Council by-elections: it’s time again for the headline which readers don’t like
One thing many readers don’t seem to like it when I headline negative news about the Liberal Democrats not putting up candidates in council by-elections.
But putting up candidates is a key part of being a political party, indeed the key distinguishing feature of being a political party and not a pressure group. It is also a necessary minimum when it comes to building up stronger, more durable party foundations on which we can construct future success.
What’s more, I’m sceptical that we really try as hard as we could to maximise the number of candidates we stand.
When was the last time, for example, you saw a message such as, “I’m really sorry, but there’s only two active members in my local party and so can’t cope with getting the nomination signatures for our by-election next month; it would be great if anyone come over on Saturday and do some door-knocking to help us out”? Or a message such as, “Anyone who works in the town can stand for the council too, so we’re sending this message to our neighbouring local parties in case you have any members who live in your patch but work in ours”?
So whilst individual circumstances involving a tiny number of over-worked volunteers are deserving of sympathy not hostility, especially when the local party has no councillors and the council is poor at publicising forthcoming by-elections more widely, it’s also the case that collectively we really shouldn’t be happy with or accept as inevitable weeks such as this one:
- Number of council by-elections: 2
- Number of Liberal Democrat candidates: 0
Conservative GAIN Coulby Newham (Middlesbrough) from Labour.
— Britain Elects (@BritainElects) April 13, 2017
Coulby Newham (Middlesbrough) result:
CON: 38.0% (+8.3)
LAB: 35.5% (-8.2)
IND: 24.1% (-2.5)
GRN: 2.4% (+2.4)Chgs. from 2015.
— Britain Elects (@BritainElects) April 13, 2017
That's apparently the first Conservative ever elected in Coulby Newham (Middlesbrough) @britainelects
— Election Data (@election_data) April 13, 2017
Conservative HOLD Piddle Valley (West Dorset).
— Britain Elects (@BritainElects) April 13, 2017
Piddle Valley (West Dorset) result:
CON: 60.8% (-7.9)
GRN: 39.2% (+19.4)No Lab candidate as previous.
— Britain Elects (@BritainElects) April 14, 2017
These by-election results round-ups cover principal authority by-elections. See my post The danger in celebrating parish and town council wins for your own party for the reasons to avoid straying too often into covering town, parish or community council by-elections.
Second recent Dorset by-election where we haven’t stood a candidate (after one in Christchurch); is this a reflection on the state of the party in this county, or was there some kind of local deal with the Greens, who were the only party to oppose the Conservatives in Piddle Valley?
… Which is precisely why I’m standing, even though I’ve no political experience other than having been member of ANO party (sorry feeling blue about that) otherwise the LiberalDemocrats in my Ward would either abstain or vote Labour we got 159 votes last time the Tories over a thousand UKIP also polled well. I’m prepared to put my head above the parapet i think others should too.
Thank you Graeme – that’s a great example to others too.
Pleased to say in my formerly rather weak (in organisation and membership) local party (North-east Essex), we’ve hit 100% in nominations for county council divisions and whereas in the past we had several outsiders standing, all our candidates are from our local party area except one young man brought up in the town where he’s standing and with many contacts there; and our residents are also covering two divisions shared with other local parties, where we were agreed to be the lead. We recently contested two not promising district by-elections and both our candidates for those are standing for the relevant county divisions. Half our candidates are post-general-election joiners.
Just need to win now…
Excellent to hear about that progress – well done to you and the whole team.