Parish polls matter, too

Although sites like Southern Front and Britain Votes provide useful information about forthcoming by-elections, Parish and Town Council by-elections usually fall under the radar. Of course in most rural areas, Parish elections are commonly not fought under Party colours (if indeed contested at all), but in market towns and suburban parishes, political parties frequently do take parish elections seriously. Great Cornard a parish adjoining the market town of Sudbury, and close to the Essex border is one such place.

Until last year, Labour had been wiped out in Cornard and across the Babergh District, losing the County Council seat in 2005 and the district and parish seats in 2007. A July 2010 by-election for Gt Cornard North ward of Babergh District (Babergh is almost coterminous with South Suffolk constituency) was a chance to fight back. Labour activisits from Ipswich, provided support and assistance to Labour candidate, and former councillor, Tony Bavington. A combination of a strong candidate, rooted in his community, together with a full canvass of the ward and localised election leaflets printed by Suffolk Labour Print, resulted in a strong victory for Labour.

In May, we followed up by holding Tony's seat and winning the second seat in Gt Cornard North ward, and six out of seven Parish Council seats, but in the neighbouring South ward, we failed to make a breakthrough, with Labour's district candidates securing only 210 and 205 votes compared to 464 and 426 for the Tories, (Independents: 205 and 170; Lib Dems: 158 and 134 completing the field) although we did pick up one of the 7 Parish Council seats making Labour the largest Party on a hung Council.

One of the Independents refused to take up his seat (so why did he stand?) and his colleagues then called a by-election to fill the vacancy, which could have otherwise been done by co-option. Labour selected Tracey Welsh, a staff governor at Gt Cornard Upper School where she has worked for the past 17 years. Ipswich again provided support to our South Suffolk colleagues, but one year on, the South Suffolk Labour Party is in much better shape. Members in Great Cornard, and newly elected Town Councillors from Sudbury mucked in to help. The Labour Team didn't quite manage a full canvass, but only missed a handful of streets. The Liberals didn't bother putting up a candidate; The Tories and Independents did, but their campaign was limited to a newsletter/election address.

On polling day, Labour ran a traditional telling operation - possibly superflous on an anticipated 10% turnout, but we had supporters available who weren't fit enough or willing to Get out the Vote; vote today leaflets and a knock-up of the whole ward - second knock-up in good areas. The result was declared before 11pm: Labour 194; Con 124; Ind 93.Turnout was 12.36%.

Significantly the Cornard county council division comprises exclusively of the two wards, so winning both wards in byelections over the past 12 months, bodes well for 2013.


John Cook is Secretary/Agent for Ipswich Labour Party

Boundary review: Essex

Most of the south's largest counties gained a seat in the last boundary review, but although they continue to grow, several of those same counties lose that newly acquired seat this time round.

Essex is one of those counties. It's also more significant for Labour because, to put it mildly, the last boundary review didn't do the party many favours. And that in a county that was among the first to fall out of love with the Labour government and where the party struggles to hold seats even in favourable times.

The Guardian model undertaken by Lewis Baston chose to pair Essex with Suffolk but there is no actual need for this pairing to be undertaken: Essex is entitled to 16.7 seats (17) giving it a mean electorate of 75,326 - well within the range set by the Boundary Commission. Unless a pairing is unavoidable, it's likely the commission will avoid doing so, and that is the assumption used in the example above.

As with Kent, because Labour holds no seats in Essex, and the one Lib Dem seat - Colchester - is almost certainly going to be left unchanged, it's the Conservatives who start off a seat down. That seat will most likely be the one that was created last time round: Witham, so Priti Patel will be hoping a neighbouring MP retires (and Sir Alan Haselhurst must surely start as the favourite), or to contest a selection against a colleague from one of the other seats that takes in parts of her old seat.

Chelmsford is another seat the Conservatives are going to have to watch carefully, given the huge swing to the Lib Dems there last year. Chelmsford is a growing town and if the commission chooses to simply lop off an outlying (Conservative) ward that will make the seat highly marginal. However, the Commission has previous in Essex for splitting towns in half and coupling them with lots of surrounding less urban wards - Colchester was divided like this for many a year. if that happens to Chelmsford, both seats ought to be comfortably Conservative.

