Archive for the ‘Local government’ Category
Opinion: A performance to be proud of, but not to settle for
Written by Neale Upstone on 6th May 2008 – 9:03 amA great set of local election results - but to say that we did “well” or “better than expected” is, in my view, an understatement.
On our resources, which do not include the money of (Lord) David Sainsbury (of Turville), or (Lord) Michael Ashcroft (of Tax Haven) or (Lord) Irvine Laidlaw, we’ve done fantastically. Apologies for the brackets, but I think we can say that their ‘titles’ are optional.
Can we do better? You bet!
Here in Cambridge, for example, I doubt that a single leaflet mentioned Nick Clegg’s name. I think they should have. Our local election campaigns should be building national momentum: raising the profile of our leader, his team and our policies.
Neither did we, here, highlight the Tory-Labour collusion on their tax policies for the super wealthy. We seem to be allowing them to feed their funding habit is a somewhat similar fashion to the way that the media supports the drink and drugs train-wreck lifestyles of various celebrities. If we can be certain of one thing, then it’s not going to be Rupert Murdoch who does the job for us on tax!
On this front, I do hope that by this time next year, a site expanding on something like politicalfundingwatch.blogspot.com is out there and we’re making it very clear who’s pockets the opposition is in. It’s certainly something I’m keen to move forwards.
And, to be clear, the need to attack this Tory-Labour collusion, is not just for our political gain, but more importantly, for the sake of:
- The vast majority of us who need the NHS: polyclinics look likely to benefit big business, not those who use the service;
- Those of us who rely on post offices and small shops;
- Those who need good public transport: we must break the regional monopolies of the bus operators, especially in light of ever increasing fuel prices;
- Those whose prospects are poor because their parents were poor: we want a society where every child born has equal opportunities based on their commitment and ability, not on the wealth of their parents;
- Our children and their children, who, unless we wrestle back control from what is becoming what I can only call a monopolist’s plutocracy, will be faced with a planet raging with conflict, on a path that was set for the short term gains of a few who lacked the compassion to see beyond their own desires.
These and more are being eroded, not because they’re not needed, or because we don’t know how to improve them, but because of the stupid situation that subverts our democracy.
So, my view: A great result? Yes. Can we do better? You bet! Let’s put power back where it belongs: in the hands of the people!
* Neale Upstone is Liberal Democrat councillor for Kings Hedges on Cambridge City Council.
Posted in Local government, Op-eds | 45 Comments »
The LDV election verdict: a good night for the Lib Dems
Written by Stephen Tall on 2nd May 2008 – 6:02 pmI think you can sense the relief among Lib Dems today. Despite widespread predictions that the party would end up the loser of the night – both among the media and LDV readers – the Lib Dems have ended up with a net gain of both councils and councillors.
Not only that, but for only the second time in its history the Lib Dems have come second in the national projected share of the vote, with 25%. We couldn’t have hoped for much better; and we certainly feared it might be much worse.
Remember, the last time most of these Council seats were contested was in 2004, at a time when the party was riding much higher in the opinion polls than today, and the Tory party was still in the doldrums.
That year, we made a net gain of over 100 seats, and took 27% of the vote. It wouldn’t actually have been that surprising if we had slipped back a little this time - but it would certainly have been spun against us by our foes. It was clear the BBC had already filed their ‘setback for Clegg’ stories until the party’s encouraging performance spiked their guns.
Indeed, Nick has just emailed party members summarising the many successes from yesterday:
Just a note to thank everyone who helped with the election campaigns yesterday. We had a very successful night - beating Labour into third. Fighting the same set of seats as we did in 2004 at the height of the Iraq war, we’re set to have more councillors and control of more councils than we did even then.
We have gained my home city of Sheffield, as well as St Albans, Burnley and Hull. We are also the largest party and came within just one seat of gaining overall control in Oldham, Warrington and Cheltenham. And we made important gains in key seats like Derby, Colchester and Reading.
In Wales too our progress has been impressive. We’ve made gains across the country and strengthened our position as the largest party in Cardiff. The results aren’t yet in from London. But we do know that Brian Paddick and his team have done an outstanding job in flying the flag for us in that important contest.
