There’s some really good news from York today. In a by-election, former Liberal Democrat Group Leader, who lost his seat in the City’s Westfield ward in 2011, regained it in spectacular style, with a 24.8% swing from Labour.
The result in full is:
Andrew Waller – Lib Dem 1804
Labour 588
UKIP 398
Con 113
Green 87
Current Liberal Democrat Group Leader Keith Aspden said:
I am delighted with tonight’s result and would like to congratulate Andrew Waller on his outstanding victory while paying tribute to candidates of all parties for a spirited campaign.
Tonight voters have sent a clear message that they feel letdown by Labour and see the Liberal Democrats as the clear alternative in York.
I have spoken to so many people who feel disillusioned with the way Labour are running York Council – particularly the cuts to basic local frontline services and the plans to bulldoze over the Green Belt.
The winning Labour candidates in 2011 attracted 1767, 1642 and 1540 votes respectively compared to Andrew’s 1401. Their collapse was therefore quite spectacular. UKIP didn’t stand in the ward then, but took almost 400 votes this time.
It’s certainly a good result for the Liberal Democrats, showing that the mood is very different to 2011, as many around the country are discovering on the doorstep.
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20 Comments
Obviously this result is pleasing.
But it does appear – especially from the quote from the Council Group Leader – that yet again a major premise of our campaign is about preventing the building of houses. This comes shortly after our conference, where we outlined the need to build 300,000 houses a year to meet housing demand.
While I am sure someone from York will explain to me why “this development was not the right one for York”, there is an increasingly wide disconnect between our national narrative and our local narrative in many places across the country. If we are serious about building more homes, we’ll also need to campaign for building them; and work to get them built.
A great result that once again shows local politics can be local.
Has anyone outlined how we are to build 300,000 homes a year ? We have abolished regional housing targets and gone for the think tank new homes bonmus which has been utterly ineffective – if it wasn’t for Eric Pickles overruling local council development control committees I doubt if we would be building more hosues than Labour.
What does it mean for councils with a Local Development Frameworks/Local Plans just agreed ? or coucnisl without them in place ?
Also a very good win yesterday in Whissendine (Rutland -East Midlands) where in a straight head to head with the Conservatives a new, young, enthusiastic candidate won. He/they ran a traditional Focus campaign with a string of local issue literature including postal voter leaflet and culminating in cream letters and polling day literature.
This is good news. While the party shouldn’t seek to hide from the scale of our electoral challenge in GE2015, this will give some comfort.
If we target our resources at specific races we can surely not only weather the coming storm, but maybe even cause the odd upset.
Labour is having the wobbles following Ed Miliband weak leadership (and H&M by-election)…and the Tories have surrendered even the pretence of occupying the centre ground. The LDems can take soft Tory voters where we need to, but also hold back the Labour Party which is hardly up for a tough fight.
Well done to all those who were successful. Good stuff! As for houses, there is a problem. We need affordable homes, but much green belt exploitation will not lead to them being built. Instead we will have executive type homes, which will not be affordable by the majority of those who need housing. We should be building on brownfield sites, which will not only enable land to be brought back into use, but should also be cheaper for social housing providers to build on. We may need 300,000 dwellings a year, but not 300,000 exec homes! Not enough account is taken of the household need for example of older people who would benefit from a move. We have huge amounts of brownfield available and that should be the first line of development.
What a terrible result! It really is time for Clegg to go. This party will be wiped out if we go on like this…..zzzzzzzzzzzzz
I agree with Matt Hemsley.
Dean MacKinnon-Thoms makes an excllent point. We are in a situation which, for the most part, we have not experienced in our life times. We are used to pushing forward, but this time our campign will be mostly defensive. We haven’t been here since the early Grimond years, so it is new and not entirely pleasant territory for us. Heads down, fight where we hold seats or can win. Now is the time we show our collective mettle.
York’s Labour Council also made complete laughing stocks of themselves with the closure of Lendel Bridge, one of the key communication routes in central York. This was allegedly a “green” initiative to encourage people to ditch their cars and take public transport into the centre of the City. The signs indicating that the bridge was no longer a public right of way were, however, very poorly placed and this resulted in literally hundreds of people being fined. In the end, after numerous protests and external assessment of the whole scheme, the Council had to retreat, call off the whole scheme, reopen the bridge and agree to repay people their fines (if they applied for this) (cheek!) Looks like Labour’s competence in handling the economy at the national level is amply also reflected at local level (and that is even before we get to one of the greatest scandals there has ever been in public sector financing; PFI!)
By the time that York LibDems left office in 2011, we had identified land on which to build 12,500 additional homes. Most were on brownfield sites and some involved the use of derelict land or conversion of empty/under-used property.
Labour want to expand the size of the City by 20% (17,500 homes in 15 years) building predominantly on green fields. It is a “Big City” growth style strategy which will damage the area irretrievably not least because of its implications for transport and other public services.
80% of development in York over the last 18 months has been on brownfield sites not identified in the (draft) Local Plan. Local LibDem policy is to include a “windfall” allowance in the LP to recognise that evolving land use on small sites in an historic City will continue to be a major provider of housing opportunities.
Over the last two decades York has generated an internal demand (birth minus deaths) for around 500 additional homes a year. This demand – and more besides – would be met by our plans but it would mean that economic growth (currently very high by northern standards) would be controlled.