There is a real possibility that a constituency very similar to the old Harwich seat could make a comeback at this review; that might represent one of Labour's better electoral prospects on paper, but the distinctly independent and somewhat maverick profile Douglas Carswell has established, would make him a difficult incumbent to oust.

Braintree could be redrawn to take in essentially just the three Labour-ish towns of Braintree, Witham and Bocking but the same political realities that apply to Harwich are likely to apply here too: Braintree was one of Labour's least expected gains in 1997 and the party barely managed to retain it in 2001 before losing it comprehensively in 2005. By 2010 Labour was down to one in five of the votes cast and barely managed to retain second spot.

And then we have Harlow, the seat won and held by Bill Rammell from 1997 to 2010. Harlow is one of those roll-of-the-dice constituencies. If the Commission choose to add additional rural wards from Epping Forest it's going to be very difficult for Labour to take it back. However, the alternative option of taking out existing rural Epping Forest wards and instead extending Harlow south to take in Waltham Abbey, would make the seat very much more competitive.

Epping Forest itself needs to expand, one way or the other, and the most realistic option here would be an expansion into the Ongar part of the seat it currently donates to Brentwood. We're now moving into south Essex and some inevitabilities kick in. Thurrock, for example, is both a perfect size for a seat on the new numbers, and right up against uncrossable boundaries (Greater London and the Thames) on three of its four sides. So it's highly unlikely to see change.

That has consequences for the Brentwood seat, because it severely limits its options for expansion. The most logical option is to pair it with nearby Billericay which in turn enables the re-creation of a unified Basildon seat, minus Pitsea, which moves into Castle Point. Further east along the Thames estuary only minor changes are required to bring the electorates of Southend, Rochford, Rayleigh and Maldon within the Boundary Commission's target sizes.

In summary, the final outcome of the boundary review in Essex is likely to see the Conservatives lose more than just the single seat that seems inevitable before the process has even begun.

Why Co-operative solutions should be at the heart of Labour’s revival in the South

The words “Co-operative” and “mutual” are enjoying a renaissance in the political lexicon with Tories and Liberals falling over themselves to claim to be friends of the mutual sector. Readers with a passing interest in the mutual sector might think this a positive change; however, recent policy interventions such as those on Northern Rock and British Waterways demonstrate all too well that the coalition neither loves nor understands co-ops. For purposes of political posturing, the Tories had a fleeting romance with the mutual sector, pretending they knew what mutuals were and how they operated. Understandably, the sector is dismayed to have been used as a political football, and the sense of resentment runs deep.

Co-ops and mutuals are regarded as the future of public service delivery, embedding responsibility, community engagement and fiscal accountability into local services. However, as the first year of the coalition has shown, on the rare occasions they actually pursue a mutual option they make a mess of it and produce some cock-eyed compromise that is not in anyone’s interests, as has happened with British Waterways. Our sister party, the Co-operative Party, has led the way in exposing this, assisted by Labour and Co-operative candidates in many areas including the South. The clear danger from the Tories’ actions is that they give co-ops a bad name and undermine the valuable work they do.

Although it has its historical roots in the North, the Co-op movement plays a vital role in the South of England. The Co-op business group has nearly 5,000 stores across the UK with many in towns and cities across the South. In post-war Britain, the local Co-op and the “divi” were part of the cultural fabric of towns across the South. The values and principles of the co-operative and mutual movement remain strong in the south with the continuing expansion of Co-op businesses but also co-op and mutual schemes in local services.

Southern voters have always had a keen interest and respect for co-operatives. Sadly, the ideological connection between the sector and the Labour and Co-operative parties is little understood. Co-operative policies have a proven track record of delivering on the ground for Southern voters. This can be seen in the Millmead Community Mutual Sure Start Scheme in North Kent. Incorporated as a community mutual in 2005, the centre gives parents and children real power over how local services are delivered. Using the mutual model, North Kent parents were able to identify gaps in service provision through local knowledge. As well as delivering real positive outcomes for children, the scheme has also helped bind the community together, a community that had become cynical about traditional forms of services.

