Poulton North by-election analysis

Published on August 18, 2011 in Elections. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Although the Poulton North by-election happened several weeks ago, I think it’s worth commenting on the result and why I think such a result came about.

The by-election results:

Liberal Democrat 1,106
Labour 895
Conservative 190
UK Independence Party (James Ashington) 97

The first thing that is interesting is that Labour failed to gain this seat, something which I thought was a forgone conclusion. Either they ran a bad campaign, with their very young candidate going on holiday during the campaign not helping, or the Liberal Democrats had a great candidate and ran another trademark Lib Dem by-election campaign. I suspect both played a part.

The UKIP result was disappointing, as we did put a large amount of resources into the area, including postal vote letters, personalised leaflets and a visit from our North West MEP. We even got plenty of press coverage and had a fantastic candidate in James Ashington. What went wrong?

My theory is that given the history of the ward, where there are normally only three candidates, people are very reluctant to stray from the main three parties, to expand on this slightly, it shows that no matter how good your campaign is, unless you have a solid consistent campaign all year round, you will get very far. Voters really do need to feel that they can trust a party and a candidate with their vote, even if there is still little chance in winning.

A fair few people in UKIP still think they can turn up to an election the week before and win the seat. The Poulton North result proves that if you have that mentality, you will get very far.

Parish Council Meeting

Published on August 4, 2011 in Politics. 0 Comments

Last night I was at another Parish Council meeting. As each meeting goes by we are attracting more and more local residents, which is fantastic. People are beginning to understand how the Parish can help improves lives in the local area. There is still much to do, but we are making progress at a good rate.

The main focus at the meeting was getting a Home Watch scheme organised, with the help of Greater Manchester Police. Residents seemed keen to get this set up and help protect there properties. The nature of Ringway means that neighbours are often few and far between, so we all need to work together to keep an eye out for anything out of the ordinary.

The other main focus of the meeting was the dispute over which division of Greater Manchester Police covered the Parish. This may not seem very important, but the Wythenshawe division that has now been assigned to the parish have to travel through the Ringway division to get to the parish! Our aim is to reduce call out waiting time and to make sure at least one division responds to calls.

The meeting also covered a few other issues residents raised. As the Clerk of the Parish, it’s very interesting and rewarding to have a central role within this ‘new’ Parish Council.

Learning from our mistakes

Published on July 15, 2011 in Elections and Politics. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , .

Despite huge amounts of effort, UKIP has always struggled to get organised at a regional level. From organising large amounts of candidates, to providing support with leaflets, we have always found it hard and had to work right up to the very last second to make things work.

However, this year in the North West we are moving forward at an incredible rate, thanks to some fantastic work from the North West team and the many hard working branch and county chairmen all over the region.

At the next local elections in 2012, I expect to see a huge improvement in the number of candidates we field and a huge improvement in the quality of the leaflets we produce, not to mention the rate at which we can get the leaflets out to voters.

Looking at the North West I really do see much more of a professional operation than say three years ago. My ambition is to see the North West become UKIP’s ‘Flagship’ region in terms of how the party should operate at a regional level. Only time will tell, but the sheer amount of hard work that members are putting into the region from Cumbria right down to Crewe give it a good chance of achieving that target.

I’m back!

Published on June 10, 2011 in Personal. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Well, after far too much time away from this blog, I’m back!
The reason I have been away for so long is due the sheer amount of work I have had. It all started during the Oldham East & Saddleworth by-election (remember that? Seems like a forever ago). During the OE&S by-election I lived in Oldham for just under three months campaigning with the rest of the core campaign team.

As well as having the above by-election, I have had my own local by-election to contest in January, were I came third beating the Liberal Democrats. More recently there have been developments to Ringway Parish Council and not to mention some fantastic results at the 2011 local elections by the Wythenshawe campaign team.

Liberal Democrats: Misleading here!

Published on November 15, 2010 in Elections and Politics. 1 Comment Tags: , , .

