The beacon is lit! North Shropshire calls for aide!
Such was the cry in December 2021 on the Facebook HQ page of the by-election campaign that eventually saw a stunning victory for Helen Morgan and her team as the campaign went into the final week.
The fantastic result this July has given us a huge boost, especially coming on the back of a great set of May election results, where we displaced the Tories and came second in the seat table in England for 2024 – now sadly overlooked by the national media.
What I want to consider is the effect winning, and keeping certain seats has on the regional and in the case of Wales and Scotland, national scale, and how they shine a light into their surrounding areas.
We have what I call “Beacon Seats” – those whose significance is beyond the numerical value of their vote in Parliament. We could equally call them Springboard, Platform, Catalyst or Oasis seats, but whatever the name, they fulfil the same function. They are the outliers, the stand-alones or in pairs, the odd-one or twos that are our only Westminster presence in that region or nation.
The reason they punch above their numerical weight is that they hopefully give us regular access to local, regional and national media, access that we only really get from having a Westminster MP. They are a beacon of Liberal Democracy for their surrounding area or nation.
Since 2015, Tim Farron was about the only Lib Dem appearing on North West TV.
I am sure Wera in Bath played a similar role since 2017 in the West Country and Layla in Oxfordshire. Look at the gains made in local and national elections in areas surrounding these two seats.
Look at the success we had in the West Country after we got Richard in Devon and Sarah in Somerset after by-election gains. Helen in Shropshire seems to have had a similar effect. I remember reading a post about a local resident had written to the Shropshire Star newspaper complaining that he couldn’t open it without seeing a photo of Helen Morgan having achieved something or other for her constituents!
Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe must give us an “in” to Welsh TV and radio programmes we wouldn’t otherwise have and getting Tom Gordon (Harrogate & Knaresborough) in the Yorkshire Post every week can do us no harm whatsoever county-wide.
Remember when Scotland had more pandas that Lib Dem MPs? We kept the flame alive in Orkney & Shetland and it spread and keeps spreading.
So, when it comes to allocating resources (and I think a very high calibre Press/Media officer shared between these seats should be a must from the get-go) I would very strongly argue that we need to invest in these Beacon Seats, the list of which is greater than those seats mentioned in this article, as they will pay the party back many times greater than the investment at forthcoming elections.
* Mick Scholes joined the Liberal Party as a student in the mid 1980s and has seen Liberal Democracy’s ups and downs over the years. A Ward chair and former parish councillor in Saddleworth, he has unending optimism for our party, country and planet.
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9 Comments
Apart from those mentioned:
Tunbridge Wells: Kent.
Stratford: West Midlands
Hazel Grove and Cheadle: Greater Manchester.
+ arguably Edinburgh West, Mid+Dunbarton, NE Fife
Don’t forget North Norfolk. An outlier in several respects and a very hard fought win in a Brexit/ Tory heartland
Definitely; an oasis in the Norfolk desert.
On similar lines: Chelmsford for Essex.
I agree with the article’s proposal for a dedicated media operative for these beacons.
But I wonder if breaking into new territory increases the chances of another seat being won nearby. Are we more likely to see another gain in Norfolk, for example, given North Norfolk has been won? Or does it make no difference.
Westmoreland and Lonsdale continues to be a one-off, for example.
Could it even be the reverse?
Some beacons may be black holes too, sucking in funds and activists from nearby seats at GE time, making new beacons less likely.
However it needs to be remembered that activists from the North East travelled en masse to both the North West and Yorkshire as directed with the result of no beacon for the North East and a fall in our vote share at home.
It’s the responsibility of those beacon seats to spread out – both in terms of visibility in media, and in terms of helping campaign organisation. That has to be done first in growing local council strength in nearby areas, and then building to Westminster strength.
It’s what Daisy did well from St Albans, and it’s what Chelmsford has already done at a local level – getting our first cllr for 23 years in neighbouring Maldon, and then helping them build to 6 cllrs with plans for far more.
We’re going to be using our success in Chelmsford as a springboard to hopefully take council seats across many of the black hole areas in our county over the next 4 years. The beacons must light up the surrounding areas as well
This could be an argument for adding seats in the East Midlands and the North East, where I believe we have no Wesminster representation to our target list in 2029 .
Thank you Mick for starting this thread – I sense your piece was really aimed at exploiting the breakthroughs in otherwise ‘difficult’ territory. But should we not be thinking more creatively even than that? From an East Midlands perspective, like the North East, it’s easy to be depressed about the prospect of any parliamentary gains. I had hoped that rather than conventional boundaries, demographics and issues would be more deciding factors in particular constituencies. As Chair of Derbyshire Dales, I see marked similarities with some of our West Country seats, and especially North Shropshire. Despite this, and despite a strong local (and national) campaign, we went backwards in the General Election. It’s almost as if there is unwritten rule which stacks the odds massively against us north of a Severn-Wash line. If we are to project ourselves as a national/ federal party of government, it simply won’t do to write off vast tracts of the country. Yes, of course activists went and helped in Sheffield Hallam and Hazel Grove, but that is not what will motivate helpers and new activists in ‘black hole’ regions. Time again, I hope, to return to an approach from past decades – a ‘target’ seat in every county (outside of our areas of strength), these after all are commonly recognised areas engendering loyalty and familiarity. And a ‘guerilla’ style toolkit which we can adapt for popular campaigning. I wish our 72 the very best, but they need to help provide enthusiasm and hope elsewhere.