The Thames Valley Farming Co-operative is another example. Local people became concerned about the growing issue of food miles and sustainable agriculture and so formed a co-operative operating across 14 towns. Through this scheme profits are re-invested and local economies supported. There is real appetite across the south for the mutual and co-operative sector to play a much bigger role in local life. There is also an increasing practical application for the model, which is being used to save local community services that would otherwise close. Pubs, Post-offices, convenience stores and even telephone boxes are all at the forefront of this revolution. Voters across the South are deeply concerned about the loss of vital community services, and it is the communities themselves that are providing the answers. The Labour and Co-operative Parties have made this revolution possible through campaigning on issues like community pub funds. When in government, we set aside £4.3 million towards helping start-up schemes to save community pubs - funds axed by the coalition.

Our biggest problem is that, as a party, voters in the south do not associate the mutual and co-operative model with us. In many ways, this is an extraordinary fact. We have an idea (co-operatives) that is valued, appreciated, practical and part of the cultural fabric of many southern towns. Yet we need to campaign in a co-ordinated way to link a long-established tradition in the south with electing Labour and Co-operative representatives. We have a huge opportunity here. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel. We simply need to remind southern voters of our historical background in the sector and the brilliant work done and work on-going by the Labour and Co-operative parties to promote its interests, whilst highlighting the impact of Tory policy on the sector.

Co-operative policies have never been more needed, or more necessary, for southern voters. Any viable plan for Labour revival in the South has to include promoting Co-operative solutions. To attempt to do so without them is missing a huge opportunity to change the politics of the south for years to come.

Daniel-Carey Dawes is a CLP Secretary but writes here in a personal capacity

Ipswich shortlist announced

Ipswich Constituency Labour Party is the first in the East of England, and one of the first in the country to start the process of selecting its candidate for the next General Election. It is amongst a number of marginal seats chosen by the NEC for early selection, using a new self nomination procedure. Longlisting and shortlisting was undertaken by a ten member Selection Committee, five men and five women selected to reflect the demographics of the constituency.

Following a meeting of the Selection committee to shortlist candidates yesterday evening a shortlist of four candidates was agreed: Two local candidates and two from outside Ipswich. The two local candidates are Ipswich Borough Council Leader, David Ellesmere, and Deputy Leader, Neil MacDonald. They are joined on the shortlist by Jeremy Miles who contested Beaconsfield in 2010 and Frances Rehal, Manager of Millmead Children's Centre in Thanet. The shortlist was drawn from 22 applicants.

The Selection Committee was pleased to be able to present a strong shortlist to Party members who will meet on 18th September to select their chosen candidate at a Hustings Meeting, with postal votes available to those members unable to attend.

There were two noticeable local absentees from the shortlist. Former MP, Chris Mole announced at the start of the process that he would not be seeking selection as candidate, and County & Borough Councillor Bryony Rudkin also surprised some local members when she decided not to apply.

John Cook is Procedures secretary for Ipswich CLP

Boundary Review: Isle of Wight

The Isle of Wight has had a far bigger impact on this boundary review than its size merits. The eleventh hour concession by the government as the legislation enacting this review gave the Isle two seats for the first time ever. As a consequence, the 600 seats the government had told us was the optimum size for the House of Commons became 602, and as a knock-on consequence one of those Isle of Wight seats was taken from London's allocation.

Isle of Wight has been the UK's biggest constituency - with around 110,000 voters, for many years (Milton Keynes briefly overtook it in the late 1980s before the town was split into two seats). Now it will have two of the smallest constituencies with about 55,000 electors in each.

The bulk of population lies on the northern coast, facing Hampshire in the towns of Newport, Cowes and Ryde. It's of course possible to draw the boundaries here in more than one way, but it is surely more likely that the commission will come up with a more town-based seat in the north, and then a rest-of-the-island seat which will include Sandown and Shanklin.

