Canvassing on the doorstep in South London over the weekend, one thing was clear: despite the excitement of a “Lib Dem fightback” this will be a tough election for the party, and we must fight hard to beat the Tories and Labour where we can win on 8th June.
In Carshalton, where I canvassed for Tom Brake MP on Saturday, it is clear he is being ruthlessly targeted by the Tory Party. Next door the Sutton Tory MP Paul Scully – who has spent two years agitating for Brexit since beating us – is being buttressed by a similar CCHQ campaign, despite a strong national and local campaign on Brexit and the NHS led by our candidate Amna Ahmad. Meanwhile, in places like Bermondsey and Southwark, Labour are not, yet, falling away easily.
It is crucial we are more than equal to the Tory and Labour task and focus our fire on those seats where we remain strong, if we are to make a mark in Westminster after 8th June.
Whilst we rightly snigger at the vacuity of the Tories “Coalition Chaos”, there is no denying that it has some resonance around the country, and we must fight fire with fire. It is up to us to make the case for a return to the pragmatic politics which existed before 2015 – and be as unsentimental as the Tories and Labour about where we make our political case.
Whilst the national picture is fluid, history has shown us time and again that however strong or weak the Lib Dems are nationally, targeting key seats is crucial to our overall fortunes. In 1983, the Liberal Alliance received our highest ever 24% share of the vote, and only 4% of the seats; in 1997, in contrast, we declined by 5% in the vote but doubled our seats. Many activists are still haunted by the tactical mistakes we made in 2010, where, flushed with the excitement of “Cleggmania” we gained a million votes and lost eight seats. This made the 2010-2015 coalition significantly hard, and left us in a weaker position to modify George Osborne’s bedroom tax, and ideas like the benefit cap.
In London, therefore, our regional Chair Chris Maines has made clear to members, based on polling evidence from HQ, that we can win in the following seats: Bermondsey and Old Southwark; Richmond Park; Sutton & Cheam; Carshalton & Wallington; Twickenham; Kingston & Surbiton; Horney & Wood Green and Vauxhall. Surrounding seats can only become targets themselves when we regain the credibility of winning. Other regional parties have made similar requests.
Last year, when I was asked to conduct a report for the regional party on campaigning good practice, the problem of poor targeting was identified time and again by experienced activists as a ceiling on our political prospects. Mark Pack has given a cogent explanation of exactly how we need to target in his latest video.
Whilst this sometimes targeting involves tough decisions locally, normally activists are willing to help vocationally or financially wherever we are best place to win.
Let us be frank though, time is limited, and the stakes are high – with Labour already beaten only we can stand up to the Tory campaign: please get involved now, and fight to win.
Volunteers who would like to find out more about the London campaigns mentioned can sign up to help here.
* Douglas Oliver is secretary of the Liberal Democrat History Group and is based in London.
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31 Comments
Agree entirely. We have a lot of new members (over the last few years as well as weeks) who haven’t been educated in the importance of targeting because they joined when we already had 40+ MPs. This needs to be a priority this weekend. Maybe a national membership letter from the leader on this subject is in order?
Yes, targeting is essential.
But there is still time to attract wider support.
In the last 24 hours we have been dealt two valuable cards: the Diane Abbott fiasco and the speech of Michel Barnier.
Looking objectively at the situation today I fear we will make an odd gain or two in Scotland but lose seats in England, end result 6 – 7 MPS. Hopefully Friday will produce better news from which we might benefit but the coalition is still far too fresh in people minds and tuition fees are our Iraq. We are up against it.
Well said Douglas. The Tories wouldn’t be pushing the ‘coalition of chaos’ line if it hadn’t tested well in their market research in the marginals. We need to target ruthlessly on seats we can win, and that means all hands on deck in those areas.