In fact, this year’s results followed a similar pattern to last year’s: Lib Dem councillors in areas where we don’t have significant strength were picked off. But in those areas which will decide our success at the next general election – the Tory-Lib Dem battlegrounds in the south, and Labour-Lib Dem battlegrounds in the north – the party more than held its own.
Credit is due to the Tories. There’s no doubt their performance exceeded expectations; certainly I didn’t expect them to poll 44% of the national vote, and it looks like they will gain over 300 councillors. That is a strikingly good performance, and one that suggests the party really will be a serious contender for government at the next election. It’s still not clear to me that the public is convinced by the Tory party’s message. But such is their fed-upness with Labour, for the moment they’re happy to overlook their scepticism.
There were two big losers from the night: the Labour party and the BBC. For Labour, these were not simply mid-term blues: this was a wholesale rejection of a tired, grey government which looks dead on its feet. It is hard to see how they can turn this Titanic performance around; even harder to see Gordon Brown as a man brimming with energy and ideas capable of seizing back the initiative. The writing is on the wall.
For the BBC, last night perhaps marked the nadir of their election coverage - as anticipated here on LDV by PoliticalBetting.com’s Mike Smithson last month - and has attracted deserved and widespread criticism for its infantilising television coverage. (With the notable exception of the bloggers’ panel, and our own fragrant Alix Mortimer, of course). Not only did they fail to recognise Lib Dem successes until late in the day – so determined were they to run an anti-Clegg line – but they insulted the intelligence of all voters by relying on tacky and confusing gimmicks. The BBC is still covering politics as if this were the 1970s. They need seriously to re-think their approach or become a laughing-stock instead of a national institituion.
NB: Lib Dem Blogger of the Year James Graham has an excellent analysis over at the Guardian’s Comment Is Free site.
Posted in Local government, Op-eds | 22 Comments »
BBC Election Night 2008…
Written by Alix Mortimer on 28th April 2008 – 6:30 pm… will kick off at 11.35pm on One this Thursday, and will feature a regular bloggers’ spot on the programme itself and an accompanying minute-by-minute blog of results, news, anecdotes, pictures, groundless speculation and, please god, a few laughs.
Your present correspondent will be in the yellow corner, diametrically opposite to, and equidistant from, Iain Dale and Luke Akehurst. Part of the premise is that we, El Bloggers, are going to try to beat the Beeb on getting results in. Our blogs will be syndicated to the BBC blog and because we don’t have to get it right wait for confirmation, we can get results up as soon as we hear about them from our own sources.
And in my case that means YOU, LDV eggs. If you’re going to be propping your eyelids open at a count, or you know someone who is and don’t mind blearily transmitting some news in the small hours, the Beeb wants to hear from you. It can be exit polls, early indicators, unconfirmed results, unexpected developments, rumours, amusing pictures, breaking news on the tea and coffee facilities… All suitable disclaimers will be in place and you can let me know if you’d rather not be named as a source (as if, you shameless attention-seekers). Choose your weapon:
Comment below. I’ll keep the page open throughout the night. I’m sure there will also be a sounding-off thread on the night which I’ll also have open.
Facebook message or email me. Details on my blog.
Comment over at my gaff. There’ll be an entry there soon.
Twitter at me. @AlixMortimer. My mobile will be switched on and my parents are under strict instructions not to call me and tell me I’m on TV.
If you have a blog and rattle off any posts of your own over the course of the night, please drop me the link on any of the above, likewise if you see anything good on someone else’s blog.
Posted in Local government, News, e-campaigning | 26 Comments »
The unexpected benefits of an onlineFOCUS
Written by Chris Black on 8th April 2008 – 7:45 amJust about every part of Britain has some kind of local Lib Dem website nowadays. So it’s a bit presumptious to make a fuss about the one that I help edit. But we are coming up to our 1000th post for www.onlinefocus.org - and I don’t know have many other Lib Dem sites have written that many yet.
We describe onlinefocus as “News and Stuff for Rochford District” and we started off back in May 2003… You’ll see by the .org suffix that we are not an official Lib Dem site - just like Lib Dem Voice, we are an independent site. (And the address onlinefocus.org seemed too good to miss!)