The most realistic prediction that can be made is that both Isle of Wight seats are will be Conservative/Liberal Democrats contests, with Labour in third place as it is now. Whether the Liberal Democrats can put one or both seats into play (and presumably the more urban one will be the closer), given they represented the Isle for 13 years under Stephen Ross is going to be one of the few vaguely interesting questions at the next election. Although current Conservative MP Andrew Turner has a 10,500 majority, because of the size of the electorate that equals just 15% of the vote. If that differs by five points or more in one or other division then the Isle of Wight will have a marginal seat once again.

As the Isle contests local elections only every four years and with the next local poll not due until 2013, there isnt likely to be a test of post-Coalition Liberal Democrat support for nearly two years. Labour's best set of results in recent times was the five seat haul in 2001, suggesting that a breakout from third place, whilst not impossible is unlikely.

Boundary Review: Kent

Kent is one of only two counties in the South East to lose a constituency in this review (the other being Hampshire).

Every constituency in the county bar Ashford and Folkestone & Hythe is below the electoral average and those two are substantially above it. That means that it's very unlikely that many of the county's seats will survive unaltered - in the option above only Sittingbourne & Sheppey remains unchanged at all.

Because the Conservatives hold every seat in Kent right now - and all pretty comfortably too - the seat that's going will be a Tory net one. But as with most southern battlegrounds where Labour was wiped out last May, the Conservatives will be in the game of what in the US is called incumbency protection, while Labour strategists will be doing all they can to make some seats a bit easier without pushing others held until 2010 too far beyond reach.

The same dynamics that determine who is likely to represent a seat anywhere apply here: the more urban, more densely-populated a seat the more chance Labour has; the more rural or suburban, the far stonger are the Conservatives' prospects. The thing about Kent is it's quite easy to draw seats both ways. For example, both Thanet seats are Conservative-held at present because they both take in more Labour urban areas around Margate, Ramsgate and Cliftonville, but also rural Tory strongholds like Sandwich (in the case of South) and Thanet Villages in the case of North.

An urban Margate and Ramsgate seat would at worst be highly marginal and may well even have stayed Labour in 2010; with knock-on (favourable) consequences for seats like Dover (that could, as one example, be combined with Folkestone to create a Labour-Lib Dem marginal).

Tonbridge & Malling is the most likely candidate for abolition (though Canterbury ought not be discounted either); not least because Sir John Stanley MP is arguably long overdue for retirement and a prominent southern "bedblocker" as young Tory aspirants style such parliamentarians. On the idea above, Tonbridge goes into a new Kent Weald seat - almost a doughnut surrounding a much more compact (and competitive) Maidstone seat; while Malling goes in with Aylesford.

Along the Kent coast, Dartford would become a lot more marginal if the rural ward it gets from Sevenoaks is replaced by Swanley. Or it could be made more Conservative by adding in even more rural Sevenoaks. Likewise, Gravesham becomes very slightly better for Labour (though not much) if it's brought up to size by taking a couple of urban (but Tory voting) Dartford wards, rather than stretching south towards Aylesford. Both Rochester & Strood and Gillingham will also probably become a bit better for Labour as they need to expand into Chatham, but the Conservative majorities here are huge at the moment - far more than any boundary change could overcome.

And therein lies the underlying message that will run through the boundary review in the south: ultimately Labour cannot rely on the shape of constituencies to win: so-called "unwinnable" seats like Gillingham fell in 1997 because southern voters felt Labour was the party for them; and they stayed with the party until 2010.

There is not a Conservative flood-defence plan in existence that could stop a repeat of that electoral avalanche if Labour is again speaking the language of southern voters. Likewise, successfully piecing together more Labour-favourable constituencies through this process will not see the re-election of Labour MPs in Kent unless as a party we get the message right again. The results of May's local elections (with a very few exceptions) tell us that that process has barely begun.

The Boundary Review in The South

The review of parliamentary boundaries currently grinding into gear is going to produce some major changes...but probably not so much in the three southern regions of England.

That's in part because these are growing rural and suburban regions which, by and large, have larger constituencies already which need relatively little alteration for them to comply with the new requirements.