It’s not just targeting, it’s also managing resources. People who have experience or who’d like to give it a try should be canvassing, the able but shy should be leafleting and those who can’t do either must be writing envelopes, stuffing etc. Obviously training canvassers is ideal but if we can’t manage that going out with someone experienced for the first few times will do. They need briefings from central office re messages to give but can always get back if they need to ask the candidate something. We have people power so now we need them to go out and be visible. People who can canvass shouldn’t be leafleting. Even candidates should be working in a target ward not their own.
Members must be given several “England expects” messages about how vital they are and asked to help us win. They are the ones who can push up our poll ratings and encourage others to vote for us.
IMHO of course!
Good article. We must learn the lessons of 1983 and 2010 and target in this election. An email to all members should be sent pointing out what has happened in the past and telling members which seats in their region are the target ones.
It should be made clear that achieving more than 12% of the vote but only having 8 MPs would not be a good thing to wake up to on 9th June.
I agree with the article but we have 2 goals in this Election, getting more MPs & getting more votes than Labour. We would be much better off with 20 MPs & 1% more than Labour than with 30 MPs & 1% behind. This Election is not normal & our vote share matters in a way it never has since 1983.
We are all I hope realistic about our prospects at the coming election, but realism is one thing and pessimism, theakes, is something else ! We are most truly Liberal Democrats when we campaign for a just cause, as we do today on the issue of Brexit, and we should seek to emulate the individual famously described by Robert Browning as :
One who never turned his back but marched breast forward,
Never doubted clouds would break,
Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph,
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better,
Sleep to wake
If tuition fees are the Lib Dems Iraq, then perhaps Europe is the Lib Dems Clause 4.
there is no chance of getting more votes than labour this time-next time though…so our priortiy must be seats now-as that generates profile-which helps get votes next time
Just seen the Farron/voter episoide the Sky web site. At last something that is helpful, but by accident. Can we get more voters to confront “our beloved leader”, he comes across very well in that situation much, much better than Corbyn, May or Nuttall.
theakes,
You don’t look at it objectively, you look at it through a dark glass. Objectively we have more members and money than last time and are hated a lot less. The possibilities of an upside are therefore better than the last election.
@frankie “The possibilities of an upside are therefore better than the last election.”
But 2015 marked a very low point.
Given the fresh face and change of leadership at the top of the party, the much vaunted influx of new members and a very large recent donation, the easy target of a divided and divisive Labour Party, and the overwhelming association of Lib Dems with an important policy supported by around half of the population, any recovery that looks like the bounce of a dead cat will be a dismal failure.
Surely the party must be looking for a huge step forward, and why not something approaching the levels of 2005 and 2010? Paul Barker’s predictions have been consistently and unrealistically optimistic over the last several years (and I suspect that they are once again), but if the party cannot come close to realising them in 2017, when will it ever?
Peter Watson is quite right to say that I have a history of over-optimism, probably some sort of compensation for my depression.
However I still think that its reasonable to expect us to get something like 17% on June the 8th, is that wildly optimistic ?
If you read the comment threads on Labour List (their equivalent to this site) lots of Labour activists are expecting them to get below 20%. The gap between us & Labour is bridgeable.
Hm,
I agree that targeting is a valuable strategy. However all over the country we have new members who are very keen to help, but are not going to travel miles to a target seat. We MUST give them things to do now or they will give up. If everyone capable of organising a delivery or writing a leaflet spends their time delivering another leaflet in a target seats we will be a hollowed out strike force not a national party.
So let’s have some balance here! Get something going locally and then spend some time elsewhere. And spend some time calling on members! I visited 12 newish members in Huddersfield on Monday and recruited 11 deliverers. We are not doing a full delivery here by any means but all those people will get something to do aimed at growing the Party and our activist base..
