Tag Archives: local elections 2017

Caron Lindsay

Feeling appreciated

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 24th May 2017 - 9:40 am

My poor husband doesn’t get a lot in the way of post. It tends to be bills, or adverts for stair lifts or begging letters from the Liberal Democrats.

The latter do not please him so I tend to intercept them so he doesn’t see them. He is of the not entirely unjustified opinion that his household has more than enough disruption because of his wife’s involvement in the party that they don’t need his money as well. The begging letters, 3 issues of Ad Lib a year and an absent wife sum up his membership experience. That and every five …

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Caron Lindsay

Election night open thread

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 4th May 2017 - 11:14 pm

Welcome to our Election Night open thread. We’ll be looking at the results as they come in from all over the country. The most exciting thing we are likely to find out tonight is whether we have managed to make up ground in Cardiff. Most results come in tomorrow.

Where are the key battlegrounds?

Let’s have a look at the elections being contested. Every council seat in Wales and Scotland is up for grabs, as is every County Council seat in England. For us key battlegrounds include Cardiff, Edinburgh and Cornwall. We have new mayoral contests in Greater Manchester (where Jane Brophy is our candidate), Cambridgeshire and Peterborough (Rod Cantrill), Tyne Tees (Chris Foote-Wood), West Midlands (Beverley Nielsen), Liverpool (Carl Cashman) and Western Counties (Stephen Williams). These elections all took place on different nights the last time. The last Scottish and Welsh elections were in 2012 and they were grim for us. We lost more than half our councillors in Scotland and pretty much half our councillors in Wales. The county elections in 2013 were pretty grim too, with 124 losses. There will be a few Welsh results in tonight but other than that (fingers crossed for our Welsh colleagues) but the main action happens tomorrow. So, what is Twitter telling us about the elections so far, in this early part of the night.

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The Voice

It’s polling day. It’s 10 o’clock. Tim says thanks

By The Voice | Thu 4th May 2017 - 10:17 pm

As polls close in the local elections, Tim Farron has emailed party members to say thanks for all the hard work they have done over many months which has culminated in a very long day today. Activists are in pain right now. Many have been on the go since before dawn. And under normal circumstances, they’d be able to rest up for a bit, but Theresa May had other plans for our lives for the next five weeks.

Anyway, here’s what Tim said:

Hi

Polls are now closed in England, Scotland and Wales.

I want to thank every one of you that

…

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Caron Lindsay

Lib Dem Aude Boubaker-Calder featured in article on EU nationals seeking election as councillors

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 4th May 2017 - 2:20 pm

The Scotsman ran a feature the other day on the candidates from the EU who are standing for election in Scotland’s council elections.

Aude Boubaker-Calder is standing in West Fife and Coastal Villages in Willie Rennie’s old Westminster constituency.

“I wanted to join a fair, tolerant party that supports the European Union,” said Boubaker-Calder, who moved across the North Sea from Belgium after meeting her Scottish husband while working in Brussels.

“In Belgium, we tend to be a bit more involved in politics as voting is compulsory. However, in Scotland, and the UK in general, people are more passionate when they talk about politics. Involvement in Belgium is more subtle. Aude, who lives in Dunfermline, added: “I’m someone who likes to be involved in their community. I want to make a positive difference. “Education is my priority in the Dunfermline area. We have issues affecting the catchment areas of schools, and rising school rotas. Everyone deserves the best start in life.”

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The Voice

Willie Rennie: Every Liberal Democrat councillor will be a champion for their community, not a cheerleader for independence

By The Voice | Thu 4th May 2017 - 11:30 am

Willie Rennie has delivered his final rallying call of the Council campaign in Scotland. Every council seat in the country is up for grabs today.

This is what he had to say:

It is incredibly important that everyone has their say on who they want to represent their community.

Every Liberal Democrat Councillor will be a local champion that communities deserve. They will work all year round, not just at election time. Despite the Greens and the SNP wanting to put independence back to the top of the agenda, Liberal Democrats will serve to deliver the improvements to local services that we need.

Our

…

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The Voice

It’s Friday, there’s an election on, there must be a funny story about Willie Rennie and livestock

By The Voice | Fri 21st April 2017 - 8:20 pm

You just need to Google “Willie Rennie and pigs” to find the funniest moment of last year’s Holyrood election campaign. 

Well, there’s another election on and Willie put the past behind him and went to see some lambs.

So far, so cute:

What could possibly go wrong?

Apart from the odd unfortunate camera angle.

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The Voice

Yeovil UKIP candidates blame NHS crisis on women doctors

By The Voice | Wed 5th April 2017 - 4:45 pm

If you listen to most experts, the reason for the crisis in the NHS comes from under-resourcing and an aging population. But, no, UKIP council candidates in Chard in Yeovil have come up with another explanation. It’s all the fault of women doctors and their career breaks and part-time doctors.  Buzzfeed has the story:

The leaflet was produced by local UKIP councillors in Somerset who suggest alleged positive discrimination in the GP hiring process could ultimately lead to local surgeries closing altogether.

“How many female Doctors are there in your surgery working 2 or 3 days a week?” it asks, warning the issue could result in thousands of patients being left without access to medical care when GPs retire.

They have a quote from Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate for Yeovil, Daisy Benson:

UKIP might wish we were living in the 1950s, but it’s 2017!

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Caron Lindsay

Lib Dems could gain 100 seats at local elections: Rallings and Thrasher

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 2nd April 2017 - 9:45 pm

Professors Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher have predicted that the Liberal Democrats could gain 100 seats in the County Council election, twice as many as the Tories are predicted to gain. They also say that Labour will lose 50 seats and UKIP 100.

From the Sunday Times (£):

Thrasher and Rallings predict that Ukip’s vote will collapse from 22% to 10% — and that the Tory vote will rise five points to 31%.

Rallings said: “The Tories will benefit from Ukip’s decline, but could themselves lose seats to the Lib Dems.

“The Lib Dems will be looking to take seats from both Tories and Labour as they claw their way back from the humiliation of the 2015 general election. In local elections they benefit from an ability to mobilise support on the ground.”

The last time those seats were fought, we lost 124, so even that sort of spectacular rise wouldn’t take us back to where we are in 2009.

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ALDC

ALDC’s local election appeal 2017 – help us do even better than last year

By ALDC | Wed 8th February 2017 - 11:55 am

I’m sure you’ll have noticed how well we’ve been doing in local by-elections, and with your support, we can do better still.

In May 2016, we secured a net gain of 45 councillors. We can do even better this year, by helping scores of our enthusiastic and hard-working campaigners get across the winning line.

We want to back an additional 50 wards we are fighting to win this May. To do this we need to raise £15,000.

Every year we support seats with cash grants from G8 or our Fighting Fund. Our …

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ALDC

Why a full slate of candidates is a good thing

By ALDC | Fri 27th January 2017 - 4:15 pm

While in 2016 we saw more by-election gains than the previous 20 years, and an excellent set of local elections, one thing is clear – you can only win if you stand a candidate.

That’s why ALDC (The Association of Liberal Democrat Campaigners and Councillors) want you to make sure you are asking, both within your own local membership but also more broadly.

One of our top tips is to draw up your list of people who you can ask to stand, from past candidates, deliverers and helpers to school governors and regular attendees at local community meetings. 

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