There were nine principal council elections held on the 14th October and they continued to be encouraging. The Tories held one seat, the Independents one seat, the Lib Dems two and Labour four. The only seat to change hands was a Labour gain from Plaid. In the two Parish council elections reported to ALDC the Independents held one seat and there was a gain by the Lib Dems from Independent.
With all the controversy swirling around and within the Liberal Democrats last Thursdays results continued to confound the pundits. We were defending two seats. In the Watford Central Ward we had a very strong local candidate with a high profile going in to the campaign. This was particularly useful given that our sitting councillor was moving to the USA. Labour and the Tories made much of that running on “”Fred not Florida”.
Labour used of heavy knocking copy on the coalition cuts. One last minute leaflet implied we were closing a community centre on the large council estate in the ward! We remained positive, running on a hard working local candidate who had helped set up a community action group and our year long record of action. Labour threw five leaflets at us, a full colour Florida post card- personally addressed to voters, A5 blue ink letters(unaddressed) ,a personal letter to supporters and a good morning.
We had a strong campaign that included street issue mail merge letters to those that had (from the marked register) voted and we squeezed the Tories even though they had won the parliamentary election in May.
At the start of the count Labour thought they had won it and the Tories looked a bit shell shocked, We worked our socks off and held the seat.
Our second hold was in the St Pauls Ward in Winchester where the Tories had no idea what hit them and started a vociferous post-mortem at the count.
Our canvassing was accurate and we won it on turnout with an eve of poll, targeted & personalised good mornings and five knock-ups.
A common concern from activists across the country is how to counter Labour anger at the coalition. Winchester chose to make clear the local difference between the Lib Dems and the Tories. They produced squeeze and general literature that made it clear. If we’d lost the by-election the Tories might have regained control of the council. We wanted to demonstrate what that would mean for local residents. When confronted with the choice they re-elected a Lib Dem.