Let's recap briefly on what those requirements are. Parliament has obliged the Boundary Commission to come up with a pattern of constituencies for a 602 seat House of Commons, down from the current 650.

Why 602? It was planned to be 600, entirely arbitrarily, but at the last minute the Government agreed to provide two (small) constituencies entirely within the Isle of Wight instead of the current (huge) single seat for this island. So they were taken out of the calculations. This is the first time the House of Commons has had a cap placed on its size, similar to the US House of Representatives. And that means each region has a set number of seats:

* South East: 81 plus 2 Isle of Wight seats (currently 84)
* South West: 53 (currently 55)
* Eastern: 56 (currently 58)

That's the first big difference about this review.

The second is the far tighter electorate range constituencies can now have. With a few exceptions, every seat can only deviate 5% either side of an ideal electorate of 76,641. So the range is 72,810 to 80,473. Any seat outside that range will have to be altered. Even if your seat is within it, it may not escape unaltered because of knock-on changes needed elsewhere. And of course urban seats where Labour is strong tend to be the ones losing population (that's not universally the case, but in general), while growing suburban seats tend to vote Conservative. But it applies in the South too - do not assume Labour's ten southern seats are safe.

The third change is that the only boundaries that are now set in stone are regional. No constituency may span regions. But they can, for the first time, cross counties. They can even split wards if need be (though the presumption will be to avoid this unless absolutely necessary). And it will be a feature of this review that counties will be paired together - even here in the south. We can say which counties will in all likelihood be paired:

* Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire
* Cambridgeshire and Norfolk
* Cornwall and Devon
* Dorset and Somerset
* Wiltshire and South Gloucestershire

We can even say with a reasonable degree of accuracy which current seats are going to be abolished (but you'll have to wait a bit longer for that). Bar Cambridgeshire and Norfolk, each of those couplings loses one seat between them. If your county's not one of those twinned ten, it's probably going to survive unpaired. But that doesn't mean it survives unscathed. The three biggest southern counties - lose one seat each without being paired:

* Essex
* Kent
* Hampshire

And even if your county doesn't lose a seat and isn't paired, it may well not survive without radical change. East Sussex is one such example: it has six seats now and it will have six seats after the review. But the seats at the Brighton end of the county are too small, while those at the Hastings end are too large. So there has to be some fairly radical surgery there as well.

Bear this in mind: while getting every seat within range of 76,000 voters is the over-riding priority for the commission that does not mean that it will not have care, where it can, to respect natural boundaries, to avoid splitting towns in two, to try to avoid splitting wards wherever possible; and to avoid bringing too many districts together in one seat. It would need exceptional circumstances indeed for any new constituency to cross four different local authorities (under current boundaries only Arundel and South Downs does), and ideally no more than two will be the goal.

Over the next few weeks Southern Front will look in more detail at the impact the boundary review is likely to have on the three southern regions, focussing on some of the affected counties to look at what the political impact might be. Of course, there are many different ways to slice an orange, and many different ways to draw a boundary. But not so many that we cannot make some broad guesses about how the direction the commission might take.

The Boundary Commission has just published a guide to the review process. so check back here every few days for our look at where the boundary review could terminate or launch a political career or two.

Market Town England, a crucial first step for Labour’s future

Down the years, voters have become familiar with some of the demographic categories that British politics uses to compartmentalise the electorate. In the early 1990s, “Mondeo man” was used to characterise young professionals who had been socially mobile during the Thatcher years. In the Blair era “Worcester woman” was used to describe a consumerist voter, who voted in the same way she would choose a supermarket comestible, on the basis of brand. It is therefore reluctantly that I seek to add another electoral category to the demographic mix, that of “market town England”.

There exists an electoral hinterland between the densely populated areas of our major cities in the South of England and the rural landscapes of villages and hamlets. Southern England’s historic towns, such as Totnes, Dartford, Lowestoft and Woodbridge are the political hubs of Labour’s future. In market town England, Labour has an historic opportunity to reach out to voters who often feel trapped between the political narratives tailored to urban or rural England. They don’t identify with the politics of the urban/rural divide because they themselves live in communities where your next door neighbour is just as likely to be the farmer who farms on the outskirts of the town as the young professional who commutes to the nearby major city.

