As someone who first got involved with the Liberals at the General Election of February 1974, I suppose I might be described as a veteran of election campaigns. At various times over the decades I have been a candidate (national and local), an agent, and a foot soldier.
Last month I was excited to be able to help out in three target seats, two of which were fairly close to my home, and one which involved a lengthy journey. Some health issues prevented me from doing as much as I did 50 years ago, but I am of course delighted that in all three constituencies, Lib Dem MPs were elected with very healthy majorities.
Like all the other 69 MPs that were elected, none of these three would now be in Westminster if it had not been for the thousands of volunteers up and down the country who faced up to fierce dogs, fiddly gates and difficult letter boxes, who knocked on hundreds of doors, and who wrote interminable envelopes. Like others I guess, I was shouted at, barked and growled at, had balled-up leaflets thrown at me, and also met some lovely people.
Whilst I appreciate that new, and returning MPs, have a huge amount to cope with in their first few weeks, not least finding somewhere to live, setting up an office, and coping with the inevitable flood of case work, there is one thing which I believe they should all do, as a priority, and that is say “thank you” to those whose sterling efforts ensured that they were elected.
Of the three constituencies in which I worked, only one MP has done that, as far as I am concerned. This MP had a great party, where they spoke very warmly about all that had been done to get them elected, but from the other two there has been, I am afraid, I deafening silence. I happen to know that one of them has had a thank-you party, as I saw photos from it on-line. Not only was I not invited to this, but a couple of friends, who contributed a lot more in that constituency than I did, were not invited either. In all three constituencies I was sure to give my contact details when I volunteered, so they knew how to get in touch with me.
In my opinion, this is not as trivial issue as it might sound at first. I presume that all of these three MPs will want to stand for election again, and if they don’t, well, we will want to retain the seat with a different candidate. We will also want to fight local and regional elections in these seats and, I hope get more councillors, Welsh Assembly members and MSPs.
Therefore we need to keep the volunteers on board, as their hard work will be vital to achieve all these aims. I regret to say that my willingness to help out again in the two constituencies who haven’t bothered to thank me is pretty limited, as frankly I feel fairly peeved, and I don’t think I am the only one.
I know that behind every elected MP, as well as the many volunteers, there have been some extremely dedicated members of staff, who have worked long hours for not much monetary reward, and they too will have a lot to do in terms of closing down campaign offices, preparing expense returns etc, and that they too may still be extremely busy. I understand that some across the country are now experiencing health problems as a result of the demands placed on them, and this is a sad and unwanted outcome of the campaign.
I have written this under a pseudonym, and have not identified the constituencies concerned, to protect these staff, as I have no wish for anyone to get anyone into trouble, but please if you are an MP/agent/constituency organiser, can you please check that you have thanked all your volunteers otherwise you might find that they don’t come forward next time you need them.
* Jean Low is a pseudonym for a member who has over 50 years' experience of election campaigning. The author's identity is known to the Lib Dem Voice team.
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6 Comments
Thank you for this important article. Point well made.
Sad, and troubling. In recent days other posts have mentioned the problems of attracting and keeping activists, and here we have the same issue viewed from another angle. Dare I say it, but it suggests that the party has too many cliques, too many groups who are happy in each others company but uninterested in other party members, too many “in groups” (who get invited to parties) and the others (who don’t !).
In the run up to the 2010 GE the Tories had a plan, masterminded by Grant Shapps that involved fighting an election through social media, algorithms, and small groups of young conservatives bussed in to key constituencies. In short, you didn’t need an actual party out in the country to win 350 seats. I hope we aren’t thinking of taking that route.
Thanks for writing this article. I am also keeping my name anonymous so i dont embarrass others, staff and MPs.
I definitely do feel that in a couple of areas I have helped worked with that one places I was invited to attend (I declined as I was busy but thankful) but another I wasn’t invited (which I could have attended). And it does make the whole experience feel deflating and a bit saddenly really. It made it particularly numb when one of the volunteers got to go and i built something of a good communication and relationship with (even if still just campaign related and professional but enough to say it was friendly, chummy). And, yeah, they didn’t mention it so when I politely queried it I just got a “Oh yeah, surprised you weren’t there but I don’t organise it and wasnt thinking about you when there and the travel too” and a sort of “not my issue” thing which left me a little cold. Weird about the travel comment as I made the effort travelling to them for the campaign.
And the cliques which someone said; yeah, I felt that sometimes and I definitely feel with some members are grooming to be get further into their “career politics”. I do Jungle with this, thinking is it just me, but after seeing this article I’m glad I’m not alone.
At election time many new helpers come forward: difficult for other volunteers to keep track of and remember everyone. Don’t take it personally.
If you’re not invited to an event, take the initiative yourself. You will not have been over-looked deliberately.
I think what is more than likely to have happened in most cases isn’t about people being excluded, but the time and ability seats had in inputting helper data into MyCampaign in Connect during the campaign.
Having signed in to several seats that we went on to win during the election (5 across 4 regions), there has been variable use of the information – some seats have had fantastic follow up comms, even during the election campaign, while in others there hasn’t been any.
But as someone who’s entered volunteer data during by-elections, the quality of handwriting on sign in forms has much to be desired (our forms should say “print name”…). It takes time and resource to ensure this valuable data is entered, and then time and resource to carry on communicating with contacts, and having the right search to send follow up emails…
And then we have WhatsApp – with many of the local campaigns organising via WA, and that being a principal route of disseminating campaign locations, and time of events. But I didn’t join any, while it’s my wife who’s been kept in the loop with campaigns.
We ask too much of our candidates, agents and organisers. They cannot be expected to know everyone’s health issues, party baggage, journey time etc. However, a thank you afterwards is not a lot to ask (step forward one PPC, one MP and one ex MP I know who always say thank you) and, in the case of one constituency where I attempted to join a canvass group, not being rude and unwelcoming to a volunteer who had given up their time to come along would be nice in future!