I’ve always been 100% behind targetting, and I’ll be spending all my campaigning time in Portsmouth and urging all our members to give time there or in Eastleigh, the other winnable seat within reach of us. But as an MDO I have to keep 120 new members enthusiastic and involved, recognising that many will be unable or unwilling to travel, and unfamiliar with the need to do so. A couple of ideas to do that without detracting from activists’ time: for the County election we’ve emailed all our members with pdfs of window bills with their local candidates’ names and imprints – including the wards where we have name-only candidates – asking them to print them off for themselves and friends. And for the General Election, as well as repeating that, we’re considering supplementing the free Royal Mail delivery by asking our members to tell us how many they could deliver of a locally-printed flier, to be collected by them, thus getting at least something out in areas we haven’t touched for years and giving our newbies a stake in the election.
Jim,
How many posters have popped up on the back of your email. Sounds like a good idea, I’m just wondering if it works?
Peter,
I’d refer to this election as hang onto mummy. Their are lots of frightened people who instinctively hang onto Theresa because she will make things right. She will fail and there will be a reckoning; although the Tories and the press will blame the EU, I don’t think it will work. As Lincoln said
“You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”
Great stuff Jim Forrest. We need to break into the black holes. I know a number of areas are standing full or nearly full slates for the first time in years in order to gauge where the next set of target seats might be for the future.
I Agree with virtually every post here.
Targeting is Imperative.
However not everyone has access to a vehicle, or funds to travel far and wide etc in particular the young. New members will soon lose enthusiasm unless they are doing something tangible – I agree that the national leadership should be leading on this supported by local parties and seasoned activists.
PS Where is this “Horney” seat in London ? (Hornsey/Wood Green I assume) !!
@frankie
🙂
How many lib dems do the public know and respect?
How many lib dem policies do the public know and respect?
Targeting in a general election is not the same as targeting in a local election. In a general election we must have national target seats and all members must be told where their local ones are and be encouraged to go to work there. However every seat should be using the freepost and have some leaflets to deliver locally for those who will not or cannot travel. There is a big difference from doing the freepost and having one leaflet to deliver and believing that three different leaflets and the freepost should be delivered across the whole seat because of a belief in a national swing that will make my seat winnable.
When talking about new members being given something to do, I believe that getting a group together to work in a target seat would be a better experience for them than getting them to deliver some leaflets on their own.
I agree, RUTHLESS targetting …. the ONLY answer for this election
I have always been a supporter of targeting but the lesson from 2015 needs to be learned. No amount of targeting will save or win seats if our opinion poll ratings are lousy. Unless our campaign can get us up to 15% targeting will not win us seats. 15% is probably enough because our overall ratings are dragged down by our poor situation in Scotland and Wales. I also think that the seats we target may be different so St Albans and Vauxhall with their large Remain support are more obvious than in previous elections. The other lesson from 2015 is that size of majority is no impediment to winning if local or national sentiment leads heavily one way.
In relation to the need to keep new members interested and active in a non target seat:
– stress that we don’t want 80 improved 2nd places
– How letting go of targetting helped us lose seats in 2010
– that they’ll learn a lot from helping out in a target seat as well as (hopefully) having the satisfaction of having actually helped ELECT a LibDem MP
Local party leaders including the parliamentary candidate should get on board with this (I’ve seen this happening in some seats).
OH and I forgot to add:
– keep campaigning in the non target seat (can help for future council elections), but balance out the volume of this with helping out in nearby target seat
All this seems to beg another question – should we even be putting candidates up where we don’t have a realistic chance of winning. If we run a candidate in a close Lab/Con constituency, we risk splitting the anti-Tory vote and letting them in by default – not a great result for those with liberal tendencies.
Apropos the ‘coalition’- I’ve found a useful argument is to talk about the undeclared Lab/Con coalition to pass Article 50 legislation unamended. That seems to strike a bell with many.
Article spot on – several of our 2015 losses were a direct result of poor targeting. We must focus on where we can win this election. Then build into more ambitious areas.
@Matt Dolman “several of our 2015 losses were a direct result of poor targeting.”
In 2015 the campaigning seemed to be all about defending Lib Dem incumbents. In fact, looking at comments after the 2013 local elections, that strategy started a long time before 2015. I’m not sure though what other targeting would have been feasible.