Well, well. The list of by-election results was depressing. Four came in with not so much as a Lib Dem candidate. If people are going to develop a habit of voting for the Lib Dems, they need to have the opportunity at every possible election. I know to isn’t always possible to field a candidate, but it is something we need to prioritise.
But amid the gloom, this happened.
Liberal Democrat GAIN Alston Moor (Eden) from Conservative.
— Britain Elects (@britainelects) August 4, 2016
Congratulations to new Cllr Thomas Sheriff. It’s good to see that we are making gains in Cumbria.
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings. You can find her on Bluesky at caronmlindsay.bsky.social
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14 Comments
Well done, Thomas, a result completely out of the blue for anyone not close to the campaign. I actually contacted him the day before polling day to ask if there was a VPB. He said he had no idea what that was, but that he had canvassed pretty well the whole ward and was just popping out to remind some supporters … it seems to have worked!
Well done Thom and the Eden team! Alston one of the first ‘wired in’ communities in the country and knows its own mind. Great to have this 22 year old Councillor elected, a strength for Cumbria.
22? That is fantastic!!! Sounds like he has exactly the right ideas about campaigning.
Eden being the Council next to South Lakeland and Lib Dems no doubt benefiting from Tim Farron being close by.
Caron; I think you are being too kind about seats not fought. There needs to be a program whereby regional parties are charged with the responsibility to approach such seats and produce a training course and assistance to ensure every seat is fought. There must not be any excuses.
I had a seat in my Branch area and noone thought it was worth fighting. We did what we could ie two leaflets and a few contacts . Yes we finished fourth but with 193 votes and annoyance from Labour who said we had stopped them winning(they finished third)
Theres no doubt that we have made real gains since May but so far its only among our “outer core”, voters who are quite intersted in politics & vote in Local byelections. There is no solid evidence that its made any difference to our National Polling yet. Currently we average 8.4%, a whole 0.6% up on our General Election figure. It still very early days in The “Recovery”.
what is a vpb?
Well done – great result. David Raw – former Lib Dem councillor on Eden DC.
In the Nottinghamshire seats with no Lib Dem candidate, the position was complicated. In Bingham, an Independent with a wide range of support almost toppled the Tories, in a seat where the previous Lib Dem candidate had never come at all close.
There is absolutely no excuse for not putting up a candidate. We are a political party. It is our duty to ensure everyone has the opportunity to vote Liberal Democrats. I’m not interested in giving Independents or others a “clear run” to beat the Tories. These people are not Liberal Democrats and should be opposed as much as the Tories.
Rather than wasting steam with “There is absolutely no excuse for not putting up a candidate”, I would like to see steam piped to areas where we do have perfectly valid excuses, such as no cash, no organisation and no track record. More active support for ALDC would be a good start, by more donations , more ALDC members and more signing up to ALDC courses. It is of course a positive feature of our party that we are parochial, but maybe we need formal twinning one-to-one of strong constituencies with chronically weak constituencies. That would be a good start. Any other ideas?
Crewegwyn,
VPB =Virtual Phone Bank.
One of the delights of Connect, hopefully we will have an opportunity to demonstrate this in a by-election near to both of us, once the Police have completed their enquires into a certain individual!
Well said, Robin. It’s overdue (at least 14 months overdue) that we develop strategies at regional or county level for reviving dead, dying or minimal activity areas. They’ve been ignored for too long. If someone wants to go into a dead area and start building it up, and their local party has few activists and is strapped for cash, who will help? Do local parties have plans for such areas and if so, could these attract a modest cash, activist and knowhow injection?
Robin – no cash, no organisation and no track record are not perfectly valid reasons for failing to stand a candidate. All you need is a candidate who is legally qualified and ten signatures. If the by election can be used as a reason to revive a black hole with the help of a more active area nearby then that’s a bonus. The next time I flog round a ward with no members and no canvass records won’t be the first and I’m sure plenty of others have done the same.