Random thoughts of a Birmingham-based political junkie and party hack, Labour member and activist. And a Councillor for the City of Birmingham, representing Acocks Green ward.
Friday, May 25, 2012
Don't privatise our police
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Election 2012 Review
I know it has take a while to get around to putting this online, but here's my (usually) annual review of the election results.
Last year, Labour in Birmingham thought that 14 net gains was a great result - and it was. To gain another 20 this year and take control of the City Council was a greater prize.
Labour remains the only party that represents the
entire city - we had over 1500 voters in 38 of the 40 wards. By contrast, the Tories
achieved that in only 19 wards and the Lib Dems in just 9. My stats only go
back to 2002, but in simple voter numbers, this was the worst year for either
of the opposition parties since then. Indeed, in two wards, the Liberal Democrats
failed to break into three figures – unprecedented in my records. In Shard End,
by the way, they didn’t run a candidate at all because of an administration error.
In
vote share, Labour took just over half of the votes cast across the City, with
the Tories not even getting a quarter and the Liberal Democrats languishing on
16%. When these seats were last contested, back in 2008, the parties were much
closer. We had 30.1%; the Tories had 30.2% of the vote and the Liberal Democrats
23.2%. That was a pretty bad year for us, with the Tories gaining 6 seats and
the Liberals holding all their earlier, post-Iraq gains.

Something
to remember is that because we elect by thirds and the boundary changes forced
a rare ‘all-out’ election in 2004, many of the opposition candidates this year
were their most popular winners back in 2004 – often their most experienced
councillors in each ward, which is why we also dislodged a number of cabinet
members. I’m sure that will cheer Mike Whitby as he looks towards 2014 as the
sole Tory in Harborne against two excellent Labour councillors.
While
all parties lost numbers of votes compared to last year – I don’t think the
weather helped anyone and there is some general dissatisfaction with all
politicians – the Tories were particularly badly affected. Overall, votes were
down by 21% year on year. The Liberal Democrats actually did rather well – only
losing 14% of their vote from last year and we lost 16%, with the Greens around
the average with a 22% loss. The Tories haemorrhaged 31% of their vote from last year –
a precipitous fall and hardly a great first outing for their deputy leader and campaigns leader, Cllr Robert Alden. This year saw his father evicted from his previously secure seat.
Last year, Cllr Alden was profiled in the Post and his quotes are instructive:
He also accuses colleagues of sitting on their laurels, because the city council’s social services and housing have improved in seven years of Tory-Lib Dem control. “Candidates can’t expect the electorate to be grateful, they have got to keep on improving. We have to show how we can improve Birmingham. And highlight the differences between a Con-Lib Dem administration and Labour. Labour have the same faces and same leader as they did when they ran the council so badly a decade ago.”
He was, of course, right. Sadly, that was largely the campaign that they ran - neither party voiced a real alternative to the manifesto put out by Labour and they relied on a mix of rehashing their self-identified successes and harking back to a Labour party of the early 2000s in an attempt to scare the electorate. A Labour Group of 77 suggests that this didn't work. It would seem that despite his position, Cllr Alden's message didn't get through to large parts of the coalition. Even the Liberal Democrats - who threw everything at the campaign in an attempt to defend their remaining councillors - failed quite dismally.
Clearly,
the national political situation helped us – we’re watching the decline of the
Liberal Democrats to a position below UKIP in national polling and the utter
incompetence of the government post-Budget helped tip the balance in some Tory seats
that they might have held. However,
don’t forget that each of these victories came because of re-energised
campaigning across the city – by people on the phones and on the doorsteps.
That can’t stop now. We have more seats to take in 2014 and we need to keep up
the pressure on the opposition and to keep the message rolling - having positive things to say on the doorstep about the future rather than just whinging about the past proved very effective.
In
other good news, the BNP – although they fielded more candidates than last year
– saw their vote share and total vote decline again. UKIP increased their city-wide
vote share, but that is because they ran more candidates, not because of any
real shift – if you look at the wards where they ran last year, their vote is
largely unchanged, although it did bump up in Shard End, possibly they were used as a receptacle for a safe protest vote with the absence of the Liberal Democrats. The other major party of opposition,
Respect, seems to be quiet for the moment with no representation at all and
will struggle unless Salma Yaqoob is able to return to health and the fight, although it seems to lack any serious figures apart from her in Birmingham. The loss of the mayoral vote will also deny her a shot at Hodge Hill or the mayoralty itself. Similarly, the
Socialist Labour and anti-cuts candidates made no real inroads. It seems clear
that Labour has had some success in offering real opposition and a real
alternative to the Liberal Democrat/Tory coalitions in Birmingham and
nationally.