“If we target our resources at specific races we can surely not only weather the coming storm, but maybe even cause the odd upset.”
Well said, Dean. I also think we should be making much more noise as what Vince Cable called “the voice of reason and sanity” at Glasgow when it comes to immigration from within the EU. It is clear that Cameron, in his desperation, is selling out to UKIP on a daily (hourly) basis while Labour just does not have the guts (or, judging by H&W by-election, the capacity among its own so-called adherents) to speak out. No idea what the Greens’ policy on the EU is (if they have one) and that leaves the LDs as the sole party which should be saying loud and clear what organisations like British Influence are saying: http://britishinfluence.org/clacton-politics-fear/?utm_source=British+Influence+supporters&utm_campaign=f00d08da97-EuropeWatch+2013-07-04&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c24f34caff-f00d08da97-315233213. As with the economy and housing, Labour left an almighty mess in this field (SOLE established EU member state to fling open the borders fully when the new members states acceded, wholesale dismantling of border controls, no rational preparations for the largest influx of new immigrants in generations etc.), but the answer is not (like them) to hide behind the sofa and keep repeating the ‘NHS’ mantra ad infinitum nor to try and outbid the Kippers like Cameron (a doomed project from the very start!) Let’s relaunch the ‘IN’ campaign (but with more skill and clout this time!)
David – post of the thread 🙂
@David. Oi ! Thats my line.
PS. Latest popularity Polling shows Libdems as 2nd Party, behind the Official Opposition, ahead nof our Coalition “partner” & way ahead of UKIP.
Whatever you may call “popularity,” Mr barker, the polls still show that only 7-9% of the electorate plan to vote for the Lib Dems. One local election does not change that.
How do you plan to reconcile your sunny optimism with the election results? This is something you should start thinking about now.
@David-1
“Whatever you may call “popularity,” Mr barker, the polls still show that only 7-9% of the electorate plan to vote for the Lib Dems.”
You mean apart from the recent “gold standard” poll that showed us getting over 10%.
Very pleased for Andrew. A very good local councillor & Council Leader and a strong supporter of Yorkshire devolution to boot 🙂
It was more a question of what Ipso-Mori called Popularity in their Poll in September. I was simplifying somewhat as the Poll allowed respondents to give Likes & Dislikes for both Parties & Leaders, 4 data points for each Party. We got 41% of respondents saying they Liked us as a Party, worth remembering when people get on the “Everybody hates The Libdems” meme.
@Simon Shaw “You mean apart from the recent “gold standard” poll that showed us getting over 10%.”
The ICM poll showed that 4% of those asked planned to vote Lib Dem. Excluding don’t know, won’t say, won’t vote, Lib Dem support rose to 7.6%, which is entirely consistent with other polling companies. Compared to other pollsters, ICM assume that more of those who voted Lib Dem in 2010 will do so again despite what they say when asked, and it is only by manipulating the polling data that a figure over 10% is obtained. But even if the ‘gold standard’ sobriquet is deserved, the trend shown by ICM’s polling is nothing for Lib Dems to feel smug about: http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/voting-intention-2/icm
Westfield is indeed a superb result against Labour in what used to be a target constituency. I know very little about York, so I cannot comment on the merits or demerits of building on the Green Belt there. I can only speak more generally. Some Green Belt land is of minimal aesthetic, amenity, agricultural or nature conservation value and, I believe, should be developed. A lot of brownfield sites exist, of course, and remain undeveloped in areas where land values are low. They should take priority over even low grade greenfield sites. Where I live in Kent, building on brownfield sites that have been idle for decades has just recently picked up along with the recovery, which is encouraging. In my opinion, each case should be judged on its own merits.
Whissendine is an object lesson in how to fight an election campaign. It shows us that following the Rennard formula will usually work. It also blows a raspberry at the “we mustn’t campaign in villages because it’ll offend parish councils” brigade. Whissendine is a large haufendorf village typical of the East Midlands. I would suspect that it is socio-economically mixed. There are many such villages that are there for the taking. In some of our target constituencies, the town votes alone may not be enough, so it is imperative that we campaign in villages, whether or not it offends parish councils.
The following result from the Isle of Sheppey is nightmare news for the Tories:
SWALE DC, SHEPPEY CENTRAL
October 16, 2014
UKIP 831 [58.4%;+42.7%]
Conservative 324 [22.8%;-21.2%]
Labour 240 [16.9%;-15.2%]
Official Monster Raving Loony Party 27 [1.9%;+1.9%]
[Independent [0.0%;-1.9%]
Majority 507
UKIP gain from Conservative
Turnout: 19.9%
This is a region that is traditionally working-class and Tory (with a fair bit of Labour, too). It may be a 20% turnout, but if voters in Rochester & Strood behave in the same way, David Cameron awaits the drubbing of his career.
While I can certainly see the point in questioning how local opposition to building sits with national strategy, this case seems reminiscent of Labour’s approach to housebuilding when they were in power nationally, especially under Gordon Brown as PM. It was quite clear that they saw meeting housing need as secondary to encouraging economic development. Consequently they did very little to encourage modest amounts of building of affordable homes in areas (often villages) where local young people couldn’t afford to stay though they wanted to and services such as pubs and shops were struggling and needed more custom. Instead they concentrated on ambitious building plans in “corridors of growth”, mostly in the south-east, on the grounds that big economic growth there would trickle down to the north.