There are more elections than many people realise coming up in May
This year’s round of local council elections are only in England and are the smallest round of that cycle of elections. Which may make you think that it’s a small set of elections and one in which many or even most parts of the country will not be voting.
But…
Add in also the Police and Crime Commissioner elections across England and Wales, the London Mayor and Assembly elections and seven different Mayor elections.That gets you to elections across all of England and Wales, with only Scotland election-free (save for any council by-elections).
It may be a small round of elections from the point of view of numbers of councillors. But it’s a huge round of elections from the point of view of how many people have the chance to vote, how many local parties have elections taking place in their patch, and how many chances there are to get members and supporters out campaigning for the party.
It also makes these elections an important opportunity to follow up on December’s general election.
May is an important opportunity to strengthen the local government base in many seats where we increased our vote share in December.
It’s a renewed opportunity to rebuild in seats where we were squeezed or didn’t stand.
Crucially for the long-term, they are also a hook to follow up on the many people who went campaigning for the first time – turning for many of them helping in elections into a regular habit rather than a one-off aberration.
There’s much the party centrally has to get right to support these elections (such as the increased financial support). It also requires local parties to be up for it – including those who don’t have elections other than being part of a Police and Crime Commissioner or Mayor election that covers a wide geographic area.
Which also means that regional parties in England and the state parties in England and Wales need to be up for it – not only telling others (such as me!) what they think someone else should be doing about the elections but also repeatedly asking it of themselves.
I hope you are – and ALDC has a great source of resources, training and advice.
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I think we should be warning the Party that its not going to be like last May. While our average Polling is up by 2%, The Tories are up by 15%. That may change by May but if it doesnt, we could be looking at Net losses of Seats.
Ref the increased financial support for the May elections, which you have mentioned in your blog before.
At what point will the Federal Board be telling us about this. I lead a group of 17 Cllrs and organise our local campaigns at all levels but have had no contact/information on this. I am also an Exec Officer but have had no contact on this.
Is it, by the way, double financial support for Council elections and PCC elections or just for London Mayoral and Assembly elections? If it is double the money for ALDC/G8 to allocate then it will be well spent as they base their decisions on evidence based cases as to where extra support can make the difference between losing a tough defence or gaining good prospects.
It is a doubling of the money for the G8 process and it’s been mentioned, for example, in an email to all party members. (As an aside, because the money has gone into an existing system for distributing it, there’s not quite the same need for separate publicity about it as if it were, say, a completely new stream of funding. All the other publicity about G8 grants are drawing people into being able to make use of this funding too.)
Party must now accept PCCs as a fact of life and get their act together for May. Easy for small County forces but more of a challenge for the larger urban forces and joint non-urban forces such as Thames Valley. Please can the Party require regions that have not even started the formal candidate selection process to do so immediately. Previous candidates should only require updated vetting and be deemed approved as for PPCs that have fought previous elections.
Like many, I see Local and PCC elections as an opportunity for independents to make their mark. They can cut through where being tied to a Party label diverts attention, by media and the voter, to less pertinent issues.
As a party, the core votes argument aside for a moment, we should be more willing to look at an independent and consider what they stand for, and whether if elected they would win and work with us, establishing a broader base.
We are never going to get to voting reform whilst the public just hear politics predicated on two main parties, and then the rest..