How ironic that the Liberal Democrats were the ones to submit an election petition against the result in Oldham East & Saddleworth. Don’t get me wrong, I do think the campaign the Labour team ran in Oldham East and Saddleworth was breaking the law, but the Liberal Democrats must be the worst party for misleading the public in elections.

In every by-election I have campaigned in, and there are many, the Lib Dems are constantly the worst offenders. I remember in the Reddish North by-election in 2009, the Lib Dems ran an ‘It’s a two horse race’ campaign, even though they came 4th in the previous election, behind the BNP.  I have the leaflet somewhere and will put it up.

That example is just the tip of the iceberg.  I have heard many stories of Lib Dem candidates putting out personal attack letters on the eve of poll or on polling day itself, making sure parties cannot respond to personal attacks.

In one by-election in Sheffield the Lib Dems put out a leaflet claiming that ‘Long term UKIP voters are switching to the Liberal Democrats’. I think it’s unlikely that an anti-EU voter would vote for one of the most pro EU parties, whatever the Lib Dem candidates local policies are. It’s proven that a lot of UKIP voters, certainly the long term supporters, vote for UKIP on principle, not tactically.

It is this use of dirty tactics that makes me dislike most Lib Dem activists, in fact, there is only one Lib Dem I actually like and that is Northenden Councillor Martin Eakins.

Coming back to Oldham East & Saddleworth, the Liberal Democrats are yet again up to their old tricks. They have put out a bar chart (pictured) making it look like only the Labour party and the Lib Dems can win, when it is clearly a three way marginal. The Conservatives only came around 2,000 votes behind the Lib Dems in May.

I really can’t wait for the Liberal Democrats turn to be at the hands of an election petition, based on their current campaigning tactics, it might not be long!



More design work

Published on November 10, 2010 in Elections and Politics. 0 Comments Tags: , .

I’ve Had quite a busy few days. I have had a few newsletters for branches to design as well as the Parish Council newsletter that will be going out this month. On top of this, I’m currently working on an MEP newsletter to go out in the North West.

With a by-election now set to take place in the Oldham East & Saddleworth constituency, I will be running the online aspect of the campaign which will include a brand new campaign website. I’m actually looking forward to this campaign as it gives me a chance to run a dynamic website that should keep up with the campaign on the ground.

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By-election in Wythenshawe?

Published on November 5, 2010 in Elections and Politics. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

I have heard that Labour Councillor Eddie McCulley has recently passed away. He represented the Baguley ward in the Wythenshawe & Sale East constituency.

This means that at some point a by-election will be held in the future. As the Chairman of the UKIP Wythenshawe & Sale East branch, I am certainly hoping to field a candidate when the by-election is called. I will be keeping in touch with Manchester City Council’s Electoral Services Unit to ensure we know what is going on.

Previous results:

Manchester MBC, Baguley Ward. 2010

Labour 2,263 (47.1%)
Lib Dem 1,178  (24.5%)
Con 777 (16.2%)
UKIP 329 (6.8%)
Green 134 (2.8%)
Soc Alt 123  (2.7%)

Parish Council meeting

Published on November 3, 2010 in Politics. 0 Comments Tags: .

There was due to be a Ringway Parish Council meeting tonight, as when the Council first formed, it was agreed that monthly meetings will take place.

However, it has been decided that the Council should meet every two months from now on, so the next meeting has been pushed back to the 1st December. This was decided due to the difficulty of keeping a full agenda for each meeting and making sure we have enough time to follow up items on the agenda.

This will cut down on the amount of admin I will need to do. Things such as produce the agenda, minutes, summons and supporting documents for each meeting ad hopefully will produce a more effective Parish Council.

Young Independence logo

Published on November 2, 2010 in Personal and Politics. 0 Comments Tags: , .

The youth wing of UKIP, Young Independence, was in dire need of a new logo.
I spent several hours coming up with designs and with input from a few members have come up with the following:

Please let me know what you think.