The coalition has pursued policies that have alienated and disappointed many market town voters. The cuts agenda, along with an unrelenting attack on the institutional fabric of the country, such as the privatisation of forests and the closure of coastguard stations, has roused parts of the country not known for political activism. These parts of the country that have traditionally felt distant from Westminster politics have been some of the leading campaigners against government policy. This can particularly be seen in forestry policy where communities have united to save these key environmental assets for future generations. In many ways the problems facing market town voters are not dissimilar to those experienced by other geo-demographic groups. Employment, housing, crime and youth opportunities are familiar themes. But what often alienates voters is the notion that politicians are a separate class who speak at them and tell them what they think their problems are. Disaffection with politics has in many cases understandably become an ingrained cultural norm in far too many communities. In spite of this, town voters have been successful at getting their voices heard on issues that particularly concern their communities such as local economies, education, transport, ghost high streets and high speed broadband. We need to listen to these concerns and amplify them at Westminster.

The only way Labour can build up a strong presence in market towns in southern England is by building up a strong activist base and becoming a truly organic part of the local community. At any level of politics, trust is always vital and it is therefore unsurprising that successful politicians in southern market towns are those who have served their community and are trusted in other capacities, such as JPs, school governors or local trustees. Whilst not forgetting our political aim of returning progressive representatives, we must see our party as a movement which can serve communities across the country by taking an active role across society. Many Labour party members do this already and find it a fulfilling way to make a difference. It allows us as a party to engage with the concerns of our fellow citizens and means that as electoral candidates we are friends and neighbours rather than part of some distant political elite. Our party is currently in a process of metamorphosis and it is not clear how we are going to look at the next election. But let’s make sure that Labour’s revival includes market towns in Southern England. We cannot hope to form a government in the future without the support of southern market town voters. I have described this as “a crucial first step”. This is because Labour must re-engage with all southern voters be they in market towns, villages or major cities. If we cannot win the trust of market town voters and build a lasting progressive tradition there then we are unlikely to see a wider Labour revival in the south that stands the test of time.

There is real anger from southern market town voters at the betrayal of the coalition to their key concerns. We must make sure that feeling of betrayal is communicated at Westminster; we would be failing in our duty as the official and only opposition to the government if we did not do so. The coalition has abandoned market town voters and left them angry and disillusioned with politicians. Let’s start rebuilding Labour in the south and tackling the disillusionment by listening to market town England and then they might start listening to us.

Daniel Carey-Dawes is a CLP secretary but writes here in a personal capacity

Kent Young Labour launch event

With a government imposing deep cuts to services much needed by young people here in the South it is important that we make our voices heard. From EMA, to youth centres to tuition fees the Tory-led government has engaged in an assault on the livelihoods of today’s young people. Similarly, at a time when the Labour Party itself needs greater input from young people to truly represent their aims and aspirations I am pleased to say that a Kent Young Labour group has just been set up. We hope that this group will act as a platform for political debate, greater youth engagement as well as act as a campaigning force around the region.

I realised not so long ago that there was a huge amount of untapped potential among young people here in the South and particularly here in Kent. There was no cross-constituency group for young Labour people to meet, campaign and discuss as is present in many other areas in the country and as a result there was nowhere for young members of the Labour Party to work together. I met with four other Labour youth activists and we agreed to establish a Kent Young Labour group, open to everyone Labour Party member under the age of 27 and residing in a Kentish constituency. One month on and our first event is being organised and prepared, which we hope will act as a springboard for greater youth participation, all the more important at a time when there is a significant perception of political apathy among young people.

Our launch event will take place on Saturday 16th July from 10:30am-3:00pm at the Stone Court Hotel, 28 Lower Stone Street, Maidstone. We will hear speeches from Sadiq Khan MP as well as a campaigning workshop with chair of national Young Labour, Susan Nash. We hope this will be a great opportunity to encourage people who have joined the party, but are yet to get involved, to do so and meet like-minded people as well as listen to the fantastic speakers that we have on offer.

