, Cllr Sudbury said:

"However, I have been impressed by the work of the town’s Liberal Democrat MP Martin Horwood who has been a hard working and dedicated MP for the town for nearly five years. The Liberal Democrats have taken the lead on many local issues such as defending Cheltenham railway station from the threat of a Parkway station at Elmbridge Court and protecting services for the town’s most vulnerable people. I also fully support their proactive approach in fighting to save the town’s green spaces and Green Belt from inappropriate development."

Welcoming her to the group, Liberal Democrat council leader Cllr Steve Jordan said:

"Klara has a well deserved reputation as a campaigner on many local issues and I am very pleased that she would like to continue those campaigns as a member of the Liberal Democrat group. I warmly welcome her application to join us. Councillors represent all their constituents of whatever political persuasion and I’m sure Klara will continue to do an excellent job for local people"

Sir Chris Clarke

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 12:00:00 +0000

Liberal Democrats in local government throughout England have been saddened by the news of the premature death of Sir Chris Clarke the former Leader of the Liberal Democrats at the LGA.

Chris served as leader from 2001 to 2005. He served originally as an SDP councillor in Richmondshire before moving to Somerset where he eventually became Leader of Somerset County Council.

He was awarded a knighthood for services to local government in 2005 after failing to gain a seat on Gloucestershire County Council when he moved there to live with and later marry Liz who survives him. He described his visit to the Palace to pick up his award surrounded by his family as one of the happiest days of my life.

Cllr Richard Kemp said, "We will remember Chris as a great liberal, a hard working councillor and a person whose dry humour brought life to many an interminable meeting on arcane matters of local government finance and administration".

Liz hopes to have a quiet family funeral but intends to hold a public memorial service in the New Year. Details will be circulated to the Lib Dem family when these are known.

Government puts housing benefit cut on hold

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 16:51:00 +0000

A government proposal to claim back £15 a week from housing benefit claimants has been put on hold following an outcry from recipients and a campaign by a number of Liberal Democrat councils.

At present, if a housing benefit claimant finds a property to rent at less than the rate of housing allowance set by the council, they can keep up to £15 of the difference. However, the Labour Government had tried to scrap this scheme in April, which would have hit those on the lowest incomes the hardest. However, the government has now been forced to put off this cut until at least 2011.

More details from the BBC

Hypocrite Humphrys’ bonus bunk

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 15:23:00 +0000

John Humphrys was sounding pleased with himself on the Today Programme the other day. Nothing unusual there, you might say. He was attempting to skewer a minister because civil service managers at the UK Border Agency were being paid a bonus.

At first hearing it seemed as though they were each getting in excess of £300,000 for doing their own job. It was only on careful hearing that it became apparent that the figure was the total bonus pool and that the bonuses amounted to little more than £10,000 a piece.

The justification for the payments was that they were clearing up the chaos of immigration files left by predecessor organisations. The proper line of questioning was: why did the Government manage its affairs so poorly? But the thrust of the interview was that here were public servants pulling one over on the taxpayer.

The hypocrisy is breathtaking. Today Programme celebrities can pull in that sort of money in a few – probably very few – speaking engagements. Their celebrity status has been earned at the licence payers’ expense. Their employer, the BBC, has itself become notorious for excessive salaries to senior managers who work in an organisation largely protected from commercial risk. It also blows millions on Ross dross TV.

The tests, surely, of whether bonuses or large salaries are acceptable are: (1) is the activity being rewarded desirable and (2) are the salaries determined in a free labour market?

Apply these tests to the UK border agency and the answer is that they bonuses are probably reasonable. If we apply them, by contrast, to the salaries of Chief Executives of councils then there is an element of doubt.

The tabloid press (itself prone to pay some very large salaries) suggests that no public servant should be paid more than the Prime Minister. This is superficially attractive until you remember that the majority of a prime minister’s earnings come after he or she leaves office. Blair, despite or because of his treachery over the Iraq War, is earning millions. So the comparison is disingenuous.

Apply the tests: is it desirable to have competent people running councils? Yes: a badly run council can literally kill people. Is it a free market? Probably not free enough. Councillors who set these salaries check what their main rivals are paying. Their main rivals will then do the same when they in turn come to set salaries and so remuneration levels tend to get bidded up.

And bankers? Apply the tests again. Desirable activity? Definitely not: by all means spend all your time in a casino but don’t come and demand a subsidy from me when you lose all your chips.

Is the market free? The bankers’ bonuses are affordable all and only because of state intervention. So letting them keep even 25% of their 2009 bonuses is far too generous.

Cllr Chris White

This post originally appeared on Liberal Democrat Voice

Were We Work We Win!

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 18:15:00 +0000

There were ten principal council by-elections held on the 10th December. The Lib Dems gained two seats from the Tories but lost one to Labour and held one. Labour took two seats off the Tories, one off the Lib Dems, one from the BNP and held one.

The Tories held two seats. In the five Parish and Town council election result reported to ALDC the Tories held one seat but lost a seat to the Lib Dems and another to an Independent. There was one hold for Labour and another for Independents.

The first gain off the Tories was in the Tavistock South ward of West Devon BC with a 33.5% increase in vote share off a very complacent Tory party who only delivered two leaflets and not to all properties in the ward. The Lib Dem campaign consisted of several Focuses, targeted blue letters, lots of telephone and doorstep canvassing and a concerted effort with the postal voters, showing again where we work we win.

The second gain off the Tories was in (ward number 3) of East Dunbartonshire UA Bearsden South, where we won at the third stage count in this STV election with 1770 against the Tories 1499 votes.

Details:

Stage 1:
Ashay Ghai LD 1110
Rachel Higgins Con 1261
Fiona Grace McLeod SNP 783
Manjinder Shergill Lab 626

Stage 2 elimination of Shergill:
LD 1381
Con 1306
SNP 902

Stage 3 elimination of McLeod:
LD 1770
Con 1499

This ward is in the Parliamentary seat of Lib Dem MP Jo Swinson, who has worked the whole constituency hard. One of the good things to come from this by-election is that after losing control of the council in 2007 the local party have used this by-election to give new impetus to the campaign for the 2012 council elections.

In the Heron Ward of Rushmoor BC we lost a seat to Labour after one of our councillors was disqualified for none attendance. We ran a full campaign but had a reduction of 8.1%, which meant we lost the seat by 83 votes.

So as you can see when we put the work in we reap the rewards.

More Success in Redcar

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 16:28:00 +0000

There were two principal council by-elections held on the 3rd December. The Lib Dems held one seat and Labour took a seat off the Tories. In the only Parish and Town council election result reported to ALDC the Tories took a seat from Labour.

In the Ormesby Ward of Redcar and Cleveland Unitary Authority we held the seat comfortably increasing our share of the vote in an already safe ward . The by-election was held due to the resignation of long serving Lib Dem Councillor Eric Empson and was the sixth in just over twelve months in Redcar constituency and our 4th win. The Lib Dems have taken three from Labour and held one. Labour have held two. It is important to out campaign your opposition however safe a ward may seem. In this case we did so by putting out five leaflets to Labour three and UKIP’s one and were the only party to target the postal vote. It also helps to have a strong candidate; its often tempting to try to save your best candidates for the target “gain” wards but local by-elections can be very intense and it is wise to select a strong candidate. Redcar and Cleveland did this by selecting well known bus campaigner Ann Wilson.

The composition of the Council is now:
Labour - 25
Liberal Democrats - 16
Conservative - 11
Independents supporting Labour - 4
Independents – 3

In Redcar constituency Liberal Democrats now hold 16 seats, to Labour’s 16 and the Tories 3.

In the Dane Valley Ward of Thanet council in Kent, the Tories dropped from first to third in one by-election. A fine example of how not to do it. Our campaign took us from not having a candidate to within 58 votes of winning our first councillor on Thanet District council.

We are now running at 17 net gains for the year to date in principal local by-elections.

Help for council budget setting

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 12:00:00 +0000

The LGA Lib Dem office is holding a session on budget setting on 7 January aimed at finance portfolio holders or those responsible for setting opposition budgets.

Gerald Vernon-Jackson (Leader of Portsmouth City Council and a national IDeA peer) and Derek Osbourne (Leader of the London Borough of Kingston-upon-Thames and an IDeA board member) will provide advice on the detailed goals and parameters required for a budget that will withstand the intense scrutiny of press, opposition groups and others.

The session will be held at Local Government House but there will be webcasting and teleconferencing facilities for those participating remotely. A registration fee of £25 will be charged for those attending in person; for more info contact Jake Beavan at jake.beavan@lga.gov.uk or on 020 7664 3293.

Kickstart success

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 13:45:00 +0000

Thank you to everyone who came along to Kickstart and made it such a huge success. This is the biggest Kickstart event we've ever done and there was a real buzz about the whole weekend, and we have high hopes now of many of the council groups who attended having excellent results in the coming years.

If you want to find out more about what you missed, then Alex Foster has written an excellent article on Liberal Democrat Voice about the weekend and gives a sense of what happened. Our favourite quotes include:

"During the weekend, several of them told me that they had been dreading the weekend as a completely new and scary experience, but by the end of the three days, all of us were, without exception, impressed by the training we’d received and how welcome we’d all been made to feel."

and

"ALDC’s tracking data shows that ALDC members are much more likely to win elections than non-members – and that Kickstart attendees still more likely than that. My team is already considering who we’ll send to next year’s event, and there is no question in our mind we got value for our money."

Liberal Democrats 3, Conservatives 0

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 17:23:00 +0000

What a week! Not only did we gain three seats, but they were all at the expense of the Conservatives, which goes to show that no matter how high they are in the polls we can still beat them.

In June, we underperformed across Cornwall but one of the bright spots was in the new St. Austell & Newquay constituency. Despite this, St. Austell Bay was the 3^rd safest Conservative seat in the county. Our candidate was a well known community activist, whereas the Tory candidate didn’t even live in the town – although he was their agent for Cornwall. Both parties matched each other leaflet for leaflet, but we also managed to knock on every door twice. Controversial local planning issues were a key part of the campaign, and these were tied in to a new national Tory policy that would give money to councils in return for approving more planning applications. Under the superb organisation of award-winning agent Hamish McCallum we achieved a 14% swing, which bodes well for Stephen Gilbert at the General Election.

In Stratford-on-Avon we are going from strength to strength. We now have all three county divisions in the town, eight out of 11 district seats and 12 out of 18 town council seats. This ward was once one of the Conservative’s best wards, but after campaigning hard on the issue of overdevelopment and with an intensive literature campaign we now have two of the three councillors.

In High Peak we won back a seat that we had gained once before in a previous by-election. Our candidate was well known in the largest village in the ward – Chinley – and so this helped us on our way to victory. This result will be particularly badly news for the Conservatives in a must-win parliamentary seat where Labour’s majority is just 735.

Although it was an excellent week for the party overall, we did lose a seat in Knowsley in Merseyside, where Labour upped their game and campaigned hard for victory.

Cllr Chris White on... libraries

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 17:13:00 +0000

Cllr Chris White (Hertfordshire County Councillor and St. Albans City Councillor - as well as being a member of the ALDC Management Committee) has written a piece for Liberal Democrat Voice on the archaic and centralised legislation that the government is trying to use to boss the Wirral around on libraries services.

Highlights include:

"It requires libraries to maintain adequate (a term it does not define) stocks of books and other printed matter, and pictures, gramophone records, films and other materials. So it does recognise that we have moved on from the codex – but is inevitably not so hot on the internet or DVDs."

and

"The Charteris report into the Wirral published this week is a classic case of central government interference of dubious legality – an expert who has been brought in to substitute her prejudices (unchallengeable at the ballot box) for those of elected councillors who were taking reasoned and reasonable political risks for which they knew they were accountable."

To read more, go to Chris White's article here at Liberal Democrat Voice.

Don't Forget ALDC at Christmas!

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 12:00:00 +0000

An easy way to support ALDC at this time of year - WITHOUT spending any extra money - is to make use of our Amazon and ITunes links.

Both of these work in exactly the same way - you have the normal full Amazon and ITunes websites, but for every purchase you make ALDC receives a small fee from Amazon or ITunes - you don't pay a penny more!

Amazon is a mail order website, one of the biggest in the world. Amazon isn't just books nowadays, departments include: baby, beauty, mobile phones, clothes, electrics magazines and music.

ITunes is the main source of music downloads in the world - but is also good for films, TV shows, and those "apps" that people have on their IPhones! You can also buy ITunes gift vouchers which can be a great gift for people who listen to music on their IPod or similar!

To buy gifts from Amazon, and support ALDC - click here.

To buy gifts from ITunes, and support ALDC - click here.

These links are available year round - find them at the bottom of any page on the ALDC website - www.aldc.org.

Local Government Conference 2010

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 12:00:00 +0000

An date for your new Diary!

The 2010 Local Government Conference will take place on Friday 18 and Saturday 19 June 2010 in London.

Nick Clegg addressing the 2009 Local Government Conference in Sheffield.

Friday will be satellite events during the day, and the Liberal Democrat Local Government Dinner in the evening.

Saturday will be a one day conference featuring speeches, debate, training, discussion and exhibition.

The Local Government Conference is jointly organised by ALDC and the LGA Liberal Democrat Group. Our previous conferences in Birmingham and Sheffield have been a great chance for Lib Dem Councillors and local campaigners to get together.

Registration will be online straight away in the new year.

If you're interested in organising a fringe event, a satellite event, training or being part of our exhibition please get in touch with Emma Hall or Tim Pickstone at ALDC.

Get in on the ACT

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 12:00:00 +0000

Party members will probably already heard about the Party's new "online networking and campaigning" website - Act.

Why not sign up and join our group for all Lib Dem Councillors - ALDC!

Act is a place where Lib Dem supporters can connect with one another, organise events and campaigns, share photos and videos, and talk about politics. It's open to anyone with Liberal Democrat sympathies, whether they're Party members or not.

Nick Clegg has recorded a short video explaining what we want to help people to achieve: see the video on Act.

Once you've joined up - click on "groups" - and "join group" when you see ALDC! You can set up your own groups as soon as you are a member.

There are no doubt many ways that Councillors and local campaigners can interact on Act - let us know if you have ideas and we can give them a go.

Starting from Scratch

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:01:00 +0000

There were four principal council by-elections held on the 19th November. The Tories lost one seat to an Independent and hled one seat. Labour gained one seat from an Independent and the SNP held a seat. In the only Parish and Town council election result reported to ALDC the Tories held the seat.

In the very rural Cholmondeley Ward of East Cheshire Unitary Council our candidate was Bryan Halson. We ran a one-leaflet campaign in a very challenging area for us. Not only had the there been little political activity from us in the recent past it was also physically challenging. The problem here is sheer distance, taking 45 minutes to drive across the ward and lots of dispersed housing. The new Unitary Authority is still working on the old (very large) county ward boundaries and the Boundary Commission is currently looking at boundary changes. We focussed our effort in the area that could be delivered. One village was targeted for work as it will make up the heart of a new ward just proposed Here we got 32% in its box on the night and so the team are planning to build on this.

In the Coleford East ward of the Forest of Dean council in Gloucestershire we nearly won from a standing start. Following recent by-election success we threw all our resources at this one and got within 37 votes of victory. We did not even stand a candidate last time it was fought but with the enthusiasm generated by the Mitcheldean and Drybrook victory in August we fought vigorously.

Finally, two reminders. Don't forget that the final date for getting on the electoral register that will be used for council nominations is Friday 5th February. Whilst this feels like some way off it will no doubt come round very quickly and you don't want to leave it until it's too late. If you're still in the process of approving your candidates don't forget that we have advice on our website to help you do this too.

LGA recruiting new Head of Lib Dem Office

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:00:00 +0000

The Local Government Association is recruiting a new Head of the Liberal Democrat Office to replace Ed Fordham, moving to a new role with the LGA.

The job description says that:

"Liberal Democrats in Local Government are looking for a experienced senior advisor to manage the political activity in the Local Government Association (LGA). You will work directly with the Leader of the Group, the Executive and Cabinet furthering our interests within the LGA and also within local government. Working across local government in England and Wales, in Westminster and Whitehall you will contribute to all aspects at the highest levels. In addition you will need experience of managing staff and budgets, leading high profile events and managing resources to achieve our objectives."

For more details about the post, you can find out more on the w4mp website.

Lib Dems in local government respond to Queen's Speech

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 12:00:00 +0000

Liberal Democrats in local government have responded to yesterday's Queen's Speech emphasising the lack of any concrete proposals that will make a real difference to people's lives. Instead, the speech has been described as "a fantasy Queen’s Speech from a government that has run out of road in a Parliament that has lost the people’s trust."

Liberal Democrat Leader in the Local Government Association, Cllr Richard Kemp said:

“The Child Poverty Bill and the Equality Bill as outlined in the Queens Speech today are high on rhetoric and low on deliverability - in short they are mere gestures.

“I have already given evidence to the Committee scrutinising the Child Poverty Bill which is a hangover from the last Parliament. Giving us a duty without the means to deliver that duty is an empty gesture.

“The same applies to the Equality Bill. I know of no council, irrespective of political control, that is not aware of the gaps between rich and poor and between a variety of communities. The Government needs to get real about what can and cannot be done by councils without further legislation to transfer cash and powers back to us.”