The Greens were the only other party to run a full slate of
candidates and while their vote share remained static year on year at 4.5%,
they also have the potential to become the home of the oppositionalist vote –
the role that the Liberal Democrats used to fulfil. Just an aside – the Liberal
Democrats were courting the Tory vote in wards that they held, sending leaflets
targeted at Conservative voters warning them that a Tory vote would ensure they
had a Labour councillor. I suspect that this may account for some of the Tory
loss – in my own ward, I think that may have added about 100 votes to the
Liberal Democrat tally.
In 2014, we’ll be defending 21 seats, while
the Tories will be defending 11 and the Liberal Democrats 8, so our chances for
net gains are lower, but there are some obvious targets. We should be looking to clean up the last men (and women
standing) in the seats that already have two Labour councillors: one is
Conservative (Harborne) and five are Liberal Democrat seats (Acocks Green, Hall
Green, Moseley & Kings Heath, Selly Oak
and South Yardley). Another three Tory seats have new Labour councillors
this year, so we should be looking to put a second alongside them in 2014 in Bournville,
Northfield and Sutton Vesey. And then there’s Weoley to avenge.
Weoley was probably the toughest one on the night - Steve Booton lost by just two votes and that can easily be ascribed to the foul weather that afflicted the city on the day and also to the relocation of a polling station, which wrongfooted a number of voters who may have struggled to get to the new location.
Holding all our seats and winning those would
give us a Labour group of 87 – a tough number to overturn easily and enough to insulate Labour against a number of poor years.
And if we fancy a stretch target, there's always Sutton New Hall. That only has a majority of 925 - well within reach of Team Pocock with two years to go.
Friday, May 18, 2012
Imitation is the greatest form of flattery
I noticed a while back that there is a Liberal Democrat parliamentary researcher who runs a website called politicalhack.org (clearly far too much time on his hands). I've had other things to think about - like winning elections.
What I didn't realise until today was that it was run by one Martin Shapland, who is an accredited parliamentary researcher for John Hemming. Some years ago, before the coalition, he expressed his reasons for joining the Liberal Democrats rather than Labour.
Anyway, keep up the good work...
(HT to @PaulSandars)
What I didn't realise until today was that it was run by one Martin Shapland, who is an accredited parliamentary researcher for John Hemming. Some years ago, before the coalition, he expressed his reasons for joining the Liberal Democrats rather than Labour.
"We're furious. We don't have jobs, we can't afford housing, we're the first generation that has had to pay for university education directly, and we're not getting our money's worth. Meanwhile, we're struggling day-to-day to pay utility bills while MPs are spending our money on things we couldn't dream of buying."Good to see things have changed since 2009 with his party in power.
Anyway, keep up the good work...
(HT to @PaulSandars)
Friday, May 04, 2012
Tuesday, May 01, 2012
We all make mistakes.
Last year, Paul Tilsley went to the police when a Labour leaflet appeared in Hodge Hill without the usual small print - 'Printed and published by....' as required by s110 of the Representation of the People Act.
This year, Liberal Democrat candidates in South Yardley and Sheldon have both put out expensive, glossy leaflets, replete with photographs of them pointing at things and standing beside other things. Some of the pictures even include a lesser-spotted Vince Cable, the increasingly pointless Secretary of State, being shown things that the government hasn't yet worked out how it can sell off or close down.
Sadly, in their eagerness to rely on past performance as a guide to the future (and a matching unwillingness to talk about that future in any detail), the rubric has been missed off.
I trust that Paul will report his colleagues and their agents to the police forthwith.
This year, Liberal Democrat candidates in South Yardley and Sheldon have both put out expensive, glossy leaflets, replete with photographs of them pointing at things and standing beside other things. Some of the pictures even include a lesser-spotted Vince Cable, the increasingly pointless Secretary of State, being shown things that the government hasn't yet worked out how it can sell off or close down.
Sadly, in their eagerness to rely on past performance as a guide to the future (and a matching unwillingness to talk about that future in any detail), the rubric has been missed off.
I trust that Paul will report his colleagues and their agents to the police forthwith.
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