One of the largest swings to the Lib Dems at the last election was in the Nottinghamshire seat of Ashfield: Jason Zadrozny gained a massive swing of 17% from Labour, but was pipped by just 192 votes by TV journalist Gloria De Piero, taking over the seat from the disgraced Geoff Hoon.
Well, local Lib Dems have offered Jason second go. He has been selected for a return match, as the Nottingham Post reports:
Mr Zadrozny will go head-to-head with Labour MP Gloria de Piero at the polls in 2015, with Miss de Piero winning by 192 votes. He currently serves as an Ashfield District and Nottinghamshire County Councillor for Sutton North ward.
He said: “It’s an honour to be re-selected as the Liberal Democrat candidate for Ashfield. I am really looking forward to getting out on the campaign trail again, and continuing to meet more local residents and businesses. I am proud to be a Liberal Democrat, I believe in the Liberal Democrats vision for a fairer society and a stronger economy.”
Simon Hughes MP, Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats, also congratulated Jason on being selected.
He said: “Jason came within a handful of votes of success last time and the whole party is determined that this time he will win the seat. There is nobody who can and will fight better in parliament for Ashfield.”
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14 Comments
Congratulations to Jason.
With Labour achieving just 33.7% of the vote at 2010 General Election, and the Tories securing a very squeezable 22%, Ashfield is one of a fairly select group of seats which could a Lib Dem GAIN from Labour in 2015.
The very best of luck, Jason. Win it for us!
Simon Shaw
I doubt it very much
@ bcrombie
What, you think the Lib Dems are going to gain LOTS of seats off Labour at the 2015 General Election?
I’m not so sure.
Simon Shaw
Lol
No, but there is about the same chance of them winning lots as there is of winning any – I think you would be better concentrating on trying to hold on to the ones from 2010 – still seeing you losing a number of them as well
Targetting seats just shows how dire the party has become, whats the goal, semi affluent constituencies such as Southport?
@Julian Dean
Dire? What a weird remark!
I think we should carry on targeting any seat where we think people have the good sense to vote Lib Dem – that includes seats like Ashfield and Southport.
I guess both seats are fairly representative of modern Britain, certainly Southport has a few affluent residents, a lot of people on average incomes and quite a few who are poor. Semi-affluent – like much of the country.
Targetting seats just shows how dire the party has become, whats the goal, semi affluent constituencies such as Southport?
Absolutely. 2015 is the year of the Tory squeeze.
Simon Shaw
The main risk to the LD comes from the Tories taking LD seats in the South – those in the urban North (Bradford, Redcar, Withington etc) and some in London (Brent Central is top of the list here) are probably going to be lost and I don’t see you picking up many Labour seats if you couldn’t in 2010.
What you still need though is tactical votes from the ‘anyone but Tory’ voters that you picked up post 1997 – the continuing right wing rhetoric coming from your leadership and continued support for silly Tory policies is not going to help you.
Southport has never been Labour, and probably never will be, so John Pugh is likely to be safe but that is not the same in other Northern seats that were won on a wave of anti-Labour feeling after 13 years in Government.
Whatever you think of the current polls, I don’t think there are many (except Paul Barker) who anticipate Labour polling the same or less in 2015
@Julian Dean – the Lib Dems have targeted seats at every general election since the party was formed.
It’s how we held 20 of 22 seats in 1992 despite a 5% drop in vote share and how we then increased to 46 seats in 1997 despite dropping a further 1% in vote share.
The question is how many seats we’ve got the resources to target and which they should be.
if the media and the drip-drip of the ‘wipe-out’ story work we may lose a few seats, possibly down to 46, but with Tories losing support to Ukip and Labour’s lacklustre performance losing them seats to the Greens, it is more likely that LDs will gain seats. Play the stats, the polls and the forecasts any way you like, it’s on the day that matters.
@Liberal Neil: Not quite: we lost 6 seats and gained 4 (and held 16). Three of the losses were the seats of the SDP Owenites, so were probably lost for us anyway.
Agree with the not quite – the SDP seats would have been saved if the merger had not been so acrimonious.
Also, one has to keep in mind, targeting is only one factor – the performance of the other parties both locally andnationally, boundary changes and demographic changes can all have as much if not more effect than any targeting.
The trouble with people like bcrombie is that they read the national (ie London) based media, and think there is a national swing based on what’s happening in Westminster. The last election where ‘swing’ worked in this way was 1970 (and even then there were local variations).
Few people in the ‘commentariat’ predicted Lib Dem gains in Burnley and Redcar in 2010, or Manchester Withington and Solihull in 2005. (To be fair to them they also probably thought Lembit Opik had a seat for life in Montgomershire!)
Jason was only 192 votes behind Labour in Ashfield, and the local elections there since have made it clear that only Del Piero or Zadrozny can win. For Jason to win he’ll need to hold his vote from last time, get some who didn’t vote in 2010 because ‘its always Labour here’ to turn out, and get some Tories to switch to him. Labour will talk up the coalition and the ‘Tory threat’ and will have the advantage of a newish incumbent as opposed to a discredited time-serving ex-Minister. I don’t think its an easy seat to predict, but if Labour like to think its safe like Redcar then I’ll take that!