For more details on Nick Clegg's response to the Queen's Speech, go to the Liberal Democrat website

ALDC members can also download a detailed response from the LGA here

The Really Useful Party

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:50:00 +0000

There were three principal council by-elections held on the 12th November. The Tories gained two seats, one from an Independent and one from the Lib Dems. In the only Parish and Town council election result reported to ALDC the Lib Dems held the seat.

In the Totnes Bridgetown Ward by-election for South Hams District Council in Devon we held a seat in a split ward. Our candidate was well known as the local community bus driver, and this time there was no Independent. We concentrated on canvassing and then getting our supporters to turn out. In contrast the Tories just didn't work as hard and knocked-up every single house regardless of voting intention.

In the Shepway council seat of New Romney Coast in 2007 we narrowly won both seats by 20 votes over the Tories. But by September one of our councillors had defected to the Tories, one of a number of defections from the group in recent years. It was this “defected” councillor's resignation that caused the by-election. Technically a loss to the Tories but it felt like a Tory hold.

Most active campaigners will be preparing their Christmas focuses and perhaps Christmas cards and calendars as well. This is a really good time to include some direct mail. You could perhaps a personal “blue” letter into the envelope with your Christmas cards. Why not deliver to your “pool” along with your calendars with a New Year , new politics message?

Calendars are particularly useful as they emphasis how we can help and be genuinely, really useful. Many people keep them and pin them to notice boards at home or work, which gives them a permanent reminder of the local Liberal Democrat team.

Key features
·    Full calendar for 2010
·    Dates of advice surgeries highlighted on the calendar - if you don't have surgeries you could use this space to tell people what to do if they need help from their local Liberal Democrat team (you could also colour in the term dates on the calendar as well if you wished)
·    A place to put in the contact details for local councillors, MP, PPC or MEP
·    Contact numbers for key local services - this is often one of the main reasons keep our calendar over any others they might get.
Templates are available on the ALDC website for members.

London candidates' mailing

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 13:40:00 +0000

All known Liberal Democrat candidates and retiring councillors in London received a bumper mailing this week with information to help them win in 2010.

Next year's London elections are a big challenge. It is likely to be the first time there have been local elections and a general election on the same day - ever! But there are many places around the country who have considerable experience of winning both councils and parliamentary seats on the same day. Likewise, recent elections results show that it is possible to buck the trend and keep picking up council seats even in Labour - Conservative marginal parliamentary seats. So there's no need to panic.

The recent mailing included tips and goood practice as well as details on ALDC's services to help you win. Also enclosed was a copy of London Campaigner with help specially tailored to help campaigners in London. A PDF copy of London Campaigner can also be downloaded by ALDC members. Everyone also received a complimentary copy of ALDC's Winning Elections Volume 1, which you can also buy from the ALDC shop.

If you didn't receive a copy of this mailing then please make sure you send us details of your candidates for next year's elections using our online form.

Keeping within the Limits

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 15:43:00 +0000

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

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

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

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

SIX Months to WIN!

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:00:00 +0000

Today is six months to the most likely polling day for a UK General Election, and for crucial local elections in London and much of England.

We do not need to tell you that these are vital elections for both the Liberal Democrats and the people that we represent and campaign for.

Support for our General Election work will obviously be coming from the Party at many levels. In addition to helping with the General Election effort, ALDC will be ensuring that there is help and support in place to ensure we succeed in the local elections as well.

Training - our busy programme of training for the elections is nearing its conclusion this year with Regional Conferences, and the (fully booked) Kickstart Residential Weekend.

Candidate Support Programme - For the first time we'll be sending out a Liberal Democrat "Candidates Handbook" at the start of January free for all Lib Dem candidates in the local electons. It will contain all the essential advice that candidates need about elections, staying on the right side of the law, campaign planning, and crucially where to go for more help. This is being accompanied by monthly Election Briefing emails

But we can only send the information if we have the candidates. Register your candidates this weekend online here.

Last Minute Candidate Helpline

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:00:00 +0000

As part of the Liberal Democrat programme of the Be A Councillor initiative, an Candidate Advice Helpline service is being offered for Liberal Democrats with local elections in 2010.

If you are having issues finding the right number and quality of candidates, the helpline will be able to talk you through the issues, give you ideas about where to look and who to ask, and other practical information and advice.

To arrange help, please email lastminute@aldc.org, answering the following questions in your email.

Name of council

Your contact details: name

Your contact details: phone

Your contact details: email

Total no. of councillors

Total no. of councillors to be elected

No of Lib Dem held seats to be contested

No of candidates selected & approved for these Lib Dem held seats

No of other candidates approved & selected for other TARGET seats

No of other Lib Dem candidates approved & selected for other seats

All questions apply only to this council and only to elections to this council on 6th May 2010.

Remember, Remember the 11th November

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 16:22:00 +0000

There was one principal council by-election held on the 29th October. The Liberal Democrats held the seat. There was one Parish and Town council election results reported to ALDC, a Tory hold.

In the Huntingdon North Ward of Huntingdonshire District Council they had their third election of the year. The County elections were followed by a town council by-election where we made a gain off the Tories before our sitting district councillor moved. In a two-member ward the Tories had won well in 2008 and in the by-election we were defending a majority of 19 from 2007. Our strong campaign was matched with a five-leaflet UKIP campaign, which may have taken votes from the Tories. UKIP tried to mobilise resentment in a very deprived ward against East European migrants whilst Labour mobilised them to vote. We ran a proficient campaign holding all others off to increase our majority from 19 to 30.

The 11th of November is the first date on which a death or resignation of a councillor who would otherwise be up for re-election on May 6th 2010 will cease to cause a by-election under the “six month rule”. To avoid unnecessary by-elections for the last six months of a councillor’s period of office no by-election is normally held if they resign or die. The vacancy is held open until the normal date for the election of that office. This Is not to be confused with the other 6 month rule that relates to the disqualification of any councillor who fails to attends council meetings for 6 months.

The six-month rule applies only when the vacancy is deemed to have occurred within six months. It is not enough that the election has only been triggered within the six months. So an October death, will cause a by-election even though the election may not be triggered until the vacancy is formally notified, which could be later and within six months of the next election. For those who would normally be up for election on May 6th 2010, their term of office would expire on May 10th 2010 (4 days after the election) and therefore resignations, deaths etc that occur after November 10th 2009 will not trigger a by election.

The truth about Watford's ban on parents in playgrounds

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:54:00 +0000

A number of national newspapers have been carrying stories about Liberal Democrat-run Watford Borough Council banning parents from parks throughout the borough. Indeed the story even made it to the front page of the Metro. But, the truth on this story is very different.

The reality is that the only places affected by this ban on parents is TWO adventure playgrounds, that are specifically designed as supervised play facilities. Every other playground in the borough is still free, open, unsupervised and can be freely accessed by parents. In fact, parents have always been able to enter these adventure playgrounds to help settle their children in. But, just as with nursery schools, parents then leave their children in the care of council staff, so they don't get in the way of the activities that are taking place.

Liberal Democrats are used to getting unfair coverage in the press. But it's a shame that when we achieve the front page of a national paper, it's as a result of an unfair and misleading story.

You can read more about this story from local Lib Dem councillor Sara Bedford.

Kickstart FULL

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:46:00 +0000

Please note that ALDC's Weekend Kickstart event 27-29 November 2009 is FULL.

The weekend event, the main training event in the year for Lib Dem volunteer campaigners has been heavily oversubscribed this year, and as a result we are unable to take any further bookings.

It is brilliant that so many people are keen to get involved and kickstart their campaign. More information emma.hall@aldc.org

ALDC Signs-up to 10:10 Campaign

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:18:00 +0000

ALDC Management Committee at its meeting on 24 October 2009 agreed to "join-up" the Assocation to the 10:10 Campaign to reduce carbon emissions by 10% in 2010, and to encourage members and all Lib Dem Councillors to support the campaign.

10:10 is a broad campaign to ensure that we make positive start to reducing carbon emmissions immediately, rather than relying on long term targets alone.

Already many Councils, have signed up to 10:10 - including many Lib Dem run and influenced councils. If yours hasn't then there is a model Council Motion (for ALDC Gold Members) here.

Everyone can sign up to 10:10, and already individual Lib Dem Council Groups have joined up, as have companies, NHS Trusts, charities, trades unions and more. Individuals can sign up too!

Here's the individuals 10 point plan for cutting emissions:

ALDC's Management Committee have asked the staff team to develop an action plan for the Association to reduce its own carbon footprint by at least 10% by the end of 2010. We'll keep you updated on how we achieve this.

Tory 'morons' attack on Cotswold Lib Dems

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 12:00:00 +0000

The Conservatives on Cotswold District Council are in deep water after describing local Liberal Democrat councillors as morons on Facebook.

Tory council leader Lynden Stowe and fellow councillor Chris Roberts said that local Lib Dem rivals "have a reputation... for being morons" on Facebook. The comments were then reported to the press by friends of the councillors, rather than by any Liberal Democrat members.

Despite this, rather than apologising the Conservatives have gone on the defensive accusing the Lib Dems of stirring up trouble and complaining that Facebook must have been infiltrated by Lib Dem sympathisers. The comments have now been reported on the BBC website, on local TV news and on the front page of the local newspaper.

Local Lib Dem Leader Paul Hodgkinson is now considering whether to report the Conservative councillors to the Standards Board for England.

Tory housing plans - bribery or merely compensation

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:00:00 +0000

In a speech to the IPPR, Conservative Shadow Housing Minister Grant Shapps has announced what a possible Conservative government would do to encourage more house building. Some has been announced before, but the speech emphasised what the Conservatives believe are key.

The centrepiece is a proposal to scrap regional and national housing targets, but instead encourage councils to accept housing by increasing funding for local services. In many respects it is similar to the current Section 106 agreements whereby developers must pay for improvements in the local area, if their planning application is approved. However, the Conservative proposals would actually agree to allocate 100% of the council tax from any new homes (or 125% for social housing) towards improving services in that community. The intention being that local communities would welcome new housing if they felt they were getting an actual benefit for their local area. Grant Shapps also believes this would therefore allow councillors to campaign for more housing in their community as they would genuinely benefit, rather than having to become NIMBYs to keep on the right side of local residents.

In his speech, Grant Shapps also promoted some ideas that Liberal Democrats will welcome, such as increasing the amount of the business rates that is retained locally and ensuring that major development projects must involve the community from the beginning when being planned. However, one thing that will concern Liberal Democrats is the suggestion that Planning Control Committees may be removed from the process completely when applications are made by Local Housing Trusts, (a Conservative idea where communities would be able to set up a trust to build affordable homes just for local residents). In effect Local Housing Trusts would give themselves planning permission.

It is good to see the different parties actually discussing housing issues - an issue that has long been neglected - but whether these proposals will be what people who are struggling to find suitable places to live actually need, is another question.

Updated Advice on Candidate Approval and Councillor Contributions

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:00:00 +0000

Selections for council candidates are now well underway in most areas with local elections next May; and if they aren't then now is the time to start.

Many areas have had robust approval procedures for a number of years, but this is now compulsory for all candidatess wanting to stand for the Liberal Democrats in council elections in England. The English Liberal Democrats have also brought in new rules that require candidates in England to make a financial contribution to aid party campaigning if they get elected. Again, this has been standard practice for a long time in many areas, but this is now a requirement in England and highly recommended in Scotland and Wales.

To help local parties implement these changes, and to improve their current procedures if they do it already, ALDC had produced guidance that is available to ALDC members via the ALDC website (don't forget you need your email address and ALDC membership number to access the website).

Currently available on the website (for ALDC Members) is:

Approving council candidates
Councillors contributions
Setting up council co-ordinating groups

We will also be updating our guidance on selecting candidates in the near future. Please remember to log-in as an ALDC member first.

Please note that these materials are a CONSULTATION DRAFT and we would welcome your welcome feedback on this guidance to make sure that it is as clear and as useful as possible. Feedback should be sent to Anders Hanson at anders.hanson@aldc.org

In this busy period in the run up to the General Election and important local elections in many areas it is important to keep campaigning! Rules are important, but please don't stop campaigning. If you have any problems or issues please don't hesitate to contact the team at ALDC.

Unlucky for some

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 15:32:00 +0000

There were nine principal council by-elections held on the 22nd October. The Tories held seven seats and gained one from an independent unopposed and the Liberal Democrats held one seat. There were no Parish and Town council election results reported to ALDC.

In the Vale Of White Horse DC, Abingdon Dunmore Ward we held the seat seemingly comfortably. The relatively small shift between the Tories and us doesn't really tell the whole story as this ward is half of one of the County seats we lost in June, Abingdon North, with this result:

LD                   1177                37.9%
Con                  1402                45.2%
Grn                    334                10.8%
Lab                    189                  6.1%

The campaign was fought very hard by both us and the Tories. The by-election was caused by our councillor, Tim Smith, moving to Australia because of work. We were lucky to find a young and enthusiastic candidate, Julia Bricknell, who was born and brought up in the ward.

During the eight weeks up to polling day we delivered six Focuses and four sets of target letters, eve of poll and good morning. We did a very thorough canvass - 61% contact during the by-election and an overall total of 88% on Latest.

We also knocked on about half the doors in the ward with a petition on a big local issue - the need for an improved junction at north Abingdon with the A34 - an issue which put the Tories on the back foot. This issue dominated the campaign right up to polling day when Dr Evan Harris MP asked a question in parliament about it.

We concentrated hard on the postal vote, both signing up supporters and then targeting them up to when the postal votes were delivered. We did three target letters and also did targeted door-knocking in the days running up to them being delivered. The turnout of postal voters was 82% (!) and they contributed a good proportion of our majority.

In the Nevile Ward of Rushcliffe Borough Council in Nottinghamshire we lost out by just 13 votes. The huge swing was down to a lot of hard work by our team. The 84 year old Tory councillor had been on the council since 1960! Six un-wasted weeks after his death the Tories had still not called the election, so we did. The ward had been part of a targeted county division and so received some Focuses but being very rural it had not previously been seen as “good territory”. Our first leaflet was a clear guide to a new bus service establishing us as actually useful to the electorate. Our second was a survey. Our candidate lived in the ward but did not quite believe the canvass returns. It’s frustrating to lose by a small amount, after recounts but the Thank You Focus is alreadyat the printers and we are now targeting 2011!

Elsewhere in Eriswell & the Rows Ward of Forest Heath District council in Suffolk we stood a candidate and nearly pulled off another great result with a 39.6% increase in our vote.

The Tories one gain came unopposed in the Sibsey Ward of East Lindsey District Council in Lincolnshire. Technically it was a gain from East Lindsey Independent not only did we not stand in the by-election, the deceased East Lindsey Independent had been elected unopposed in May 2007. Always stand a candidate

John Bridges

RESULT!

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 15:55:00 +0000

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

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

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

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

Dave Hodgson wins Bedford mayoralty

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 15:22:00 +0000

Congratulations to Dave Hodgson, who has just been elected as the new Liberal Democrat directly-elected mayor of Bedford.

Dave won through after second preferences were taken in to account, beating the Conservative candidate Parvez Akhtar by 2,012 votes. Labour were eliminated in the first round where they came fifth, despite having the current MP for the town. The full results are available here. The by-election was caused by the sad death of the former Independent mayor Frank Branston.

Dave is well known to party activists as the former Membership Development Officer for the English Liberal Democrats. He stood down from the job at the start of the year to concentrate on making sure that the Liberal Democrats became the biggest party in the unitary elections in June. This we did, and now it has been topped off with him being elected as mayor.

Congratulations to everyone who worked so hard to achieve the result, in particular to Christine McHugh who was the previous candidate and this time's election agent, (as well as being Dave's wife).

One up, One Down

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 16:28:00 +0000

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

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

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

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

John Bridges
John.bridges@aldc.org

Three More Gains

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 16:09:00 +0000

There were eleven principal council by-elections held on 1st October. Labour held four seats, the Tories two and the Lib Dems one. The Lib Dems took one seat off the Tories and two off independents. Labour gained one seat off an Independent in Scotland. There were no Parish and Town council elections reported to ALDC.

The Independent today quoted the press association “The post-conference "Brown bounce" failed to show in the latest council by-elections, although the Tories were hit by a huge surge to the Liberal Democrats.” This may be true looking at their narrow analysis of 5 three-way by-elections. I think perhaps a more important figure, however, is that we have made 15 net gains in by-elections in the year to date whilst the Tories have lost 18.

Broadlands is one of those councils that only anoraks and East Anglians could probably place. It’s on the outskirts of Norwich and includes much of the Norfolk Broads. In the Wroxham ward by-election we stood a 19 year old local boy, Ben McGilvray, a 2nd year History student at York University who increased our vote by a stunning 58%. His victory makes him the youngest Liberal Democrat Councillor on a principal council that ALDC is aware of (tell us if we’re wrong!). A lacklustre Tory campaign could not cope with a vibrant campaign focusing on the big local issues; the proposed EcoTown and the Norfolk Hub.

In Walsingham Ward, of pilgrimage fame, we did not have issues as strong as those in Wroxham but it does fall within Norman Lamb’s parliamentary constituency. In May we won the County seat and our campaign built on this to produce a 32% increase in the vote.

