Was an obscure set of elections in Mid Suffolk a pointer towards May?

Welcome to Mid Suffolk, a historically Conservative, rural District in the East of England. Liberal Democrats had led a coalition administration until 2003 but, since then, it has been Conservative-led. By the way, don’t take Wikipedia too seriously when it suggests that it was in no overall control between 2005 and 2007 – the Independents around here generally aren’t.

Labour have, over the years, faded into insignificance, having disappeared from the council chamber in 2007 (apart from a lone councillor in Stowmarket North from 2011-15) and only ran eight candidates across the District in 2015. The Greens won their first seat in Mendlesham in 2003 and had slowly built up their strength through classic LibDem-style campaigning to become the official opposition by 2015, albeit with only five of the forty councillors, whilst the Liberal Democrats had fallen away to a clutch of long held wards.

It would be fair to say that the prospects for change in 2019 were not promising, despite boundary changes and a resultant reduction of the number of councillors from forty to thirty-four. Indeed, the political editor of the East Anglian Daily Times, Suffolk’s main newspaper, glossed over Mid Suffolk as being relatively uninteresting.

And then nominations closed. Labour had effectively given up in Mid Suffolk, running just eight candidates again, UKIP had melted away and the Greens and Liberal Democrats had seemingly signed a non-aggression pact, not opposing each other in key seats and splitting the other wards up between them. Even so, there was a huge notional Conservative majority to overturn and without much evidence of widespread opposition campaigning (or any, come to that), it was still looking for all the world like the Conservatives would hang on to power comfortably enough.

It didn’t exactly work out like that.

Across the District, Conservatives lost historically safe wards and, in the end, control of the council hinged on Stowmarket St Peter’s ward, where the Conservative Town Mayor was “opposed” by a Liberal Democrat candidate in name only and held on… by one vote.

The final result across Mid Suffolk was:

  • Conservatives – 16 seats, down thirteen
  • Greens – 12 seats, up seven
  • Liberal Democrats – 5 seats, up one
  • Independents – 1 seat, down one

leaving a notional hung council, with the Independent remaining as part of a Conservative administration held in place through the casting vote of the Chair.

It was evident that, across Mid Suffolk, there was a genuine desire to vote the local Conservatives out and, by accident or design, voters were given a very clear choice in terms of who to vote for to achieve that. So much so that, as a paperless candidate in a ward a fair way from where I live, and opposed by the Conservative Finance portfolio holder and the County’s Police and Crime Commissioner, I still achieved the highest vote I’ve ever won in a local government election (30.5%).

By-elections across England have demonstrated that the tide is very much against the Conservatives, with a series of Liberal Democrat gains, and where Liberal Democrat candidates are actively campaigning, the prospects for May are encouraging. So, stick to the targeting strategy and stay focused, but don’t be too surprised if some of your non-target candidates end up getting in…

* Mark Valladares was a Liberal Democrat candidate in Mid Suffolk in 2011, 2016 and 2019.

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