Where do we see the group progressing from there? Well we will hold a second meeting in a few months’ time, with the intention of getting along another shadow cabinet minister to speak as well as allow members to debate and discuss. But we will then look to campaign around Kent, mobilising young members to fight in key marginals around the area. Not only will this be of benefit to local Labour Parties, but we feel that this process will create a youth movement that will get more young people involved in politics which will be hugely positive for our political system.

But the group will, of course, only be as strong as its members, so we’re trying to let young people around the region know about the group and encourage them to come along to our launch event on the 16th which we hope will be exciting, enjoyable and inspire young people to campaign for the Labour Party and for their futures.

Rory Weal is Chair of Kent Young Labour

Join Kent Young Labour on Facebook by linking here or follow them on Twitter @KentYoungLabour

Labour in the South West: Much won, much more to do

The elections in May marked the start of a long recovery for Labour across the country, but especially in the South West. There can be no hiding that the General Election results were very disappointing for Labour in the region. As a party we lost some very good MPs – Linda Gilroy in Plymouth, Jim Knight in Dorset South and Parmjit Dhanda in Gloucester to name but a few. There can be no doubting that 2010 was a very tough year for Labour in the West Country.

It may sound self-evident but 2011 is not 2010 and the times, they are a changing, to quote a song lyric.

The elections in May marked the first real electoral test of the Coalition and it produced mixed results. I predicted in my new year predictions for PRSD that both Labour and the Tories would do well in the elections – and both parties did. Labour won at the expense of the Tories and the Tories won, largely at the expense of the Liberal Democrats. The Liberal Democrats lost at their own expense.

It wasn’t just about electing councillors though, there was also the AV referendum. AV was, frankly, a Westminster village-orchestrated distraction from the real issues affecting ordinary people.

Those who support electoral reform, and I count myself in this camp, were asked to back a system accurately described by Nick Clegg as a “miserable little compromise” with few pluses and many negatives. AV had few friends and the British public, and the South West in particular, rightly kicked it out for being the disappointment it clearly was. The Lib Dems had misplayed their trump card and with it, the chances for proper electoral reform was lost for a generation. That further kicked Lib Dem support in the region.

The general consensus among the political chattering classes, for which you can read Twittering classes these days, is that the Tories are doing well, the Lib Dems are doing terribly (and they are) and Labour is doing ‘alright’ somewhere in the middle. That’s probably a fair assessment of where we are as a party right now – doing alright. Not yet motoring, but not sinking either.

The problem is that doing alright won’t win us the next General Election, nor will doing alright kick out the Tories who are doing so much damage to the South West economy, penalising the poorest and advantaging the richest.

I was asked to write about Labour’s fortunes but its worth spending a moment looking at what would happen to the Lib Dems if there was an election tomorrow: simply they’d be wiped out. The Tories would turn the West Country blue with only urban areas flying the red flag in proud defiance. If the Lib Dems want to avoid this they need to do something about it and fast, as their current ‘be in opposition in power’ strategy is fooling no one. But I’m probably not best placed to comment on being a Lib Dem, so back to Labour…

So, what can be done? Well, the first thing I ask readers is not to drink the Tory cool aid too much that says that Labour is floundering under Ed Miliband and destined for successive electoral defeats.

The local elections in May were good for Labour. By any measure we did well picking up 400 councillors nationwide including making five gains in Plymouth, one in Torquay and one in West Devon. Labour has also won two successive by-elections in Camborne recently. That’s a party making a steady come back not one being deserted by the electorate. Let’s remember Labour’s eight points clear in the polls too.

Labour needs not only to campaign more to win more votes – it also need to change. We need to learn the lessons of why we lost – how the party and leadership became disconnected from the people – how our policies on housing and immigration didn’t match the experience of voters and how the party looked tired when compared to Cameron’s glitzy PR machine. In short, we needed after May 2010 and still do need to come to terms with why we lost if we are not to repeat that in the future. If Labour was a company, this would be called R&D investment and it would be time well spent.