Our third gain of the day was in Droitwich South West Ward of Wychavon District council in Wocestershire. Here we started with a survey and identified the issue of the future of the Brine Bath, a key part of Droitwich’s heritage and identity threatened by the Tories with closure.

Our candidate took the issue to heart and got coverage on the issue in the local media as well as our own literature. Our campaign team could hardly believe their luck when the Tory decision to finally close the Bath was published on the front page of the local free paper on the day before the election. We, of course, included it in our eve of poll and good morning leaflets. A good day for Liberal Democrats.

Strong Leaders in Local Government

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 16:36:00 +0000

One of the most significant changes in the operation of local government will take affect following next year's local government elections (and already has in the county councils that were elected this June). Yet, this change has gone largely unnoticed by many people in the wider world. Perhaps because, like the original change to the cabinet system, non-politicians are more interested in the outcomes of local government, than the organisation of it.

The big change though is the introduction of what is known as the "strong leader" model of local government. This change has come about through the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007. This piece of legislation scraps the right for smaller local authorities to retain their committee systems and also removes the option of a directly-elected mayor and council manager option, which was thoroughly discredited in the only council that adopted it - Stoke-on-Trent. This means that all councils will have to be run either by a directly-elected mayor or through a leader and cabinet.

Much has been written before about a the virtues or otherwise of directly-elected mayors. As the majority of places that have had a referendum on having a directly-elected mayor have rejected the idea it seems odd that Labour (and now the Conservatives too) are still pushing the idea. This means that most places, following a consultation, will end up going with the "strong leader" model. This option includes a number of key changes that will worry many Liberal Democrats:

Once elected by full council, the leader will continue in office for four years - until the year they are due for re-election.
The leader will be able to choose their own cabinet which must include at least two other councillors.
The budget can only be defeated if at least two-thirds vote it down.

The result of this is to hand huge powers to the leader, which could be especially problematic in councils where there is no overall majority or where a leader turns out to be a controversial figure. Whilst it can be argued that councils will be more able to "get on with it", it reduces the power of backbenchers even further and would mean that new councillors have no say in who the leader is for many years once they have already been appointed. It also means that whilst in opposition council groups can elect their leader annually and have a say in the cabinet, once in power they can only elect their leader once every four years and have no say in the cabinet.

To try and retain democracy, ALDC is suggesting that Liberal Democrat council groups continue to hold annual elections for leader and cabinet/shadow cabinet. This would however rely on the goodwill and sense of decency of the leader to respect their democratically expressed wishes, as there would be no way of stopping them appointing different people once elected in to power.

We are also working on suitable clauses to include in the Model Standing Orders (some clauses have already been included, but we would like to improve on them) to ensure that any leader who ignores their group's wishes can be dealt with. We would also like to hear more from Liberal Democrats around the country on what they are doing to implement the new law whilst adhering as much as possible to Liberal Democrat principles. If you have any "good practice" from your area, do let us know by emailing anders.hanson@aldc.org

Sheffield make the 50th Group Member for ALDC

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:00:00 +0000

Sheffield City Council Liberal Democrat Group became the 50th Lib Dem Council Group to become Group Members of ALDC at Federal Conference in Bournemouth.

Sheffield joined the ranks of major cities run by the Lib Dems with a sensational victory in May 2008 and is now one of the largest Lib Dem groups in the country with 44 Councillors.

ALDC Group Membership is when a whole council group joins ALDC together, and in return receives a 12% discount on all membership subscriptions. Existing group members range from major Lib Dem groups in control like Richmond, Bristol and Stockport to our smallest group members North Ayrshire and Burgess Hill Town Council. Many Groups have also chosen to add their group researcher, constituency organiser and target candidates as members.

Get more details on Group Membership for your group from Emma Hall, Membership Services Officer 01422 843 785.

Photo: Party President Ros Scott with Sheffield Group Leader Cllr Paul Scriven.

Conference Training Survey

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 14:51:00 +0000

We're doing a survey of ALDC's Training at Federal Conference. We're always trying to improve our training output, so if you've got a few seconds please help us by completing this short online survey.

Even if you didn't make it to ALDC training this year, we'd still like to hear your views.

Don't worry its only three screens long - so it really is sixty seconds!

Complete the survey here.

Help elect another Lib Dem Mayor

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 13:42:00 +0000

There are just TWO weeks to go until polling day in the Bedford Mayoral by-election. We have a real chance of winning thanks to our excellent candidate Dave Hodgson. Dave will be well known to many Liberal Democrat members thanks to his former role as the party's Membership Development Officer. He is now the Liberal Democrat Group Leader on Bedford Council, where we overtook the Conservatives to become the largest group on the council in June. The campaign has also been helped by disarray in the Conservative camp - more details here.

The campaign has just taken delivery of 50,000 tabloid newspapers and they have a letter to postal voters that MUST get out ASAP. There’s more stuff happening after that of course! The campaign could really do with your help with delivering. If you can’t come and deliver please email admin@DaveForMayor.org.uk to ask for some phone canvassing.

If you’d like to donate, please send cheques payable to “North Bedfordshire Liberal Democrats” to the local party treasurer at 71 Ruffs Furze, Oakley, Bedford, MK43 7RT.

Please help. 15th October will either see a PR coup for Cameron ahead of the General Election or the second Lib Dem Elected Mayor – please help us make sure it’s the latter!

To find out more about Dave, watch his message here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRXvwCUbBaM

www.DaveForMayor.org.uk

Celebration and Thanksgiving for the life of Councillor Maggie Clay CBE

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 12:00:00 +0000

We have been asked by colleagues and friends in Leeds to circulate this information about a Celebration and thanksgiving for the life of Councillor Maggie Clay CBE.

Maggie was a much loved and missed former Political Secretary for the Association of Liberal Councillors, and a Councillor in both Leeds and Stockport who passed away earlier in the year.

Celebration and thanksgiving for the life of Councillor Maggie Clay CBE.

Saturday 10 October 2009

3.00p.m. at St. Agnes Church, Stoney Rock Lane, Burmantofts, Leeds 9

Afterwards in St. Agnes’ Church Hall for tea and cakes.

For those who can stay longer, an opportunity for reminiscing accompanied by Maggie’s election hotpot (original 1973 recipe!)

Whether or not you went to the official Memorial Service in Stockport, you are warmly invited to come to Burmantofts, the birthplace of Maggie’s espousal of Liberal community politics and where her legacy carries on. Come and sing ‘The Land’

Bed and breakfast can be provided for those coming the night before or wanting to stay on Saturday night. Contact Christine Brett on 0113 266 8536 or christinebrett@btinternet.com for more details.

To help with catering please let Christine Brett know if you plan to attend.

Reclaiming the Green Agenda

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 12:00:00 +0000

Reclaiming the Green Agenda" was ALDC's most popular fringe at last week's Bournemouth Federal Conference.

Speakers included:
- Simon Hughes MP
- Tony Bosworth (Friends of the Earth)
- Cllr Louise Bloom (Eastleigh BC)
- Cllr Alexis Rowell (LB Camden)
with Cllr Andrew Dakers (LB Hounslow) in the Chair.

We've recorded the fringe as a "podcast". A few different options for listening. There are a variety of ways of listening or downloading the episode at our "podbean" page - click here.

Let us know about any technical issues, as we've not tried this before!.

Challenging the Tories in Tendring

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 15:38:00 +0000

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

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

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

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

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

ALDC Management Committee 2009-2010

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 12:00:00 +0000

Nominations for the ALDC Management Committee for 2009-2010 have now closed and the following report of the Returning Officer has been issued:

Report of Returning Officer

Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors 2009-2010

At the close of nominations on 23 September 2009 the following nominations had been received. As the number of nominations does not exceed the number of vacancies there will be no need for a postal ballot of the members on this occasion:

President: Cllr Mike Storey, Liverpool

Chair: Cllr Kath Pinnock, Kirklees

Vice-Chair (2 vacancies): Cllr Mike Ross, Hull; Cllr Claire Hudson*, Mendip

Secretary: Cllr Sarah Boad, Warwickshire

Treasurer: Mike Ward, Mole Valley

Ordinary Members (10 vacancies)

Jon Burden, Hammersmith and Fulham

Cllr Sarita Bush, Hull

Cllr Stan Collins, Cumbria/South Lakeland

Steve Hitchins, Islington

Cllr Graham Knight, Mid Sussex

Cllr Isobel McCall, Milton Keynes

Richard Ormerod, North Yorkshire

Cllr Adi Smith, Hinckley and Bosworth

Cllr Jeanette Sunderland, Bradford

Cllr Chris White, Hertfordshire

Scottish Rep: Cllr Willie Wilson*, Perth and Kinross

Welsh Rep: Cllr Veronica German, Torfaen

English Rep: no nominations

* Claire Hudson and Willie Wilson were also nominated as Ordinary Member.

Bruce Hubbard

Returning Officer

Many thanks to the retiring Management Committee, particularly to Jean Crossland, Paul Sample, David Hare, Keith Whitmore and Andrew Dakers who are not re-standing this year. Between them they had over 20 years of service on the Committee which is greatly appreciated.

Campaigner Awards 2009

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 12:00:00 +0000

The first ever "Campaigner Awards" were given by ALDC at their Annual Meeting in Bournemouth in late September. The event was kindly sponsored by Midshires and Riso, with the awards including five categories with the winning local parties getting a £100, and an overall winner with the local party receiving £500.

Many thanks to everyone who entered! Artwork (where appropriate) from all the winning entries will be available to download over the coming weeks for ALDC members (in the Campaigner: Best Practice) section.

Overall winner: Lewisham

Very good all-year-round campaigning throughout the borough from Cllr Chris Maines, Cllr Brian Robson, Cllr Dan Houghton, Cllr Philip Peake and Vijay Naidu, but in particular the winning by-election campaign in Downham when Duwyane Brooks and Jenni Clutten were elected.

Best Ward Campaign: Kensington & Chelsea

Colville Ward was gained in a July by-election giving us our first seat in the council, with campaigning organised by Robin Meltzer and with Carol Caruana as candidate.

Commended - Hardwick county division of Cambridgeshire, with campaigning organised by Martin Land and with Cllr Fiona Whelan as candidate.

Best Focus: Meon Valley

Catherington county division in Hampshire was gained by Sam Payne from the Conservatives, with a solid campaign by Andy Chatfield, Liz Leffman, Elaine Woodard and Sam Newman McKie.

Commended - Leamington North county division of Warwickshire which was held by Cllrs Sarah Boad & Eithne Goode, with artwork by Alan Boad.

Best Direct Mail: Bristol

in particular for the campaigns in Horfield (winning councillor was Cheryl Ann, and this is in Bristol North West where Paul Harrod is the PPC) and Ashley (winning councillor was Jon Rogers and this is in Bristol West where Stephen Williams is the MP).

Commended - Horsham Riverside county division of West Sussex, with a campaign by Stuart Millson and Cllr Morwen Millson.

Best literature by a volunteer campaigner: Preston

Cllr Mark Jewell and John Potter for our winning campaign in Preston North West (where Mark won) and the close result for John Potter in Preston Central South.

Commended - Spelthorne (Surrey), for their campaigns in Lower Sunbury & Halliford Division (Caroline & Lawrence Nichols) and Ashford Division (Colin Strong & Diane Appleby)

Best campaign innovation: Hertfordshire

for their Six to Fix campaign from Cllr Chris White and Susan Gaszczak, which is a slogan used elsewhere in the country but the range of materials and the way it was consistently used throughout the county and all the literature makes it stand out.

Commended - West Didsbury by-election campaign in Manchester Withington, for their 'text telling' idea where people text a code to the party when they have voted so we don’t need to knock them up, thanks to Cllr Charles Glover and winning councillor Lianne Williams.

Bournemouth Conference Report

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 12:00:00 +0000

Just to update members and other Lib Dem Councillors on our busy programme at Liberal Democrat Party conference that finished on Wednesday.

Training saw over over 40 hours from ALDC and our partners. This year the programme was divided into four themes:
- winning in 2010, with support from key individuals such as Andrew Stunell and HIlary Stephenson;
- Councillors Training, in partnership with our colleagues at the IDeA (and Centre for Public Scrutiny);
- Essential Campaign Skills, training for people new to campaigning;
- Skills and Ideas, sessions looking at a variety of issues from websites, to issues facing women councillors and recruiting candidates.

The ALDC Fringe programme kicked off with our Annual General Meeting and Campaigners Awards 2009 presented by Party President Ros Scott. See separate story here. It was great to be able to celebrate the achievements of volunteer campaigners and certainly something to build on in future years.

Both Nick Clegg and Vince Cable joined us at our ALDC Members Reception, again with the kind support of our friends at The Co-Operative. Our policy led fringes saw sessions on Transport (with Greater Manchester ITA; speakers included Norman Baker MP); on campaigning on the Environment (speakers included Simon Hughes MP) and Winning against the Far Right (speakers included Chris Davies MEP).

We hope to be able to publish a "podcast" of the Campaigning on the Environment fringe next week.

For the first time the ALDC stand saw differently themed days. We kicked off with a "Winning in 2010" day highlighting the 877 Lib Dem Councillors who face election next May. On Monday Lib Dem Councillors took part in our interactive wall demonstrating what made them an "Effective Lib Dem Councillor" and on Tuesday we highlighted the success of ALDC's MyCouncillor website platform.

More details on some of the important issues raised will be available over the coming weeks.

Many thanks for everyone's support. Photos are avalable here.

Winning in style in the Cotswolds

Sun, 20 Sep 2009 12:00:00 +0000

This week’s by-elections were a fairly uneventful lot if you consider that no seats changed hands at all. However, they were still on the whole a pretty good selection of results for the Liberal Democrats.

The Liberal Democrats in Cotswold showed how to win in style, with a resounding defence of the Water Park ward near Cirencester. We took an amazing 72% of the vote on a 32% swing from the Conservatives – something that will fill other local parties with jealousy. As well as an incredibly hard fought campaign with lots of literature backed up by masses of canvassing, the real key to our success was our candidate. The biggest issue in the ward was the controversial decision by the Conservative run council to sell some land to a developer. Our candidate Esmond Jenkins was a leading light in the community campaign against this sale, and so had a strong personal following which helped to bring on board many Soft Conservatives.

In Amersham in Buckinghamshire we were a frustrating 72 votes from victory. This division seems to be always destined to be very close, as our excellent candidate Davida Allen was beaten by just 159 votes in June and lost by 84 votes in the county council elections in 2005.

We were also agonisingly close in Redcar & Cleveland where we were just 88 votes from another amazing gain from Labour. There have been six by-elections on this council in the last year, three of which we gained, and this was the second one in the South Bank ward. We managed to keep up the momentum from our last campaign with lots of good literature and canvassing. Although we didn’t quite manage another amazing win, we did significantly better than last time. You can find out more about how Redcar & Cleveland have managed this level of success in an article in the next edition of ALDC’s Campaigner magazine.

Emergency Motion - Decent Homes

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 12:00:00 +0000

If you are going to be in Bournemouth for the Federal Conference from tomorrow, please consider supporting this Emergency Motion on Housing submitted by Camden, Sutton and Streatham Local Parties.

Here's the message from members in Camden, Sutton and Streatham:

We’re writing to ask you to support Emergency Motion number 1 on Decent Housing in the ballot between 9.00am and 1pm on Sunday 19^th

Many of you will know what a serious issue housing is in local areas across the country. Labour have failed to meet their own target to bring all social housing up to the basic Decent Homes standard, leaving millions of people in poor quality, unhealthy and overcrowded houses. Now they are raiding budgets earmarked for investing in social housing to bring it up to the Decent Homes standard – just to pay for Gordon Brown’s last desperate attempt to win votes by building a small number of new council houses.

Please read our motion on Decent Housing – copied below – and vote for it in the ballot between 9.00am and 1pm on Sunday. The Decent Homes motion is really important: it impacts on the most disadvantaged members of society and is a vitally important issue that we as Liberal Democrats need to take a lead on if we are to deliver on our rhetoric of being the real progressive party in the UK. It is a clear and powerful example of Labour failing to deliver, and betraying the very people it claims to represent. And it is a crucial issue in many local authorities and Parliamentary seats where we are in power, or fighting to win.

Ballot papers will be published in Sunday’s conference daily, and must be returned to the ballot box in the auditorium between 9am and 1pm on Sunday. Please give Emergency Motion number 1 – Decent Housing – your first preference.

Sutton Local Party
Camden Local Party
Streatham Local Party

Decent Housing

Conference notes the decision by Government to take funding promised to council tenants across England to pay for investment in their homes to bring them up to Decent Homes standards, and divert it into the Building Britain’s Futureprogramme of new house building in the run-up to the General Election.

Conference further notes that council tenants across the county are subsidising the Treasury to the tune of hundreds of millions of pounds every year without benefiting from much-needed investment in council home repairs and maintenance.

Conference condemns the Government’s betrayal of council tenants who have already suffered decades of underinvestment in housing by successive Conservative Governments.

Conference therefore calls on the government to:

1. Reverse the decision to abandon the 5% of the population whose housing is still not up to Decent Homes standards.

2. Make a firm commitment to deliver the funding promised to Arms Length Management Organisations (ALMO) which meet the 2 star rating set by the Audit Commission.

