Tag Archives: campaign feedback

Positive campaigning – best way to win the election?

By Michal Siewniak | Mon 24th April 2023 - 5:15 pm

I have spent exactly 24 hours door-knocking since the elections in 2022. I still absolutely love it and if I could, I would do it for a living! As I am standing again this year (one of my fellow councillors had to stand last year on health grounds), my campaign has intensified in recent weeks. The mood on the door-step has changed. Last year, some of the national and international topics dominated some of my conversations; war in Ukraine, end of the pandemic or a wide range of post-COVID government scandals.

I am pleased that this year, as candidates and councillors we have been campaigning on issues that we can actually influence; Local Plan, the state of our Town Centres, investment, infrastructure, potholes or transport provision.

The “toxicity” of campaigning has not gone away though. Has it got worse? It is hard to tell. I was “accused” by one of the other candidates of not living in my ward (I live 15 minutes walking distance from it). In many cases the literature of our opponents is quite repetitive and instead of suggesting new solutions, which could help to improve the effectiveness and functionality of the Council, it frequently “offers” scare-mongering and too often(?) a wide range of negative stories.

Posted in Campaign Corner | 1 Comment

Opinion: GE2015, where did it all go wrong?

By Adam Warner | Sun 10th May 2015 - 3:30 pm

The 2015 election is certainly not one to remember for the Liberal Democrats. Losing many great MP’s like David Laws and Vince Cable will certainly take a long time to recover from, but what exactly went wrong and why did we do much worse than forecast.

Triumph of fear over hope.

There is no doubt that the Conservative tactics of pitting England against Scotland worked for them. The idea of a Labour-SNP coalition was too much for many centre ground floating voters who voted tactically for them. Instead of defending their record and talking about the real issues the Conservatives instead spent the campaign promoting English nationalism and spreading fear. This tactic did for many of our MPs in Tory-LD marginal in the southern regions of England. Whilst it has worked in the short term it will cause problems for David Cameron over the course of the next parliament as he governs a hugely divided country with little support north of the border.