For the last 18 months we have put something on the site everyday without fail, except at Christmas. We cover council matters, report on debates, and flag up interesting planning applications, with occasional delves into local historical, and scientific matters. Editorial responsibility is shared between 3 councillors.
The benefits of doing an onlinefocus have been …. unexpected:
* The readership is worthwhile but not spectacularly high - we get a few thousand visits a month at the moment;
* The effect on our local party isn’t spectacular either - we are still very much the second party here - but in isolated instances has made a big difference. One chap moved to our district as a Conservative, but had switched over to us before we even met him, thanks to reading the website and exchanging comments with us. So the first time we actually spoke to him he agreed to deliver Focus, and now he’s a candidate.
- One real change is a much more effective relationship with the local news media - we hardly ever have to do a press release any more, the local papers just look at onlinefocus every day. They also appreciate it when we come up with non-council stories that they can use - such as the case of the exploding light bulbs. Because of this more effective relationship, we get a broader local news coverage, and occasionally set the agenda.
* Council officers and people from other parties have also become regular readers, presumably because we write chattily but also fairly. This gives beneficial results all round. Residents will sometimes leave comments on onlinefocus because they know they’ll be read that day by the local press and the council administration.
It’s the unforeseen results that have been the most memorable. Read more »
Posted in Local government, e-campaigning | 6 Comments »
Local elections 2008: a preview
Written by Harry Hayfield on 17th March 2008 – 7:45 amNo doubt you were looking at your newspapers yesterday, and feeling not very happy about this poll in The Sunday Times:
YouGov poll reports 16% lead for Conservatives : Con 43% Lab 27% Lib Dems 16%
My reaction to this poll is “Whoopee!”
Now before you think the worst, no, I have not succumbed to the charms of David Cameron, nor will I contest the forthcoming local elections as a Conservative. No, I will be contesting the local elections as a Liberal Democrat because in several councils across the country that poll suggests we could well have another barnstormer of a local election (just as we did in 2004).
It is a well known fact that in local elections, the Liberal Democrats do very well indeed when compared to the national poll ratings, and because of the timings of past local elections it is possible to quantify just how well.
In 1997, the Lib Dems polled 18% in the general, but 25% in the county elections. In 2001, the Lib Dems rose 1% at the general election (19%) and in the county elections polled 25% again and in 2005, polled 23% in the general and a very impressive 28% in the counties. All of which suggests that on average the Lib Dems poll 6% better in local elections than general elections: by a similar degree the Conservatives poll 3% better, and Labour poll 10% worse, in local elections than general elections.
Therefore, if we take the average of the polls so far this month - Con 40%, Lab 32%, Lib Dem 17% - and apply those average changes to it, we get a 2008 local election forecast of:
Con 43%, Lab 22%, Lib Dem 23%
thus ensuring that Labour (the governing party) are consigned to their 4th successive set of local elections finishing in third place. And how does this help us Lib Dems you may well ask?
Manchester: Lab 61 councillors, Lib Dems 34 councillors. (If people want to vote anti-Labour, it’s no point voting Conservative, is it?)
Oxford: Lib Dems 19 councillors, Lab 17 councillors, Greens 8 councillors. (Which party is the best place to take overall control in Oxford? - it’s certainly not the Conservatives or Greens.)
Ceredigion: Plaid Cymru 16 councillors, Lib Dems 9 councillors, Lab 1 councillor. (Seeing as Labour and Plaid Cymru are essentially the government in Wales, why vote Plaid when that means you are backing the Welsh Assembly Government?)
So as you can see in loads of councils across the UK, the Liberal Democrats are the main challengers to Labour, and the party best placed to gain control.
So have a good fuel up on Easter Eggs next weekend, so that on Wednesday, 26th March, onwards you can walk into your local returning officer’s office, hand over your nomination forms, and say to the electorate: “I’m a Liberal Democrat candidate, and we are the only party who can win control of this council!”
* Harry Hayfield is a Lib Dem activist from Ceredigion constituency and is a prospective community council candidate for the Henfynwy Community Council.
Posted in Local government, Polls | 18 Comments »