3. Ensure that the current Housing Revenue Account review allows the tenants and local authorities to have more control over the reinvestment of local council rents.

Conference adds that this is the latest example of Labour’s unfair policy on social housing investment and condemns the Government’s ideological opposition to direct and accountable local authority management of council housing, which has led to tenants being deprived of any Decent Homes investment because they have not voted in support of an ALMO or stock transfer.

Applicability: England

Bournemouth Conference - Winning in 2010

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 12:00:00 +0000

On Saturday 19 September 2009 at the Bournemouth Conference we’ve got FOUR half day sessions which are a MUST for people hoping to win in the 2010 local elections.

Two sessions in the morning focus on campaign challenges – capacity and team building, and “two elections, one polling day’ (the session called “look out for the bird!”.

Two sessions in the morning focus on campaign planning – Winning Big for areas with major parliamentary campaigns, Bucking the Trend for other areas.

At 20.00 (Highliffe Marriott) Ros Scott presents the first “Campaigner Awards” at the ALDC AGM with prizes of £1000 going to celebrate local campaign success and innovation.

Click here for a copy of the Local Government Directory for Bournemouth Federal Conference 2009. This contains details of the programme from ALDC and the LGA Liberal Democrat Group and our local government partners. If you’re going to Bournemouth, there will be a copy in your delegate’s bag on registration.

Squeezing Labour

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 17:16:00 +0000

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

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

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

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

Two Labour Councillors join Lib Dems in Redbridge

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 13:24:00 +0000

Good news has arrived from the London Borough of Redbridge, where it has been announced that two Labour councillors have defected to us. This increases our group there from 11 to 13 councillors.

The Liberal Democrats in Redbridge have been incredibly successful recently, with two by-election gains in Clementswood and Valentines. With the Conservatives losing their overall majority on the council in May as a result of a number of their councillors falling out over the election of the council leader, things are looking very good for the party in next year's London elections.

Councillor Hugh Cleaver, Leader of the Liberal Democrats on Redbridge Council said:

"the addition of two more experienced and able Councillors from the south of Ilford will add significantly to the strength of the Liberal Democrats on Redbridge Council. This means that the Liberal Democrats are in a strong position to make further advances in the 2010 elections. We are the fastest growing political party in Redbridge and we have shown we can play a key role in the running of the Borough for the benefit of all our residents"

For more details, visit the Redbridge Liberal Democrats website.

Bournemouth Highlights

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 12:00:00 +0000

Highlights for Councillors and Local Campaigners.

Saturday 19 September 2009

-2010 Local Elections Training

We’ve got FOUR half day sessions which are a MUST for people hoping to win in the 2010 local elections.

Two sessions in the morning focus on campaign challenges – capacity and team building, and “two elections, one polling day’ (the session called “look out for the bird!”.

Two sessions in the morning focus on campaign planning – Winning Big for areas with major parliamentary campaigns, Bucking the Trend for other areas.

-ALDC AGM and Campaigner Awards 2009

Ros Scott presents the first “Campaigner Awards” at the ALDC AGM with prizes of #1000 going to celebrate local campaign success and innovation.

Sunday 20 September 2009

-It’s the “Winning in 2010” day at the ALDC stand launched by Local Elections Campaign Chair Andrew Stunell MP. Find out more how ALDC can help you win in 2010.

-Be a Councillor: recruiting MORE and BETTER candidates for your council elections. What do the new English Party rules mean for you and your council?

Wessex Hotel 1pm.

-ALDC Members Reception with Nick Clegg MP and Vince Cable MP and kind support from The co-operative. ALDC members only – food and drink.

-Start of eight IDeA and ALDC Councillor Skills Training sessions on issues from credit crunch to culture, health scrutiny to member development. All top level Party and IDeA trainers.

-A new ALDC training module focusing on ways for new and backbench councillors to be heard and on how to interpret different types of behaviour they may come across in their role. The session is especially aimed at the issues affecting women, but is open to all interested in the area of gender difference and assertive behaviour

-GMITA and ALDC Transport fringe 20.00 with Norman Baker MP.

Monday 21 September 2009

-It’s the “Effective Lib Dem Councillor Day” at the ALDC stand launched by Ros Scott. Come and tell us why you’re an effective councillor? Five minute training taster sessions on the hour, every hour.

-ALDC’s Environment fringe – 20.00 with Simon Hughes MP.

-Campaign Essentials Training continues (Sunday – Tuesday all morning). Sessions aimed at getting you started in Lib Dem campaigning – all welcome.

- THE Local Government Reception – 22.00 until LATE. Rapidly becoming the event of the Conference calendar!

Tuesday 22 September 2009

-It’s the “MyCouncillor” day at the ALDC stand launched by Julia Goldsworthy MP. We’ll set up a website while-you-wait and advice for existing users.

-Be a Councillor Training for trainers. Learn how to deliver this very successful programme from the people who devised it

-Local Council, Local Parliament, more and more residents expect their council to work for them with their best interest so why won;t Government give them the powers they need? .

- Next Generation Reception, up-and-coming, the voice of the future, or the Group Leader in waiting - this is the place to be if you are able, ambitious and elected...

-ALDC Fighting the Far Right fringe with Chris Davies MEP - 20.00.

More detials from www.aldc.org or email emma.hall@aldc.org

Elections 2010 - Who's Defending What

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 16:26:00 +0000

On 6th May 2010, council elections will be held for:

32 London Boroughs (all-out)
36 Metropolitan Boroughs (thirds)
20 Unitary Authorities (thirds)
78 English Districts (thirds and halves)
4 Directly-Elected Mayors

It is also widely expected that this will be the same date as the next General Election.

In total 4,229 councillors will be elected across these councils, with the current political make-up of these councillors as follows:

1,738 Conservative Councillors
1,400 Labour Councillors
879 Liberal Democrat Councillors
33 BNP Councillors
27 Green Councillors
169 Others

Of the councils up for election in 2010, the Liberal Democrats are defending majority control in Kingston-upon-Thames, Richmond-upon-Thames, Sutton, Liverpool, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Rochdale, Sheffield, Stockport, Bristol, Hull, Portsmouth, Cambridge, Eastleigh, South Lakeland, Three Rivers and Watford, as well as the mayoralty in Watford.

Tackling Volatile Voters

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 15:05:00 +0000

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

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

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

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

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

Tory Councils told to delay Planning Applications

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 12:00:00 +0000

Conservative councils across the country are being encouraged by their parliamentary colleagues to delay major planning applications until after the next General Election.

The letter from Caroline Spelman instructs Conservative councils to continue with any legal obligations they may have, but to not push through any major schemes with undue haste. The argument for this being that the Conservatives propose abolition or part-abolition of regional spatial strategies if they win the next General Election. Caroline Spelman has also indicated that a Conservative Government would allow councils to review their Local Development Frameworks to remove any policies that were there due to regional strategies.

These delaying tactics are most likely to affect major commercial developments, as well as housing schemes. Whilst this may be welcomed by Liberal Democrats in some areas, it has also been criticised by those who see an urgent need to build new housing developments.

More details are available from Regen.net and Planning Daily.

Northern Star

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 12:00:00 +0000

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

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

Shabby Deals

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 16:32:00 +0000

There were four principal council by-elections held on Thursday 20th August. The Liberal Democrats gained two seats from Independents but lost one to the Conservatives. The Tories held one seat In the only parish and Town council elections reported to ALDC the Lib Dems held one seat and lost one seat to the Conservatives.

In the Hucknall Central Ward of Ashfield District council, Nottinghamshire the local Liberal Democrats continue to march onward apace. Following dramatic recent electoral progress they had formed the district council's minority administration following the 2008 elections. Then in May this year a cabal of Labour, Independents and the Tories then conspired to oust the Lib Dem administration re-instating Labour much to the fury of local residents. In June’s County elections the Lib Dems made four gains from Labour and have now stormed to success in this District by-election as well. The Liberal Democrats remain the biggest group on the District Council with 13 seats.

In the Mitcheldean and Drybrook Ward, Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire we had come second in the county elections from June and had seen a possible district by-election coming. This had allowed us to identify a potential candidate early and prioritise the County “Thank You” and surveying for this district ward, culminating in us calling the by-election. Our campaign was not innovative from a national perspective, but was novel locally including strong postal vote, volume of literature, clear messaging, blue letters, direct mail, eve of poll, good mornings and two knock ups. It was also handy that we had the only local candidate.

In the Saxilby ward of West Lindsay council in Lincolnshire we lost the seat to the Tories. Our councillor had become an Independent before she resigned and then fought and wonthe by-election as a Tory. This was a council that we ran in 2006 but lost control of in 2008.

Bournemouth Programme

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 12:00:00 +0000

Bournemouth is the venue for this year's Liberal Democrat Federal Party Conference (19-23 September 2009). (Book online here.)

We've already reported on our "BASIC SKILLS" programme of free courses for Lib Dem volunteer campaigners (Sunday-Tuesday in the morning); and on ALDC's busy fringe programme. (Details of both here.)

Effective Lib Dem Councillors

Once again this year we've teamed up with our friends at the IDeA (Improvement and Development Agency) to bring you the only programme at Conference aimed at developing Lib Dem Councillors.

On Sunday and Monday during the day we've a series of eight sessions with the IDeA:
- Councils, Climate Change and Carbon Reduction
- Health Scrutiny
- Members and Officers
- Culture and Leisure
- Member Development Charter
- Managing a Coalition
- Councils: Helping Citizens through the Recession
- Doing More with Less

Also during Sunday, Monday and Tuesday we've a number of other sessions which will be of interest to Councillors:
- Women Councillors, Skills and Development (Sunday 4.00pm)
- Holding your Council Seat (Monday 2.30pm)

ALDC has been working with our friends at the Leadership Centre for Local Government over the last year to develop the Liberal Democrat programme of the Be a Councillor project. If you've missed out on the regional programme of events about finding good and diverse Council candidates don't worry, as you've another chance in Bournemouth:
- Finding Candidates (Tuesday 2.30pm)
- and a special training the trainers session 'Be a councillor' (9.15 - 12.30 Tuesday morning)

More information on all of these sessions nearer the time, in our Conference Directory.

Campaigner Awards 2009

On Saturday evening at Bournemouth, the highlight of ALDC's Annual General Meeting will be the Campaigner Awards 2009 presented by Party President Ros Scott.

We've had a brilliant response to the awards this year which give you a chance to win up to £500 for your local party.

There is still chance to enter - submissions close on Monday (31st August) which should be emailed to: anders.hanson@aldc.org

More details on the categories here.

No change for Lib Dem LGA Board Chairs

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 14:43:00 +0000

The Local Government Association has announced the new board chairs for the organisation, following a post-election reshuffle. The changes see the Conservatives gaining a chair at Labour's expense, but with the Liberal Democrats retaining its two current posts.

The two Liberal Democrat chairs are:

Cllr David Rogers from East Sussex County Council, who continues as Chair of the Community Wellbeing Board, and

Cllr Chris White from Hertfordshire County Council, who continues as Chair of the Culture, Tourism and Sport Board.

Both David and Chris are ALDC members, and so we welcome their continuing prominent roles in the world of local government.

The other chairs are:
Environment: Cllr Gary Porter (Con, South Holland)
Children & Young People: Cllr Shireen Ritchie (Con, Kensington & Chelsea)
Safer Communities: Cllr Les Lawrence (Con, Birmingham)
Improvement: Cllr David Parsons (Con, Leicestershire)
Regeneration & Transport: Cllr David Sparks (Lab, Dudley)

Conservative Councils - service cuts or simply cost savings?

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 12:00:00 +0000

Today's Financial Times is running a feature on the cuts in spending by Conservative run councils, with a particular focus on Essex, Barnet and Hammersmith & Fulham. Whilst the Liberal Democrats have also talked about spending money better, and indeed many Lib Dem councils have also worked hard to keep tax rises low, this article suggests that what the Conservatives are doing is something much more fundamental.

Many of the changes in these particular councils have revolved around further outsourcing of service provision, cuts in frontline services such as parks, street cleaning, libraries and 'culture'. Core services that Liberal Democrats usually go to great lengths to defend. But at the same time, the changes often involve cutting down the artificial divisions between departments, prioritising frontline staff over senior management and making services more transparent and accessible at hours that are more convenient. Something that Lib Dems would often support.

The question is whether what the Conservatives are doing is simply a more efficient way of running local government with the attendant cost savings, or is it simply service cuts by the back door (or in some cases, the front door). With the Conservatives now the largest party in local government, is this the sign of things to come in more and more parts of the country?

Bournemouth Fringe Programme

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 15:17:00 +0000

Members' highlights include:
ALDC Members' Reception (SUNDAY LUNCHTIME) with Nick Clegg and Vince Cable.

Once again we are working with our friends at the Co-operative on our members reception which this year focuses on the theme of sustainable communities. ALDC members only.

ALDC Annual General Meeting and Campaigner Awards 2009 (SATURDAY EVENING)
Members of ALDC are invited to our Annual General Meeting which is also the announcement of the Campaigner Awards 2009.

Policy focused events include:
Will the bus get you back to work? Transport Strategies post Credit Crunch with GMITA (SUNDAY EVENING) with Norman Baker MP and Caroline Pidgeon.
Reclaiming the Green Agenda (MONDAY EVENING) with Simon Hughes MP and Friends of the Earth.
Winning against the Far Right (TUESDAY EVENING) with Chris Davies MP, Seachlight and Cllr Gordon Birtwistle (Burnley)

Full details will be avaialble in our Local Government Directory nearer the time. Please get in touch for more details.

Back to Basics with "Campaign Essentials"
Winning elections is about getting some basics right, so as part of our 40 hours of training at Bournemouth Federal Conference we've got a programme of training every morning from Sunday - Tuesday which is all campaign essentials that all of us need to know. Whether you're new to Lib Dem campaigning, or a seasoned campaigner who needs to refresh those skills these are the sessions for you. We would particularly urge you to encourage new campaigners to attend these sessions.

The sessions will cover:
- FOCUS leaflets - why and how to
- Campaign Planning
- Postal Voters and Direct Mail
- Polling Day - all you need to know for a successful final day
- canvassing techniques
- EARS and Data - why we use collect data and what we do with it

All these sessions are free to any member (or staff member) of the Liberal Democrats. More information in the Local Government Directory to be published nearer the time.

Kickstart 2010 and 2011

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 12:00:00 +0000

FACT:
In the next nine months all of us face a General Election; most of England face important local elections - most likely on the same day

FACT:
In just 21 months - May 2011 - more than half of our local councillors face election.

FACT:
To win in these challenging circumstances your team needs the skills and information to campaign effectively. You need a campaign plan in place that can build success through 2010 and 2011.

SOLUTION:
ALDC’s Weekend Kickstart event takes place on 27-29 November 2009 and is the most important training opportunity each year for Lib Dem volunteer campaigners. It's proven to work - last year’s attendees saw net gains of 10 County Council divisions in June 2009.

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...)

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!
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.
ALDC Gold Members who book early (before 3 October) £140 for the weekend – a bit more if you’re a Silver Member or not yet a member!
Save £60 by sharing a room – (twins and doubles available!)
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?
Some people apply to G8 for help attending Kickstart.

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
As a new initiative this year 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 3 October 2009 deadline.

LGA Liberal Democrat Group Elections 2009

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 12:00:00 +0000

Results are in for Liberal Democrat positions on the Local Government Association bodies for 2009-2011.

All (principle) councillors in England were polled with the highest turnout ever recorded.

Leader: Richard Kemp, Liverpool Deputy Leader, Gerald Vernon-Jackson, Portsmouth Group Whip, John Commons, Manchester Group Chair, Jill Shortland, Somerset

Group Executive Carl Minns, Hull; Howard Sykes, Oldham; Liz Green, Kingston; Stan Collins, Cumbria & S Lakeland Urban Commission Lead Abigail Bell, Hull - Lead; Greg Stone, Newcastle - Deputy Lead Rural Commission Lead Stan Collins, Cumbria & S Lakeland - Lead; Alison Clish-Green, West Devon - Deputy Lead Culture, Tourism & Sport Board Chris White, Herts & St Albans - Lead; Flick Rea, Camden; John Commons, Manchester; Gary Millar, Liverpool - Substitute Community Well-being Board David Rogers, East Sussex & Lewes - Lead; Doreen Huddart, Newcastle; Zoe Patrick, Oxon & Vale of W. Horse; Denise Hawksworth, Chesterfield - Substitute Environment Board Dorothy Thornhill, Watford - Lead; Paula Baker, Basingstoke & Deane; Berni Turner - Liverpool; Roger Symonds - BANES - Substitute Improvement Board Jill Shortland, Somerset - Lead; David Williams, Richmond; John Commons, Manchester - Substitute Children and Young People David Bellotti, BANES - Lead; Gloria Cawood, Somerset & Mendip; Martin Candler, Stockport; Rabi Martins, Watford - Substitute Regeneration & Transport Board Richard Knowles, Oldham - Lead; Heather Kidd, Shropshire; Zulfiqar Ali, Rochdale, Isobel McCall - Milton Keynes - Substitute Safer Communities Board Duwayne Brooks, Lewisham - Lead; Daisy Benson, Reading; Anita Lower, Newcastle; Paul Porgess, Stockport - Substitute Scrutiny Panel Trevor Jones, Dorset & West Dorset - Lead Resources Panel Sarita Bush, Hull - Lead Human Resources Panel Steve Comer, Bristol - Lead; Stephen Knight, Richmond Fire Forum Lead Paul Shannon, Manchester - Lead

The full results are available here.