Labour still has a long way to go to be a general party of opposition across the West Country, but let’s be honest about it, there are dozens of seats across the south where Labour is simply not in contention (and where the Lib Dems need to up their game). Whether it is through demographic, historical or social issues Labour is unlikely to win in Torridge and West Devon, doesn’t stand much of a chance in East Devon and battles valiantly but is unlikely to win SW Devon anytime soon.

That said, where Labour is historically strong, in places like Exeter, Plymouth and Bristol the fight back is going well. Steady progress is being made by the local parties there to win more votes. The wipeout of the Lib Dem vote in Plymouth and the defeat of even one of the ruling Tory cabinet members testify to the potency of Labour’s message, the appeal of our candidates and the fact that the Tory and Lib Dem cuts are hurting, but they’re not working.

In May next year Labour may win control of Plymouth City Council. It’s a steep hill to climb first but Cllr Tudor Evans, Labour’s leader in Plymouth, is up for the challenge and him and his team are rising to it each and every week through increased campaigning on local issues, community engagement and increased fundraising. Follow Plymouth Labour’s twitter feed to get a flavour of the activity in the city.

The Coalition is also doing themselves no favours. The U-turns are coming thick and fast casting a general doubt about the coherence of their agenda or the solidity of their determination on policy.

Defence cuts while we are at war on two fronts, for instance, seem utterly bizarre and in a region where the military is intrinsic to our lives this is deeply concerning. So too are cuts to our schools, hospitals, police, fire service, ambulances, social services, roads, and the list goes on.

The cuts are hurting but the latest figures for April show that the Government borrowed more money now than it did a year ago when Labour handled the economy. Now, I can hear the Tory stalwarts saying that they’re cutting waste and all these perfectly crafted soundbites – the problem is in areas like our’s the pain is evident but the much heralded and promised improvements are not.

This is the context in which Labour must seize the initiative and win more votes. The victories in Dartmouth and West Devon show that even in areas many Labour activists never think we could win, we have. And in a stroke making the life of Labour strategists that much harder in working out where to resource – the answer should be everywhere – but money and activists don’t grow on trees so the party has to focus and select key targets – and let’s be clear Plymouth should be one of them.

Labour also must not forget its role in being a voice for those hit by the cuts.

Whether you’re resident in a Labour heartland or the safest Tory seat in the county, you need to know and actually be able to see that Labour is championing those hardworking families in what Ed Miliband calls the ‘squeezed middle’. If you’re reading this post, you’re probably in that squeezed middle. Your bills are going up, prices are rising, job security is dropping and the future is more and more uncertain. That’s not a future I want for me, my family or your family.

Does this mean that the next election is already won? No, absolutely not. Let’s remember that the 2010 General Election defeat was one of Labour’s worst ever election results. It took the Tories 13 years to come back after defeat in 1997, and Labour took 18 long years after defeat in 1979. Let’s not count our chickens just yet, there’s a lot more work to do but there’s already positive signs ahead.

This article was first published on the People's Republic of South Devon website

Luke Pollard was Labour’s candidate in South West Devon at the last general election. He lives in Plymouth and works in the travel industry. Visit his website at http://www.blogger.com/www.lukepollard.org

Swindon South shortlist

The first stage of the process to select a candidate to contest Swindon South at the next general election has concluded with the constituency shortlisting three candidates. They are:

Anne Snelgrove, the former MP for Swindon South (2005-2010)

Frances Rehal, a Surestart manager from Kent

Anne Marie Waters, a constituency activist from London

Swindon South was won for Labour in the 1997 landslide by Julia Drown, who served as the MP from 1997 until 2005, when she stood down. Her successor, Anne Snelgrove, lost the seat by 3,544 on a 5.5% swing, to current incumbent Conservative MP Robert Buckland.

As the former MP and the only local candidate on the shortlist, Anne Snelgrove must be considered the favourite to win the nomination. She is a former PPS to Gordon Brown (as Prime Minister) and was one of the two campaign managers of Ed Balls' leadership campaign in 2010.

The selection meeting takes place on 27th July.