Lib Dem Appointment to LGA Partner Bodies

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 15:55:00 +0000

The Liberal Democrat Group of the Local Government Assocation (LGA) are currently looking for nominations for Liberal Democrat vacancies to the following central bodies of the "Local Government family". These are:

Chair                  4ps
Board member    IDeA
Board member    Leadership Centre for Local Government
Board member    LACORS

These 4 positions are appointed and an appointments panel will be established by the Lib Dem Group Executive as soon as the Group elections have been finalised. The closing date for applying for the positions is 12th August so that they can try to have the people firmly in place for 1st September. The positions are open to any Liberal Democrat Councillor whose council is in LGA membership with the exception of those who hold a position within the LGA of Leader, Deputy Leader or a lead Lib Dem member on a Board or Panel.

Application should be by way of curriculum vitae (no longer than 2 sides of A4) and a covering letter
(no longer than 2 sides of A4) emailed to libdem.temp@lga.gov.uk no later than 12^th August.

Are the Tories Suggesting we Pay Council Leaders More?

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 12:00:00 +0000

We're not quite sure what Conservative Party Chair Eric Pickles means when he suggests that many Local Authority Chief Executives could be abolished. In an interview with the Independent this morning Mr Pickles said "recent changes to the structure of local government meant many chief executives were no longer needed. Since 2000, many councils have switched to having a leader and elected cabinet members handling specific portfolios."

Eric goes on to suggest that: I'm not one of these people who gets excited about high salaries but it should be in proportion to their responsibilities," Mr Pickles said. "A lot of council Chief Executives do not have that level of responsibility."

So is he suggesting that Council Leaders get paid more to do the Chief Executive job?

Early Bird Catches The Seat

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 15:47:00 +0000

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

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

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

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

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

Cllr Mark Alcock
mark.alcock@aldc.org

Are you coming to Bournemouth?

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 15:09:00 +0000

Bournemouth is the venue for this year's Liberal Democrat Federal Party Conference (19-23 September 2009). (Book online here.)

For local campaigners and councillors this is a hugely important conference. It is the last time we will all be together for such a big event before the London and English "thirds" local elections on 6 May 2010, and, of course, the General Election.

Come a Day Early!

Although conference "proper" doesn't start until later on Saturday, our training programme kicks off first thing Saturday making it well worth coming to Bournemouth on Friday evening or very first thing Saturday if you can.

We have a full day of Campaign Planning Workshops (four separate half day sessions) all about WINNING in 2010. There are separate workshops for groups who have local elections but no target parliamentary seats, and for groups who have local elections AND target parliamentary seats.

Campaign Essentials

All of us had to start somewhere, and there is a danger with training that we forget the basics of how we win. From Sunday - Tuesday at Bournemouth we're running a series of Campaign Essentials training aimed not just at newcomers, but also people who want to refresh their knowledge.

Super-Skilled Councillors

Finally we have a packed training programme from Sunday - Tuesday aimed at Lib Dem Councillors. Sessions range from climate change, health scrutiny, using the internet, helping citizens through the recession, recruiting council candidates and much more.

All in all that's almost 50 hours of ALDC training, all FREE, all for Lib Dem local campaigners and local councillors.

More information nearer the time, in our Conference Directory.

Making history in K&C, Making waves in R&C

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 12:00:00 +0000

Although the Norwich North by-election hogged the political headlines, it was the council by-elections that produced the more interesting, and less predictable, set of political news.

This week’s by-election results got off to an early start, thanks to the holiday plans of Kensington & Chelsea’s Chief Executive creating that rare event – a Wednesday by-election. And what a result to start with! Our victory in Colville Ward, a formerly safe Labour seat which includes the famous Portobello Road, is the culmination of four years of hard work by Carol Caruana and her team. The campaign, ably led by Robin Meltzer, saw monthly Focus leaflets and addressed mailings which concentrated hard on the issues that residents of the area really cared about. This result not only gives us our first ever elected councillor in the borough, but it also upset both Labour and the Conservatives in the process, who both assumed they would win.

Thursday’s elections however were more of a mixed bag.

Our team in Redcar & Cleveland showed once again how to win, with their third by-election gain from Labour in the last year! Our victory in Dormanstown means that we now hold 10 of the 15 seats in the town of Redcar. Local MP Vera Baird must be getting worried.

We also held on to a council seat in Wembley Central in Brent, which had previously been lost when the former councillor went independent before eventually being disqualified from the council. This result, in one of the few bits of Brent to be Liberal Democrat well before Sarah Teather was elected an MP in the borough, bodes well for us keeping control of the council in next year’s London elections.

Disappointingly, we lost a district council seat in Huntingdonshire to UKIP. However, this was an area in which UKIP did very well in June, and so coupled with the death of our popular well known councillor, it was always going to be a difficult defence. We did however win a town council seat from the Conservatives to compensate, and gained a number of new members during the campaign, which will help us build for the future.

We also failed to stand a candidate in Winster & South Darley in the Derbyshire Dales. Surprisingly, this picturesque rural ward in the heart of the Peak District was gained by Labour from the Conservatives, but even more astonishing is that we weren’t organised enough to find a candidate when we held this ward as recently as three years ago.

Housing Revenue Account reform

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 15:56:00 +0000

This week, the Government published its consultation on reform of the Housing Revenue Account. Liberal Democrats have campaigned in Parliament and on the ground for many years for reform of this system. The subsidy and debt problem, coupled with the loss of right to buy receipts has held Councils back from investing in existing and new housing stock for far too long.

However, the devil is always in the detail with reform.

The Government are proposing to redistribute debt between all Councils, which would abolish the subsidy system, but would mean Councils who are currently debt free taking on debt of other Councils. They are not proposing to use anything from general taxation – so paying off the debt is in a sense still a tenant tax.

The consultation paper is available here from the Department of Communities and Local Government, and Liberal Democrat Shadow Minister for Housing, Sarah Teather MP, would welcome feedback from fellow Liberal Democrats on the proposals.

To send your feedback, please email the party's Communities and Transport Policy Adviser, Alice Douglas.

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

One's enough

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 16:20:00 +0000

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

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

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

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

No change, but two very good results

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 17:23:00 +0000

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Just 13 days to go in Norwich!

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 15:25:00 +0000

There are just 13 days to go until the Norwich North By-Election, caused by the resignation of Labour MP Ian Gibson. This election is very important as it could be the last parliamentary by-election in England before the general election, but also April Pond is a great local candidate who deserves an excellent result.

Norwich is a great city to visit, so why not spend some time helping out on the ground. You can find the details of how to get to our campaign HQ on the Norwich Liberal Democrats website.

If you can't help out in person, then why not do some phone canvassing from the comfort of your own home. Contact the team at phone@norwichlibdems.org.uk and someone will be in touch.

Clamp the Clampers

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 12:00:00 +0000

Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker is campaigning to "clamp the clampers".

Motorists are being held to ransom by unscrupulous private car clamping firms. If you feel you've been overcharged or conned, there is no independent means of redress.

Clamping on private land is already illegal in Scotland. Let's ban it in England too. Please sign the petition here

The Government have begun a consultation into clamping but have ignored the option to ban clamping on private land entirely. To have your say, visit the consultation website

Join the new Facebook group here. If you're interested in campaigning locally on this we have more information at ALDC - contact Anders, Mark or John.

Have your say on HMO planning law

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 14:51:00 +0000

The government is currently consulting people on the planning laws relating to houses in multiple occupation (HMOs).

The consultation follows last year's commission that reviewed the current position on HMOs. This review recommended that people should be consulted on possible new legislation on HMOs.

This subject will be important to the many Liberal Democrat councillors and campaigners who are working in student areas, seaside towns and those populated by young people sharing houses. The review is suggesting three possible causes of action:

Option 1 is to rely on existing ‘good practice' from councils around the country.

Option 2 is to change the Use Classes Order, so that HMOs need planning permission and therefore go through the usual planning procedures to decide whether each application is appropriate.

Option 3 is a proposal to allow HMOs anywhere at all - except where the government agrees to give special powers to councils in limited areas (Article 4 Directions).

The deadline for comments is 7th August and you can find out more on the Department for Communities and Local Government website.

Thank you to Cllr Sharon Ball of Bath & North East Somerset Council for her blog post that alerted us to this important consultation.

Eleven and counting

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 16:25:00 +0000

There were two principal council elections held on the 2nd July. The Lib Dems gained one seat from the Tories and the Tories held the other. No Town and Parish Council results were reported to ALDC.

Thursday was another good night for the Lib Dems. We now have made eleven net gains since the beginning of the year in council by-elections.

Nonsuch ward, part of the London Borough of Sutton has been a Lib Dem ward but the Tories took a seat in 2006 all out London elections. We wanted it back! So in a held parliamentary seat we pulled out all the stops and utilised help from across London with action days every weekend. How often will the two Lib Dem MPs’ turn up to help deliver the good morning leaflet at 6am only to find there were none left to deliver!
Labour and the BNP ran two leaflet campaigns but the Tories produced six full colour leaflets. The final Tory leaflet went negative against our candidate but the tactic backfired badly. We not only have two local MPs, we also run the council and fighting by-elections when in control is often difficult. In these circumstances getting a swing to the Lib Dems from the Tories and over 50% of the vote in a high turnout election is particularly encouraging.

Unfortunately despite this success we are still failing to stand candidates even in wards where we polled 22% last time. Standing no candidate in the Ferndown Central ward of East Dorset District Council is even more inexplicable as it is in the Christchurch constituency.

For those who had county or Unitary elections in June the deadlines for the receipt of return of election expenses are: Thursday 9th July if your result was declared before midnight on 4th June. Friday 10th July if your result was declared after midnight i.e. 5th June.

Don’t be a wally

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:53:00 +0000

There was one principal council election held on the 25th June. The SNP held the seat. There were no Town and Parish Council results reported to ALDC.
In Angus, in the Monifieth and Sidlaw ward we faced an uphill struggle. In 2007 we got 7% on first preferences to the SNP 54%. We improved our vote by 4.9% but the SNP, who run the council, cruised to victory with 68.6% of the vote.
It may seem early to look forward to the local elections in 2010 but it is essential that council groups and local parties let ALDC know:
A)    whether existing councillors are re-standing
B)   if not, who has been selected to replace them
C)   candidates and agents in all defences and key targets.
so that we can target our help and support early enough to make a difference.
Do not wait until you have a full slate. Let us know as soon as you are clear who your candidates are likely to be even if they may not have been formally selected.
The General Election is likely to be held on the same day as the 166 local authority elections on May 6th 2010. 880 Lib Dem councillors will be defending their seats and we will be defending control of 17 councils from Liverpool to Sutton. Joint elections will create extra demands so it’s even more important to build up your infrastructure over the summer. The Campaigns department is running a “Big Build’ campaign. Materials will be made available in instalments on both the party’s extranet site and the ALDC website. The first instalment gives you the tools to get out and recruit the deliverers you need. Later instalments will include: ideas and activities to recruit new Liberal Democrat members, clean up and expand your data pool, increase your garden and window poster sites, increase fundraising, voter identification and much more.
For those who had county or Unitary elections in June the deadlines for the receipt of return of election expenses are: Thursday 9th July if your result was declared before midnight on 4th June. Friday 10th July if your result was declared after midnight i.e. 5th June.
Don’t be a wally and leave it till the last minute - get them in at the end of June.

Maggie Clay Memorial Service

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 12:00:00 +0000

A memorial service to mark the life of former Stockport and Leeds Councillor Maggie Clay will take place:

Monday 29 June 2009, 12.00noon
Stockport Town Hall

People who wish to attend should let Alison Morrissey at Stockport Town Hall know, so that there is an idea of numbers.

Maggie's family have nominated the Stockport Mayor’s Charity and Send a Cow for any friends and colleagues who would wish to make a donation in Maggie’s memory. Arrangements have been made for this to be administered by Alison Morrissey in the Stockport Chief Executive’s office. If you wish to make a donation by cheque please make the cheque payable to the ‘Maggie Clay Memorial Fund’’

Maggie served over time as Organising and Political Secretary of ALDC's predecessor organisation, the Association of Liberal Councillors and will by much missed by Liberal and Lib Dem campaigners and councillors up and down the country.

Catch up on what happened at the Local Government Conference

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 12:00:00 +0000

Thank you to everyone who attended the Liberal Democrat Local Government Conference in Sheffield this weekend. The event proved a great success with a full programme of speeches, training sessions, policy discussions and briefings, as well as stalls from many of the key local government organisations, party bodies and outside organisations such as Midas Training and Northern Rail.

The highlights for many seemed to be the speeches from Cllr Paul Scriven, on the success we are having on Sheffield City Council and a session on environmental good practice from Cllr Keith Moffitt, the Lib Dem Leader of Camden Council.

If you missed the conference, or want a recap on what happened, then Liberal Democrat Voice are posting podcasts of the plenary sessions on their website. The first one - voxpops from people attending - is already available. Later today you will be able to listen to the opening plenary with Nick Clegg and Ros Scott.

If you were in Sheffield this weekend and want to pass on any feedback both positive and on how we could have made the event better, then please email Emma Hall at emma.hall@aldc.org.

Stepping up in Stepping Hill

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 12:00:00 +0000

Following last week's 'super-Thursday' with 89 by-elections on the one day, we are now getting back to normal. However this week's one by-election in the Stepping Hill ward of Stockport was an important one for Liberal Democrats. Not only is it a crucial seat in Mark Hunter's Cheadle constituency, but the by-election was caused by the tragic death of ALDC stalwart Maggie Clay.

The by-election saw an intensive campaign from the Conservatives who were desperate to make headway in the ward with an eye to winning the parliamentary seat at the next General Election. As well as delivering lots of leaflets, the Conservatives also brought in members of the Shadow Cabinet to support their PPC in the campaign. This came slightly unstuck however when they had to print an apology in their Good Morning leaflet for claiming that our candidate did not live locally, when she was the only one to live in the ward. Following a very active campaign of our own, promoting the record of the local council and that of Mark Hunter MP, our candidate Wendy Orrell was comfortably returned as the new councillor.

Don't forget to submit your best literature and campaigning ideas to the ALDC Campaigner Awards 2009. This is your opportunity to show off your best election literature and to pass on good campaigning ideas to other Liberal Democrats around the country. Click here for more details.

Anders Hanson
Senior Political Officer

Local Government Conference - Draft Programme

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 13:58:00 +0000

We know that many of you will have been so involved with the recent elections that you will have had little chance to do anything else for the last few weeks and months. Now that you have a bit more free time on your hands, don’t delay and book your place at the Liberal Democrat Local Government Conference on Saturday 20 June 2009 in Sheffield.

The draft programme for the day is available here.

Registration is £40 for gold members of ALDC, £45 for silver members (and Party Staff and Group Researchers) and £50 for non-members. (If you'd also been planning on joining after the elections – why not take this opportunity and join now!).

Registration for the conference is online - just click here to register and pay by credit or debit card. ALDC members should log on first to the website, and then your member's discount will be applied automatically.

Don't forget that if there is a group of you coming, it's "buy three, get the fourth place free" - so why not bring along the whole team? For more information please contact Emma Hall or phone 01422 843 785

Why not come on Friday evening for the 3rd annual Lib Dem Local Government dinner hosted by Party President Ros Scott. It's just £30 a head, and you can stay overnight at the conference hotel, the Mercure St Paul's, (you do need to pay this yourself – further details available on the website). With the dinner, the conference and the accommodation all in the same venue it should be an excellent opportunity for networking and meeting other Lib Dem Councillors and activists.

Local Election Results

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 14:39:00 +0000

The political balance of all county and unitary elections is shown below as the count is completed. You can also view our analysis of the gains and losses for each party by going to our full Election2009 page.

Cumbria
Further news from Cumbria, where we have gained a seat in Carlisle and beaten the Conservative Group Leader in Kirkby Stephen.

Westmorland & Lonsdale (Cumbria)
Our electoral success in Westmorland & Lonsdale continues with us making four gains so far in the county council election. Good news for Tim Farron MP and the team in South Lakeland.

Bedford
We have moved to become the biggest party in Bedford, overtaking the Conservatives. This new council will be no overall control.

West Sussex
Another place showing good results for the Liberal Democrats is West Sussex where we have picked up a few seats from the Conservatives. We are doing especially well in Arun and Mid Sussex.

Suffolk
Some good election results are coming in from different parts of Suffolk, with the Liberal Democrats making gains from the Conservatives and Labour.

Council By-Elections
There were 68 council by-elections yesterday and 25 results have come in so far. The Liberal Democrats gained a seat from the Conservatives in East Hertfordshire, but lost one to the Conservatives in Watford. The full results are available below.

Doncaster
English Democrat Peter Davies has won the mayoral election with the Independent Mick Waye coming a close second and Labour not far behind in third.

A few interesting gains around the country
We have taken Warren Hills in North West Leicestershire from Labour, Bridport in West Dorset from Conservatives, Brereton & Ravenhill in Cannock Chase from Labour and three seats from the Conservatives in Stratford-upon-Avon.

Burnley (Lancashire)
Liberal Democrats have gained five of the six seats in Burnley from Labour - two from third place. The sixth was taken by the BNP.

Somerset and Devon
Liberal Democrats look to have lost control of Somerset and Devon.

Romsey and Eastleigh (Hampshire)
We have retained all our county councillors in both of these marginal parliamentary seats, including a clean sweep in Eastleigh Constituency.

Brentwood (Essex)
We have gained two seats from the Conservatives in Brentwood. This is in the constituency held by Conservative Party Chairman and 'campaign guru' Eric Pickles MP.

Lincolnshire
Conservatives consolidate control at the expense of other main parties. Collapse of Labour means Liberal Democrats become biggest opposition party. Liberal Democrats make net loss of three seats, but make a gain in North Kesteven from Conservatives, but lose seats elsewhere.

Bristol
Lib Dems have gained overall control of Bristol for the first time! Making 4 gains on the night. Labour only won 2 wards its vote share down to 18.88%. Well done to the team in Bristol - brilliant news!
BBC Bristol report

Central Bedfordshire
Conservatives take control of this new Authority which replaces two existing tory-run district. 11 Lib Dems elected to the new Council, Labour wiped out.

Hartlepool
Independent Stuart Drummond has been narrowly re-elected as Mayor of Hartlepool for a third term.

Good Luck!

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 19:29:00 +0000

Good luck to all LIberal Democrats involved in elections on Thursday!

- county and unitary council candidates and campaign teams
- by-election candidates (over 70)
- campaigners all over the country working for a strong Liberal Democrat voice in the European Parliament.

Our office will be open for urgent queries and problems 9.15 am - 5.15 pm - after that please email via the website Advice and Support section.

A results service for the local elections starts early morning Friday 5th June.

Good luck!

Local Government Conference - Don't Miss Out

Thu, 28 May 2009 14:07:00 +0000

If you're planning on coming to the Liberal Democrat Local Government Conference on Saturday 20 June 2009 in Sheffield - you'd be daft to miss out on the current discount rate which ends on Sunday 31 May 2009.

Currently ALDC Gold Members can register for £35 (£40 for Silver and Party/Group Staff; £45 for others); but from the end of Sunday all prices go up by £5. Don't forget if there are four of you going it's buy three get the 4th for free!

If you're NOT planning on coming, then perhaps you should! It's a packed day that starts with Nick Clegg and Ros Scott; ends with Julia Goldsworthy and Sheffield Leader Paul Scriven with over 25 hours of training, fringe, policy and debate in between!

More information on our website here.

Campaigner Awards 2009

Thu, 28 May 2009 13:59:00 +0000

We know you're busy campaigning ..... but this year we're giving you the chance to win recognition AND money for your local Party with the Campaigner Awards 2009.

The awards, which are run in association and with the kind support of Midshires and Riso, are for local campaign literature.

- 1st Prize £500

- FIVE Runners Up Prizes (£100 each)
Best Campaign Innovation
Best Direct Mail
Best Focus
Best Literature by a volunteer campaigner
Best whole ward campaign

Entering is easy - we just need you to EMAIL your entries (in BOTH PDF and PagePlus format) to: anders.hanson@aldc.org.

The deadline for all submissions is 1 September 2009. The awards will be anounced at the ALDC Annual General Meeting (Saturday evening in Bournemouth) and subsequently online in Campaigner magazine.

Calling the Counties!

Thu, 28 May 2009 13:42:00 +0000

It's now a week to go to the European and Local elections on 4 June 2009.

All of us have European elections - but only some of us have local elections (the English Counties, seven English Unitaries and over 60 local by-elections). 359 Liberal Democrat county Councillors are defending their seats. Most of the Unitaries are new authorities with many existing district and county councillors standing as Lib Dem candidates.

Outside of these areas all of us have been involved in the European Campaign to maximise our vote. After your local commitment to Europe - you might have some extra capacity to help local campaigners elsewhere and make a difference between winning and losing county and unitary divisions and wards.

Lib Dems in Somerset celebrating a 4* Council!

Here are some of the ways you can help:
- phone canvassing - some local areas are set up on EARS E-Canvass system - to access this you need to go the EARS website to download a small programme. This will only work with your postcode and party membership number. This then allows you to get involved in phone canvassing in places that need it!

- Help on the last weekend, eve of poll and on polling day. Have you ever heard of a local party that couldn't do with some extra help on polling day! If you're able to give the time why not travel out to a County/Unitary division nearby? There are places with major Lib Dem challenges taking place within easy reach of London and all the major Metropolitan areas with no local elections this year.

- Phone Knocking Up - if you can't make it over you could still be a great help by helping with telephone knocking up in a keenly fought Lib Dem division or ward.

ALDC will put you in touch with local campaigners who need your help - email us or phone 01422 843 785.

By-Elections 21st May 2009

Fri, 22 May 2009 17:23:00 +0000

After a stormy week in politics, anyone looking for dramatic results in this week's council by-elections will be sadly disappointed.

In the four principal council by-elections held this week there were no changes in political allegiance at all. Even in Salford, where Hazel Blears is the local Member of Parliament, Labour held on relatively comfortably despite a large drop in their vote. In this ward the three main parties saw varying declines in their vote share (although ours held up the best), but this vote split between the BNP, Greens and UKIP.

Whether the Salford result shows any significant political trend is less clear given that every other by-election this week was only contested by the three main parties.

The only significant result for Liberal Democrats was an impressive 31.9% of the vote in Rutland in a ward we have not contested in recent years. The local team is pretty encouraged by this result as it was achieved through only delivering one leaflet.

Commons committee backs local tax powers

Thu, 21 May 2009 16:01:00 +0000

The introduction of a local income tax, an end to capping and a return to local control of business rates are just some of the recommendations made in a report out this week from the Communities and Local Government Select Committee.

The committee chaired by Labour MP Phyllis Starkey - which includes Liberal Democrats John Pugh and Andrew George as members - also calls for stronger powers for local councils on health and policing.

The key recommendations are:

ministers should set a higher threshold before intervention
Department of Health and Home Office should work with CLG to establish a local authority commissioning model for local policing, health and healthcare.
supplementary local income tax should be introduced alongside council tax with a corresponding reduction in central taxation, business rates should return to local authority control, and capping should be scrapped.
the Government should prove its localist credentials by introducing constitutional legislation, placing the principles of the European Charter of Local Self-Government on a statutory footing.

The recommendations have already been rejected by Local Government Minister John Healey MP who said that "the government has already given councils more financial freedom to meet local needs and priorities... it is right that the Government continues to protect council taxpayers from excessive increases."

To find out more, you can read the full report or the articles on it from The MJ and the BBC.

June 4th By-elections

Wed, 13 May 2009 18:46:00 +0000

June 4th By-elections

There was one principal council election held on the 7th May. Labour held the seat. There were no Town and Parish Council results reported to ALDC.
Please remember Tuesday 19th May is the deadline for both postal votes and application for the electoral register to allow a resident to vote in the June 4th elections.

John Bridges
john.bridges@aldc.org

The gains keep on coming

Fri, 01 May 2009 14:26:00 +0000

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

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

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

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

Don't Forget - Local Government Conference 19 and 20 June 2009

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 12:00:00 +0000

Please don't forget to make sure you've booked your places at the Liberal Democrat Local Government Conference on Saturday 20 June 2009 in Sheffield. During the Euro/Local election campaign the registration fee rises again - so please get in early before campaigning becomes full time!

Registrations are now on the discounted rates of £45 - cut that down even further if you are an ALDC member to £40 or £35 (If you're not yet a member -why not join!). There is also a special rate for Party Staff and Group Researchers of £40.

Don't forget that if there is a group of you coming, it's "buy three, get the fourth place free" - so why not bring along the whole team? Book online here. For more information please contact Emma Hall or phone 01422 843 785

The programme for the Conference is taking shape and we have a packed schedule for you.

Why not come on Friday evening for the 3rd annual Lib Dem Local Government dinner hosted by Party President Ros Scott. It's just £30 a head, why not stay overnight at the conference hotel,the Mercure St Paul's, (you do need to pay this yourself). With the dinner, the conference and the accomodation all in the same venue it should be an excellent opportunity for networking and meeting other Lib Dem Councillors and activists.

Saturday itself kicks off with Party Leader Nick Clegg MP. Not only is Sheffield a Lib Dem run city, but it also boasts our Leader as one of its MPs. Nick will be addressing the conference in the morning. As well as Nick and Ros, other speakers include Julia Goldsworthy MP and Councillors Paul Scriven, Kath Pinnock and Richard Kemp.

Training is always an important part of the day. For campaigners (that's all of us), we kick off our Flying Start 2010 programme of sessions aimed to deliver success for Lib Dems in the forthcoming local and General elections (and the possibility of them being on the same day). For Councillors we've teamed up with the IDeA and Midas Training to bring you a busy programme of skills and practical training.

Policy sessions focus on sharing the best practice of Liberal Democrats making a difference at a local level and we've a full day exhibition with a mixture of party bodies, partner agencies and equipment suppliers.

Anders Hanson Joins ALDC Team

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 12:00:00 +0000

ALDC was happy to welcome Anders Hanson to the team on Monday 20 April 2009. Anders joins us in the new post of Senior Political Officer and will be leading the team on our campaigning and council support work.

Anders joins us from Nick Clegg's Sheffield Hallam Office, and he has previously worked for the Party in Wales and in Hampshire, and served as part of the Council Group on Derby City Council.

Contact Anders on 01422 843 785 anders.hanson@aldc.org

Keep up-to-date with By-Election Emails

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 12:00:00 +0000

Did you know that in the local by-elections that followed the Budget last Thursday Lib Dem's made THREE GAINS and the Tories TWO LOSSES?

Why not be one of the first to know with our weekly by-election emails - All ALDC members are now able to "opt in" to receiving our weekly by-election email.

The email, which is sent out every Friday lunchtime, gives full results for all the local by-elections the previous day, together with a list of all forthcoming local by-elections.

To receive the weekly emails, log in to the ALDC website at www.aldc.org select "Manage Membership" and tick "YES" for by-election emails! While you're there - take a minute to check your member's information details.

Please note that this service is only available for ALDC members.

Tories lose two and Lib Dems gain three!!!

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 16:57:00 +0000

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stop the BNP

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 12:00:00 +0000

There was one principal council election held on the 16th April, which was held by Independents. There was one Town and Parish Council result reported to ALDC, a Lib Dem hold.

We have discussed on a number of occasions in this column the threat posed by the BNP. We now face the real threat of the BNP gaining Euro seats with all the financial and organisational potential that would follow. The BNP have raised the money for full colour Freepost in every region, which will undoubtedly attempt to make themselves look like “nice people”. We need to challenge this in our non Freepost literature between now and June 4th for the Euros and locals. To help you do this we’ve produced a pack of ready to use artwork that can be dropped into your leaflets. It’s available on our website at www.aldc.org. We also have available our “Tackling the BNP” publication which not only provides campaigning advice and ideas but also the history and background of the BNP - useful when challenging their smart suit façade.

What you can do:

a) Where the BNP are standing a candidate in the county or unitary elections do not ignore them - they will not go away. Make stopping the BNP one of your key campaign themes in all your literature. Use the threat as a means to increase turnout with targeted letters to supporters and key groups likely to oppose the BNP e.g. ethnic groups and Labour supporters (where they’re the third party).

b) Where there is no local election BNP candidate, just those on the regional Euro list it is still important to put the anti BNP message in all our non-freepost literature. You can still use the European BNP threat to encourage our supporters to vote. Why not use it in a mailing to encourage supporters to sign up for postal votes? It’s sometimes difficult to motivate our helpers and members to think that they can make a difference in the European elections. Use the real threat of the BNP in mailings and emails to our activists to encourage them to do more.

Please let us know if the BNP are standing a candidate in your County Division or Unitary ward so that we can help and advise. Please send or email us copies of any BNP literature so we can monitor their performance.

Maundy Thursday First

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 16:30:00 +0000

Manchester has claimed another first - the first time in British political history an election has been held on Maundy Thursday. This has only been a legal possibility since 2006 but as Returning Officers have a range of possible dates from which to choose they usually opt for another day. The seat was held by Labour.

The City of Manchester, Moston ward holds fond memories for John Leech the Lib Dem MP for Manchester Withington. In the 1995 Moston Ward by-election he was the candidate and I was the agent. Some things don’t change too much; In 1995 John received 18.2% of the vote; last week we got 19.9%.But

a) we had decamped in 1995 for the Littleborough and Saddleworth parliamentary by-election held on the same day.

b) The BNP did not stand.

c) And Labour could blame the Tory government for their inadequacies.

The 2009 Moston campaign was hard fought and most residents would have received 7-10 pieces of good spot colour risoed literature from us. Labour and the BNP fought with full colour literature throughout. The Tories competed on volume but they ignored local issues and must have been disappointed to drop from second to last place - a feat they managed in 1995 as well. Labour got 76% and 69% in the two Moston elections in 1995; in 2009 they got just 38%.

With a difference of 119 votes between ourselves and the BNP we requested a bundle count. This is simply a check that the bundles of ballot papers put against each candidate are all for those candidates and are not for another or mixed. It might seem “picky” at the end of a tiring night but position is everything in elections and it is very easy for a bundle to go astray. This is just one reason why box counts are so important - it gives you the confidence to ask for a recount when there is a reasonable discrepancy between your own figures and those being tentatively “offered” by the returning officer. Often candidates and agents who think they’ve lost, give up too early. The Local Elections (Principal Areas) Rules 2006 No 46 clearly give agents and candidates the powers required: “no step shall be taken on the completion of the counting or any re-counting until the candidates and election agents present at its completion have been given a reasonable opportunity [to ask for a recount]. Requests for recounts can only be rejected if “the request is “unreasonable””

Knock until you drop!

Thu, 09 Apr 2009 12:00:00 +0000

Knock until you drop!

There were seven principal council elections held on the 2nd April. The Tories held four seats and gained one from Labour. The Lib Dems gained one seat from Labour and held one seat. There were two Town and Parish Council results reported to ALDC. One Lib Dem loss to Tory, and two Tory holds.
In the Redcar & Cleveland BC Dormanstown Ward, Ken Lucas achieved a 17.3% increase in vote share to take the seat from Labour. The campaign delivered was based around a mix of leaflets and target mail, with the emphasis on, getting on the doorstep. From having no data for this ward, the local team now have data from 55% of the ward. This shows again that you have to get on the doorstep.

In the Camden Ward of Belsize, Tom Simon achieved an increase of 5.4% against a concerted Conservative campaign, which consisted of lots of leaflets along with lots of negative campaigning being delivered on the doorstep and phone. The Lib Dem campaign was targeted with lots of doorstep voter contact and plenty of leaflets and targeted mailings to identified voters. Yet again showing that doorstep is best for connecting with our voters.
In the Leeds City Council Temple Newsam, Ward Ian Dowling and his team came from 5th in May 2008 with 521 to come only 283 behind the Tories with 1,468, which boads well for the next election in Temple Newsam ward.
In the Arun DC Ward of Felpham West Martin Lury’s team achieved an increase of 6.2%. In the Calderdale Ward of Skircoat the local team led by Pauline Nash came a good second and are in a good place for the next election to go on and win it. In the Huntingdonshire DC ward of Ramsey we came third behind the Tories, In South Holland we achieved 18.9% in a seat where we had not stood before, with more work this is a good start for future elections here.

Mark Alcock
mark.alcock@aldc.org

Councillors Connected

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 12:00:00 +0000

The IDeA online conference "Councillors connected: the social media online conference" is happening today, and until Wednesday this week (6-8 April).

Anyone can join the online conference - go to www.communities.idea.gov.uk to register. (You will first need to be logged to their website to view the links below.)

They have a great line up of speakers this morning, but this conference is really all about you - we’ve already had some great responses. Feel free to ask questions or start your own topics on social media and local government. Maybe start by introducing yourself to the conference and share a little about how you use social media at work and personally. You can use our conference programme to find your way around the growing list of resources, including a hints and tips for getting the most out of the conference.

Opening address: Hazel Blears, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government shares a video message on using social media and supporting local democracy. She’s very positive about the impact of social media on the relationship between local government and local people, but are there some ominous undertones about mandating the use of social media by local government?

James Cousins (LB Wandsworth, Conservative) has a video address on how social media can help humanise the communication between councillors and their constituents. I live in Wandsworth and I’ve been watching (and sometimes engaging) in his really helpful interactions with local people via Twitter.

Richard Kemp (Liverpool, Liberal Democrat) Deputy Chair of the LGA, talks about taking his first steps in social media tool Twitter. More and more councillors are using Twitter; how can it help councillors in their work? Richard will be live in the conference between 11 and 12 today (working computer permitting - a drawback of all this technology is sometimes it lets you down - he’s phoned to say his connection’s down, but he’ll be online as soon as he can)

Tim Pickstone (Bury MBC, Liberal Democrat) provides an excellent piece on how blogging has helped him in campaigning, communication and accountability and provides links to other councillor blogs.

and

Louise Brown from the National Council of Voluntary Organisations talks about how social media provides opportunities for councils and the voluntary sector to work together. She’ll be available from 3 to 5pm today for live discussion.

If you’re a Twitter user please use #cllrsconnnected or on Delicious cllrsconnected to bring outside content into the conference space. If you don’t know what that means, then this conference is a great opportunity to find out.

Election Results Thursday 2nd April 2009

Fri, 03 Apr 2009 13:44:00 +0000

Huntingdonshire DC, Ramsey

Redcar and Cleveland BC, Dormanstown

Leeds City, Temple Newsam

Camden LBC, Belsize

Huntingdon TC, East

Bridport TC

Calderdale MBC, Skircoat

South Holland DC, Moulton, Weston and Cowbit

Arun DC, Felpham West

Now the clocks have changed its time to get on the doorstep

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 13:26:00 +0000

There were seven principal council elections held on the 26th March. The Tories held two seats and lost one to Labour. Labour held three seats and gained one seat from the Tories. The Lib Dems held one seat. There were two Town and Parish Council results reported to ALDC. One Lib Dem hold and one Tory gain from Labour.

In North East Lincolnshire we run the council with the Tories. This did not stop them fighting a very negative but unsuccessful campaign against our candidate, a local ex-headmaster, in the Yarborough ward by-election. We focussed on the basics with teams out every day canvassing, making sure our voters knew the new candidate and that we had sufficient voter ID for an effective polling day operation. The BNP got 17% on a poor two leaflet campaign.

Now the clocks have changed it's time to get on the doorstep. Whether you’re in a County or Unitary seat for June or it’s using the Euros to prepare for the General Election we need to gather Voter ID. The old rules about “declaring your candidature” starting your election expenses have changed. The regulated period for election expenses for the Euros has already begun and for the Local elections cannot start till 28th April. There is maximum of one week’s difference between the earliest and the latest date on which the regulated period for your local election can start. This is only likely to matter in the very highest spending campaigns. For most it will be more important to maximise their Voter ID by starting canvassing now.

If you’ve not done one recently an easy way to gather voter ID early in the campaign is to use Surveys, particularly for first timers - “knock and drop” style surveys are an easy start for those nervous about knocking on doors. There are a range of “off the shelf” surveys for you to adapt locally available on both ALDC members website at www.aldc.org or on the party’s Extranet site at www.libdems.org.uk . Remember to log your contacts on the million door challenge website. If it rains don’t call it off, get on the phones!

Fighting for position

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 16:06:00 +0000

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

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

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

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

Local Government Conference - Don't Miss Out!

Thu, 19 Mar 2009 14:14:00 +0000

Don't miss out on your chance to benefit from the special discounted rate for early registrations for the Liberal Democrat Local Government Conference on Saturday 20 June 2009 in (Lib Dem run) Sheffield.

Registrations received by 31 March 2009 come at the special discount rate of £40 - cut that down even further if you are an ALDC member to £35 or £30! (If you're not yet a member -why not join!).

The programme for the Conference is taking shape and we have a packed schedule for you.

Why not come on Friday evening for the 3rd annual Lib Dem Local Government dinner hosted by Party President Ros Scott. It's just £30 a head, and we've done a deal with the conference hotel (the Mercure St Paul's) for delegates to stay overnight (you do need to pay this yourself). With the dinner, the conference and the accomodation all in the same venue it should be an excellent opportunity for networking and meeting other Lib Dem Councillors and activists.

All this for as little as £30! - but only if you book early!

Don't forget that if there is a group of you coming, it's "buy three, get the fourth place free" - so why not bring along the whole team?

Book online here. For more information please contact Emma Hall or phone 01422 843 785.

Online Social Media Conference

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 17:59:00 +0000

The IDeA is running a free online conference early next month on how councillors use social media.

The conference is completely free of charge and we are keen that as many councillors and people connected to local government as possible share their experiences.

The conference will be held on the IDeA's community of practice platform and details can be found both on our website and on our facebook event page.

Another Gain

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 15:58:00 +0000

There were five principal council elections held on the 12th March. The Tories held one seat, Labour two and the Lib Dems made a gain from Independents. In Scotland the SNP gained a seat off Labour. There were two Town and Parish Council results reported to ALDC. Labour held one and the Lib Dems gained one from UKIP.

The Hartland and Bradworthy by-election for Torridge Council in Devon showed the advantage of an extremely well known local candidate. Brian Redwood is an active parish councillor and charity fundraiser. If you’ve got a candidate this good, get them on the doorstep. Comments like “you’re the only ones that we’ve seen” and “you’re the only ones doing anything” demonstrate the difference getting on the doorstep makes.

With the county elections fast approaching make sure you’ve organised enough voter ID sessions to give a workable shuttleworth for polling day. Don’t be afraid to start now, If you call “on behalf of Fred Bloggs the Liberal Democrat standing in the County elections on June the 4th” you would obviously be declaring his candidacy but for most this is not a problem. The earliest the regulated period for local election expenditure can start is the 28th April – this would be the case if your candidacy were declared on any day prior to the 28th. Only for those who intend to spend up to the limit in the regulated period will this be an issue.

St Helens had two by-elections, one in Rainhill, which we targeted; the other in Parr, which we did not. Both had strong Labour majorities and the Lib Dems had no existing organisational or campaigning infrastructure. To complicate matters we run St Helens council with the Tories so were defending the council’s record. Whilst two second places may not sound good both the BNP and the Tories were marginalised. The campaign developed the ambition, experience and skills of the local party, and demonstrated that the Lib Dems are the party who can take the parliamentary seat off Shaun Woodard at the general election.

In the Norwich City Council by-election in Bowthorpe ward we saw a massive 20% leap in our share of the vote. If the swings were repeated in the General election we would take the Norwich South parliamentary seat from Labour.

Council Group of the Year 2009

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 12:00:00 +0000

The LGA Liberal Democrat Group "Lib Dem Council Group of the Year" awards were announced at Harrogate on 6 March 2009.

The winners were:

Backbencher of the Year
Councillor John Marshall – councillor on North Yorkshire County Council for over 30 years service.

London Councils Award for Innovation in Candidate Recruitment
Liberal Democrat Group in Lewisham.
Highly commended – Lib Dem Group on Lambeth Council.

Tackling Anti-Social Behaviour
Liberal Democrat Group on Hinckley and Bosworth Borough Council.

Helping Children and Young People
Sheffield City Council Liberal Democrat Group

Improving Social Care Services
London Borough of Sutton

Supporting Culture, Leisure and Regeneration
Liberal Democrat Group on the London Borough of Islington.

Green Council Group of the Year
Liberal Democrat Group on Liverpool City Council
HIghly commended: Liberal Democrat Group on Cardiff City Council

Council Group of the Year
Liberal Democrat Group on Newcastle City Council
Highly commended: Liberal Democrat Group on Waltham Forest. and Liberal Democrat Group on Cambridgeshire County Council

Be a Councillor - Final Reminder

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 12:00:00 +0000

Just a final reminder about the FREE workshops that are taking place over the coming weeks as part of the Liberal Democrat "Be a Councillor" programme.

The events are free to any LIberal Democrat, and taking place in a town or civic hall near you!*

The Be a Councillor programme is about finding and recruiting good, representative and diverse people to be local council candidates. The sessions look at who we could be asking to be council candidates for the future and how to ask them. People who've been to earlier sessions have come away with some brilliant ideas to take home.

These sessions are about building for the future - so particularly important for building for the "thirds" elections in 2010 and the all-out-districts in 2011.

Birmingham [Monday 30th March]
Bristol [Thursday 12th March]
Cambridge [Monday 23rd March]
Eastbourne [Monday 20th April]
Leeds [Tuesday 17th March]
Newcastle [Thursday 30th April]
Northampton [Monday 16th March]
Portsmouth [Tuesday 21st April]
Stockport [Wednesday 29th April]

All the events take place from 7-9pm, and our host is the Leader of the Council in each case.

Come yourself, make sure other colleagues attend including local party members and campaigners.

Please let us know you're coming by registering here - but remember the event is FREE!

* Please note this is an England only programme at present, we will discuss this further with colleagues in Scotland and Wales as most, if not all, of the issues are common to all of us.

Young Peoples Shadowing Scheme Consultation

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 12:00:00 +0000

A new nationwide Local Councillor shadowing scheme is being established as a part of new National Body for Youth Leadership, the British Youth Council will be leading on running a 2 year programme for over 1000 young people to spend a week shadowing local councillors.

As the Councillors’ Commission report (December 2007), evidenced, there is a real lack of understanding of the role of Local Councillors and local democracy. It also provided evidence that people are likely to value Councillors more highly if they have met and dealt with them face to face on real issues.

The aim of our programme is to engage young people in their local democracy and their local communities. As part of the development of this new programme we are running a consultation event with young people and Local Councillors to turn this programme into a practical reality.

If you are interested in taking part in this consultation and are able to attend an event in London on the 17th April 2009 between 11am to 3pm, then please email your details to Tim Pickstone at ALDC - there are a limited number of places for Liberal Democrat Councillors - BYC is able to cover reasonable travel costs for Councillors to attend. If you would like more information please contact David Clark at the British Youth Council on david.clark@byc.org.uk or 020 7785 64 61

Harrogate Highlights

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 12:00:00 +0000

It was brilliant to see so many ALDC members and Councillors at the Federal Party Spring Conference last weekend in Harrogate. Not everyone is able to attend, and for those of you who did you can't be at every part of the conference, so here's our brief highlights:

Fringe
The Local Government fringe was some of the best attended in Harrogate. ALDC's sessions on Europe and the Counties (with ALDE); on the "Be a Councillor" programme (with the Leadership Centre) and on Social Housing were all full with lively discussion. On Friday night the LGA Group with London Councils held the "Council Group of the Year" awards to a packed out room. Elsewhere we saw the launch of the Leadership Centre Next Generation Programme 2009 and the new LGA Group book "Cabinet Member for my Ward".

Training
ALDC ran a programme of eight training sessions - four on campaigning, four on being a councillor, with some of the latter in partnership with colleagues from the IDeA and London Councils. If you're interested in the slides from any of the sessions please let us know (ALDC members only).

Advice and Information
Once again this year we shared our stand with peers from the IDeA (Improvement and Development Agency) to provide additional support to councillors at conference. We were also busy with our "60 second survey" on how much Councillors should be contributing to party activities which created great interest - more to follow on this important subject.

Policy and Debate
There is an excellent run-down of the policy and speeches at the conference at the Party Website, including a video of Nick Clegg's closing speech. As local campaigners we've got some excellent things to go and campaign on - 20 hours free childcare, class sizes of 15 for infants, and of course a continuing unique commitment to scrap tuition fees.

For our photo highlights, visit ALDC's Flickr site here.

PS
The Party celebrated its 21st birthday on Friday in Harrogate - happy birthday from ALDC - we (ALDC/ALC/ASDC) will be 42 this year......!

A good day’s work …beating both the BNP and the Tories

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 16:56:00 +0000

There were six principal council elections held on the 5th March. The Tories held three seats and lost one to the Liberal Democrats. Labour gained a seat from the Tories. The Lib Dems held one seat. There were two Town and Parish Council results reported to ALDC . One Lib Dem hold and one Lib Dem gain from Independents.

In the Buxton Ward of Broadland Council in Norfolk we took a seat from the Tories with 71% of the vote. This election demonstrated that high literature volumes in rural wards do work! Our campaigners found that they were hitting a glass ceiling for voter ID despite good turnouts at Saturday mass canvass sessions. It’s important to vary the times of day, and days that you canvass. Some people will always be out on Saturdays. Once this was taken on board “outs” were sought at different days and times until they were canvassed.

The successful candidate Barabara Rix made a bee-line to the ALDC stall at Harrogate conference to sign up as a member of ALDC. Remember members of ALDC are three and half times more likely to get elected in local elections than non –members. ALDC is for those campaigning to become councillors as much as those who are already elected.

The BNP targeted Castle Ward of Carlisle Council for another gain following last weeks result in Sevenoaks and some encouraging results in Cumbria. Castle ward has been Lib Dem held for years, but the by-election was due to the resignation of our newest councillor. The BNP hopes to get Nick Griffin elected as MEP in the North West and put out 12 pieces of literature, flooded the ward on the day with a full polling day operation, and had Nick Griffin out on the streets. The North West is lucky; it woke up to the BNP threat some years ago. The region and its MEP organised help and interventions to improve the Castle campaign and ensure the BNP’s defeat.

This proactive approach combined with a specific campaign fund are initiatives that some but far from all regions have emulated, it’s time they did.

Harrogate Highlights

Wed, 04 Mar 2009 15:22:00 +0000

Its only a couple of days to the Party's Federal Spring Conference in Harrogate (Friday 6 - Sunday 8 March 2009). If you've been able to get to Harrogate please join us at one of the many events for councillors and local campaigners, or just come and say "hello" at the stand. If you're not able to be there, please feel free to contact us if you would like any more information about the training or fringe events.

In the previous two weeks, we've given details of the ALDC programmes for campaigner and councillor training in Harrogate. As promised, here are some final details on our busy fringe programme.

The full local Government Programme is available to download here.

Friday 6 March 2009 8.00-9.15pm, Holiday Inn, Charter Suite
Europe Matters Locally
Its just gone three months to go to the European and County/Unitary elections on 4 June 2009. Join our platform of key parliamentarians and campaigners: Willie Rennie MP, Andrew Stunell MP, Danny Alexander MP, Andrew Duff MEP and Director of Campaigns Hilary Stephenson. Chair: Cllr Graham Knight (Mid Sussex). DRINKS

Saturday 7 March 2009 1.00-2.00pm, Holiday Inn, Bramham Suite
Be a Councillor Lib Dem Programme
Join us for the launch of the Be a Councillor Liberal Democrat Programme. This exciting programme being delivered by the Leadership Centre for Local Government and ALDC, will look how we can find and recruit good and diverse council candidates: Julia Goldsworthy MP, Steve Hitchins and Cllr Laura Willoughby. Chair Cllr Claire Hudson (Mendip) LUNCH AVAILABLE

Saturday 7 March 2009 6.30-7.30pm, Holiday Inn, Charter Suite
Social Housing - a Credit Crunch Crisis?
As the credit crunch hits people hard, we examine what the future needs to be for social housing. Join our top panel of experts: Adam Sampson (Chief Executive, SHELTER); Sarah Teather MP; Deputy Leader of Leeds Council Cllr Richard Brett; and Executive Member for Housing in Islington Cllr Terry Stacy. Chair: Cllr Sarah Boad (Warwickshire). DRINKS

Won one, lost one

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 14:29:00 +0000

There were five principal council elections held on the 26th February. The Tories held two seats and gained one from the Ratepayers. Labour gained a seat from the Lib Dems. The Lib Dems gained one seat off the Tories. There was one Town and Parish Council result reported to ALDC which the Tories held.

In Epsom and Ewell we had two by-elections running concurrently. Wisely we focussed on our defence in Court Ward. At the time of writing the post mortem has yet to be held but it looks likely that, as usual, more than one cause led to our defeat. However one of the stronger reasons seems to have been the messages from the opposition. In 2007 we caught Labour napping. With two strong local issues we took all three seats. Unfortunately at the time of the by-election neither issue had been visibly resolved. This gave Labour plenty of ammunition combined with a more resilient Tory vote to let them slip back in.

On East Devon District council in the Honiton St. Michaels Ward the Tories were complacent and stood a candidate from outside the Ward. The Labour PPC lived in the Ward yet they gave up and failed to stand a candidate. We stood a well-respected Town councillor. The campaign was competent but nothing special. In 2003 we only stood two candidates in a three councillor ward – a simple tactical mistake and we lost. In 2007 we did not even stand a candidate making the victory even more dramatic.

Remember the regulated period for European Election Expenses has started (5th Feb – 4th June). If you are any doubt a ) include either a joint local election /Euro election imprint or b) if you’ve no locals election in June then use the Euro Election imprint on all materials or literature you use in the regulated period. Start now to keep copies of literature and their associated invoices to help your Local Party Treasurer submit his part of the Euro Election expense return after polling day. Your Local Party Treasurer will have received a letter from Cowley Street with further details.

By-Election Emails

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 12:00:00 +0000

All ALDC members are now able to "opt in" to receiving our weekly by-election email.

The email, which is sent out every Friday lunchtime, gives full results for all the local by-elections the previous day, together with a list of all forthcoming local by-elections.

Please note that this service is only available for ALDC members. To receive the weekly emails, log in to the ALDC website at www.aldc.org select "Manage Membership" and tick "YES" for by-election emails! While you're there - take a minute to check your member's information details.

Harrogate Councillor Training

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 14:28:00 +0000

The new "Local Government Directory" for the Harrogate Spring Party Conference is now available. Click here to download a printable version - if you're going to Harrogate there will be a paper version in your delegate's bag!

Last week we outlined the programme of ALDC training for Campaigners in Harrogate. Below, as promised, are details of our training programme for Councillors. Next week more information on the Local Government fringe programme.

The sessions all take place on the Saturday 7 March 2009, they're all free to attend, but open only to Party members.

Pavement Politics to Strategic Politics 9.15-10.45
Cllrs Gerald Vernon-Jackson and Derek Osbourne look at taking forward ideas strategically.

Making the most of your MyCouncillor Website 11.00-12.30
Cllr Tim Pickstone shows us some of the tricks for better websites!

Scrutinising Finance - Making it work 14.30-15.45
Ed Hammond (IDeA) and Stephanie Ouzman (Lib Dem Support Officer) look at getting the numbers right!

Finding and Recruiting Good Council Candidates 16.00-17.30
Cllrs Laura Willoughby and Steve Hitchins look at getting good and diverse candidates.

Local Council Local Parliament

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 13:52:00 +0000

Is your local council a local parliament? Should it be? What would this involve? Join the debate!

Fringe meeting at Federal Spring Conference in Harrogate: Panel includes Simon Hughes MP and Cllr Richard Kemp.
Food and drink provided.

Friday 6 March, 20:00-21:00, Harewood Suite, Holiday Inn
Brought to you by the LGA Lib Dem group, and the Leadership Centre for Local Government

Standing a candidate matters more than ever

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 12:00:00 +0000

There were five principal council by-elections held on Thursday 19th February. The Liberal Democrats held three seats. Labour held one and lost one to the BNP. In the only parish and Town council election reported to ALDC the Lib Dems gained a seat from the Conservatives.

As you might expect from a by-election in the held Harrogate parliamentary seat we fought the Bilton Ward by-electon hard and well. We managed to build on good canvas returns to get an 89% contact rate. Many agents locally and nationally will be very jealous of that!!

In holding the two seats in the Downham ward of the London Borough of Lewisham we had an excellent result with majorities in excess of 400. There had been a history of BNP activity in the ward, which has always been confronted by the Liberal Democrats. The BNP only achieved 10% in this election yet Labour’s only campaign pledge was to get the Union Jack flying over the Town Hall, which they could have done at any point in their last 37 years of control in Lewisham. This was seen by many as a policy pandering to a racist vote and smacked of Labour’s desperation.

In the Swanley St Marys ward of Sevenoaks Council in Kent the BNP took a seat off Labour. Our local party failed to stand a candidate, though one had been identified. ALDC has been told a complicated, sorry tale as to why this volunteer was not then nominated. What is clear is that it was a conscious decision. It was one ALDC utterly condemns.

Even if we can only run a paperless campaign it is imperative that we stand candidates in all by-elections. Not standing a Lib Dem candidate can directly benefit the BNP by as much 5%. Irrespective of whether the BNP has a “history” in your area they fought 30% of all by-elections in 2008 and are fighting 40% in 2009. In some areas that figure rises to 60%. The Swanley BNP candidate is the 5th to get over 26% this year in the ten seats they have fought.

Can we simply reiterate

Always stand a candidate, even a paperless campaign will damage the BNP.
In conjunction with Searchlight , ALDC has produced a publication “Tackling the BNP” which is there to help – it's available from our online shop.
If you are actively fighting a by-election where the BNP are standing contact ALDC for help, support and artwork.
Make sure your region and regional campaigns officer are aware that you are fighting the BNP. Some have dedicated campaign funds or will commit extra support.

Lib Dem Local Government Conference

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 12:00:00 +0000

Liberal Democrats councillors and local campaigners come together in (Lib Dem run) Sheffield on 19 and 20 June 2009 for the third Liberal Democrat Local Government Conference.

For further information, and for details of exhibition space, please contact Emma Hall on 01422 843 785 emma.hall@aldc.org

This is a great opportunity for Liberal Democrats across the Country to exchange best practice and prepare for the electoral challenges that face us in the coming years.

Register online now to take advantage of the special "Early Bird" registration fee of £30 (ALDC's Gold Members); £35 (Silver) and £40 (non-ALDC members). ALDC members should "log in" to the website FIRST to receive your members discount - its then applied automatically).

Why not bring along a group to the Conference? - if you pay for three places at the Conference - then your fourth place is free!

Friday 19 June (daytime) - Satellite events including Leadership Centre programme for Council Leaders.

Friday 19 June (evening) - Lib Dem Local Government Reception and Dinner with Party President Ros Scott. (Tickets for this are £30 on top of the normal registration fee).

Saturday 20 June (daytime) - Local Government Conference - speakers, training, debate, exhibition and policy. We can now confirm that the Party Leader, Nick Clegg MP will be addressing the Conference on Saturday 20 June.

Be a Councillor Lib Dem Programme

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 12:00:00 +0000

How are you finding it recruiting your candidates?

WHAT?
Be a Councillor is a Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG) project launched in January 2009 delivered by the Leadership Centre for Local Government for each of the three main political parties to assist YOU with the recruitment of a broader, deeper, and even more able pool of talented council candidates for future council elections. It is more about talent than about diversity but one leads to the other!

HOW?
For each party, nine separate party meetings will be organised in regional venues. For the Liberal Democrats these will be in:

Birmingham Monday 30th March
Bristol Thursday 12th March
Cambridge Monday 23rd March
Leeds Tuesday 17th March
Newcastle Thursday 30th April Please note corrected date
Northampton Monday 16th March
Eastbourne Monday 20th April
Portsmouth Tuesday 21st April
Stockport Wednesday 29th April

They will be evening meetings commencing probably at 7pm and ending soon after 9pm. Venues are in part chosen for ease of access for councils in neighbouring areas to also attend. Refreshments will be provided – after the meeting and travel expenses (for councillors) are refundable from your council because these are LGA meetings.

Further meetings will be held at the Federal Conference in Harrogate on 7th March (with Julia Goldsworthy MP) and at the LGA/ALDC Councillors Conference in Sheffield on 19th June.

Its free, but please register on-line.

Women's Local Government Society AGM

Thu, 19 Feb 2009 12:00:00 +0000

The Women's Local Government Society will be meeting in Birmingham on Saturday 21st March 2009. The day will include an update on our activities and discussion about how we can meet our aims.

This year they have focused on the drive to recruit more women candidates, and launched their 'find a friend' pack available on the website. We are also lobbying and campaigning to help make sure women have fair access to winnable seats, and have the support they need once they are elected.

An application form is here.

Conservative Local Government Proposals

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 13:50:00 +0000

Yesterday the Conservative Party launched its Local Government "green paper" entitled "Control Shift - Returning Power to Local Communities".

Key points include (for a full list - see LGA Briefing):

• Discretionary power to levy business rate discounts and firms given power to support/stop increases in local business rates through local referenda.
• New relationship between local and central government (including power of general competence).
• Local referenda on ‘excessive’ council tax increases.
• Legislate for referenda on directly elected mayors in 12 major cities. (Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffield Bradford, Manchester, Liverpool, Bristol, Wakefield, Coventry, Leicester, Nottingham, Newcastle upon Tyne)
• Directly elected police commissioners. Giving local people more power over local spending priorities

Richard Kemp - who leads the LGA Liberal Democrat Goup commented on the proposals:

"Tories right for Direction but woefully lacking in substance"
The Leader of the Liberal Democrats in local government, Cllr Richard Kemp has welcomed the direction of the Tory proposals for local government, but has cited four major concerns.

"This is a wholesale repudiation of the Thatcher and Major governments which stripped councils of their power and finance and made them into puppets of central government, but the plans lack substance in 4 areas".

1. They do nothing to correct the imbalance between central and local funding. Whilst central government supplies up to 80% of the money spent by local government they will continue to call the tune asserting national priorities over local ones. They have similarly chickened out of tackling the way we raise money locally by keeping in place the grossly unfair Council Tax whilst we would propose a fair local income tax.

2. They have learned nothing about local mayors. Some Mayors, and of course our own in Watford, have been successful. And where people decide that they want a mayor they already have the right to elect one. But of the 12 elected mayoral systems in England two are in deep trouble with Stoke already voting to end their mayoral system. If the same proportion of councils generally were in trouble there would be aid teams outside 38 Town Halls today.

3. They have learned nothing about regionalism. They are, of course, right to rail against the bureaucracies of unelected regional government. But to suggest that employment, housing, transport and planning matters stop at the boundary of each council is ludicrous. Councils must and do work together and should be empowered themselves to develop sub regional and regional frameworks.

4. Proposals for elected commissioners for the Police are deeply scary. Most people believe that the head of the Police should be a serving and experienced police officer. Although the green paper does not define what an elected commissioner would do there would be no point in having such a position if that person were unable to radically change policing policy and operational policing activity.

Cllr Kemp added: "In these proposals the Tory MPs are clearly not listening to their own councillors who would support many of these points especially the one about police commissioners. In particular they have shown that they know little about urban government with many major urban councils like Liverpool. Sheffield and Newcastle being entirely Tory Free Zones."

Cornwall back on for June!

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 23:08:00 +0000

"Democracy has triumphed over delay" is the response of Cornish MPs to reports that Local Government Minister John Healey is set to confirm the election date for the new Cornwall Council as 4th June 2009 (rather than delay to October).

The Cornish MPs say that "this decision will make sure that the new council is shaped by councillors and elected by the people in its first crucial months, not run by unelected caretakers".

The team of Cornish MPs wrote to the Local Government Minister John Healey on 29th January 2009 setting out their view that the new Council should be elected at the earliest opportunity, with 123 councillors serving a four year term. Where Parish Councils or others have requested uncontroversial changes to the draft boundaries, these should be implemented before June 4th, and the MPs have pressed the Local Government Minister to guarantee resources are available to ensure this happens.

Full story on Julia Goldsworthy's website here.

Achievable Goals

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 15:03:00 +0000

There were four principal council elections held on the 12th February. The Tories held three seats and lost one to Labour. There were two Town and Parish Council results reported to ALDC. The Tories took one seat from the Lib Dems and the Lib Dems took one from the Tories.

In the four principal elections put together we only polled 440 votes. In most by-elections we will fight to win and you can often get much bigger swings than are possible in a regular local election. The entire Local Party's resources (and help from outside) can be directed into a small area. Not fighting to win should be rare and would only usually happen except in a very poor ward when perhaps you are in the run up to wider local elections and you do not want to take effort away from your main targets. But even when you are not going all out to win you can still set yourselves achievable goals. Your goal may well be to develop your organisation in that ward or to build data in your strongest areas to help at a different election – perhaps the General Election or the next set of locals in the area. Your goal could be to train campaigners in election skills for future elections. Don’t miss the opportunity.

Be A Councillor - Lib Dem Programme

Fri, 13 Feb 2009 12:00:00 +0000

How are you finding it recruiting your candidates?
The Liberal Democrat programme

HOW?
For each party, nine separate party meetings will be organised in regional venues. For the Liberal Democrats these will be in:

Birmingham Monday 30th March
Bristol Thursday 12th March
Cambridge Monday 23rd March
Leeds Tuesday 17th March
Newcastle Thursday 28th April
Northampton Monday 16th March
Eastbourne Monday 20th April
Portsmouth Tuesday 21st April
Stockport Wednesday 29th April

Further meetings will be held at the Federal Conference in Harrogate on 7th March (with Julia Goldsworthy MP) and at the LGA/ALDC Councillors Conference in Sheffield on 19th June.

WHO?
All councillors will be invited. MPs and MEPs will be notified. But it is up to each of you to invite those people from your local party whom you think should be there. The optimum group of attendees from each council would include the Group Leader, at least two other councillors, someone responsible for the campaign, someone responsible for the candidate processes and a non-councillor candidate. All contact will be by e-mail.

Please register on-line.

WHEN?
The meetings are being held in March and April to be completed before the Euro campaign hots up. As you can see most of the venues are in areas where the Liberal Democrats control the council.

Your host is the Council Leader who will be introducing the event. It is unlikely and unavoidable that we’ll pick dates which don’t clash with meetings for some of you! That’s why we’re not issuing regional invitations but giving all councillors the chance to attend any of the meetings

WHAT?
The meetings are based on a pilot conducted in London which was very successful. The meeting is not an end in itself but each one will facilitate the identification of a substantial number of names of people whom the participants must then approach about becoming candidates.

There is opportunity for follow-up and support as well in the second phase.

WHO?
Leadership Centre for Local Government has appointed Steve Hitchins to run this project for the Liberal Democrats with ALDC and the Lib Dem Group Office at the LGA.

ANY OTHER QUESTIONS?
More information will be coming out in the near future but don’t hesitate to contact me directly with any questions. My e-mail is steve.hitchins@googlemail.com and my mobile 07801106860.

WHAT DO I DO NOW?
Go on line and reserve your place NOW! Contact colleagues in your local party and make sure they go too.

Liberal Democrat Local Government Conference

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 12:00:00 +0000

Liberal Democrats councillors and local campaigners come together in (Lib Dem run) Sheffield on 19 and 20 June 2009 for the third Liberal Democrat Local Government Conference.

This is the third year running that the conference has been jointly organised by ALDC and the LGA Liberal Democrat Group,and builds on the success of the last two events in Birmingham. This is a great opportunity for Liberal Democrats across the Country to exchange best practice and prepare for the electoral challenges that face us in the coming years.

Register online now to take advantage of the special "Early Bird" registration fee of £30 (ALDC's Gold Members); £35 (Silver) and £40 (non-ALDC members). ALDC members should "log in" to the website FIRST to receive you're members discount - its then applied automatically).

Why not bring along a group to the Conference? As a special offer if you pay for three places at the Conference - then you fourth place is free!

The conference takes place in the centre of Sheffield at both the St Paul's Hotel and Sheffield Town Hall, which are next door to each other. On Friday 19 June 2009, the Leadership Centre for Local Government and others will be organising satellite events during the day. Further details will be available shortly.

On the evening of Friday 19 June, you are welcome to join us at the Lib Dem Local Government Dinner, at St Paul's Hotel, with Nick Clegg MP and Baroness Ros Scott. Accommodation on Friday evening is available at St Paul's Hotel. Dinner on Friday night is £30 extra (sorry no group discount here!)

On Saturday the main conference takes place from 9.30am – 4.00pm and will include: - training – skills for councillors and campaigners - speakers and debate - exhibition - fringe events and workshops

Confirmed contributors on Saturday include: Baroness Ros Scott, Julia Goldsworthy MP, Andrew Stunell MP, Councillor Richard Kemp, Councillor Kath Pinnock and Councillor Paul Scriven.

For delegates attending the whole Friday daytime and Saturday programme, a special full delegate rate is available of £125 which includes dinner.

Accommodation must be booked separately which can be done online here.

For further information, and for details of exhibition space, please contact Emma Hall on 01422 843 785 emma.hall@aldc.org

They won’t just go away

Mon, 09 Feb 2009 16:19:00 +0000

There were five principal council elections held on the 5th February. Labour held two seats and the Tories held three. There were no Town and Parish Council results reported to ALDC.

In the Plaistow ward of Chichester District Council in West Sussex we came within 113 votes of taking the seat off the Tories. The by-election was called following the resignation of a Conservative Councillor who attended just one of the seventeen council meetings held since he was elected in May 2007. In the run up to polling day another Conservative Councillor resigned from the Tories and backed our candidate. The swing of 21% to us was huge but this was a ward in which the Tories got 78% of the vote in 2007.

There has been a worrying trend in recent months. Each week we have had at least one by-election which the BNP have clearly targeted – presumably nationally. This week it was Hyde Newton Ward in Tameside where the BNP got 29%, coming second to Labour. Last week it was Fenham Ward in Newcastle where the BNP got 836 votes, 27% only 213 behind the Lib Dems, but in third. On the 22nd January it was in the East Wickham Ward in Bexley, London where they got 790 (26.5%) only 8 votes from the Tory victors. As they did not win these seats it may not have received national news coverage. Full marks to our local parties for standing candidates and fighting all these seats. What is clear is that you can’t “carry on regardless” and hope the BNP will go away.

If your by-election has been targeted by the BNP, and your campaign is not just a flag waving exercise then you need to do more. One of your key campaign messages needs to be exposing the BNP as fascists. This may be an obvious concept to active Liberal Democrats but the public has lowered its tolerance threshold and we need to remind them of who and what the BNP are and what that means. As with all your key campaign messages this means including it in all your literature. For help and guidance please get a copy of “Tackling the BNP” from ALDC and contact us for advice and standard artwork when you are planning your campaign.

Children's Conference Going Ahead!

Thu, 05 Feb 2009 13:10:00 +0000

The LGA Lib Dems are re-assuring people that the Children and Young People's conference will still go ahead tomorrow (6th Feb) and Saturday in Nottingham, despite the snow! The venue have confirmed this morning that they are open, although they have told us that due to the weather they are unable to provide transport from Nottingham station, so delegates will need to get a cab if coming by train.

The journey takes about 10 minutes or so. There is a taxi rank at the station itself but should you want to pre-book a cab, two local cab firms are: DG cars - 0115 9607 607 or try Cab line 0115 922 5226. Cab firms have confirmed to us on the phone that they are able to negotiate the roads OK, although of course everyone should take care when travelling in wintry conditions and allow a bit more time to reach the venue.

As mentioned before, the accommodation is in the same building as the conference venue so there are no worries about negotiating icy pavements to get back to your room. No snow is forecast in Nottingham tomorrow. We look forward to welcoming you to Nottingham. In addition to the packed agenda, I for one am looking forward to the food, which has always been great whatever the weather!

More information LGA Lib Dems