Baxenden leaflet

Published on October 31, 2010 in Elections. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

The leaflet for the Baxenden by-election is now complete. Now this is finished I can move on to some more projects i’m working on. However, with more by-elections on the horizon I had better make the most of my time!

Two more North West vacancies

Published on October 29, 2010 in Elections and Politics. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

There are a further two more vacancies in Councils around the North West tonight. The first one is in Blackpool UA, Stanley Ward. Whilst the second is in West Lancashire BC, Derby ward. I expect UKIP to be fielding candidates in both by-elections when they are called.

The one in Blackpool UA, is covered by the Blackpool North & Cleavelys branch and should be able to put in a decent campaign. I expect I will be desigining the election material for the by-elections which will give me another chace to perfect the ‘Informer’ leaflets that are being used at the moment.

Blackpool North & Cleveleys branch meeting

Published on October 28, 2010 in Politics. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Last night, I had the honour of being the guest speaker at the UKIP Blackpool North & Cleveleys branch. The branch is one of the best performing branches in the North West, with a real chance of getting someone elected next May.

The last time I was in the Cleveleys area was when I was helping the branch chairman, Roy Hopwood, fight the jubilee by-election last year, where he took second place.

I decided to talk about the many changes that are taking place in the North West region in the run up to Christmas, but first mentioned the North West website, and the valuable work it does in promoting the party in the North West. Something that I hope branches can start contributing more to over the next few months. As well as the website, I highlighted the use of Twitter and how the region is able to communicate results and news very quickly around the region.

After this, I mentioned the weekly election reports that I produce and the need for effective communication within the region, something the reports will help with. Along with the reports, the branch members heard about the success of the ‘Informer’ leaflets that are going down well in by-elections that we are standing in, with most Informers  having a turnaround time of about 24 hours, they are perfect for quick response campaigning.

After spending some time talking about how I was elected to Ringway Parish Council, I finished by giving an overview of the troubles the BNP are facing, most members seemed very pleased to hear about the demise of the party, with me more than happy to tell them about it.

All in all, it was a very informative and interesting meeting,  I also managed  to chat to some of the members afterwards.

Election leaflets and the outlook for November

Published on October 24, 2010 in Elections and Politics. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

UKIP will be standing in a few more by-elections in November and December. We should be fielding candidates in all four of the upcoming by-elections in the North West, meaning that I have quite a bit of leaflet designing to do!

As well as designing leaflets, there are a few other projects I would like to complete by the end of November, making the next four weeks quite busy for me. I will also have a Parish Council meeting to attend at the start of the month, as well as speaking at a branch in the North West this Wednesday coming up.

Everything I plan to do should give me ample things to write about on this site, so I should have regular updates.

A tale of two sides

Published on October 20, 2010 in Politics. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

The savage cuts the UK is currently experiencing is a stark contrast to that of the European Union, who has had its budget increased by a staggering 5.9%.

What that means for the UK, is that the British taxpayer will have to fork out an extra £840 million per year to the EU, whilst face £81 billion worth of cuts to front line services, not to mention the 8% cut to the defence budget. To put this into perspective, five years worth of contributuons to the EU costs the UK £82 billion.

This increase in the EU’s budget will go towards giving staff more pay, increasing the entertainment budget by 85% and other pointless schemes that are a waste of money.

People are slowly coming round to the idea that the European Union does nothing but steal much needed money from the UK that could be used to support the country. We in UKIP must continue to get this message across. The only way for the UK to prosper again, is to be free from the chains of the European Union.

The end of the hustings

Published on October 18, 2010 in Elections. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Last Friday (15th Oct) saw an end to the UKIP leadership hustings. I did attend the next three hustings after Peterborough, in Rotherham, Birmingham & Rainhill but all of them were a fairly similar repeat to the Peterborough hustings.

Nigel as usual, was in top form in all hustings that I attended, with David Campbell-Bannerman also put in a few solid performances. Tim was terrible as usual and Winston, well, was just Winston!

A few candidates are playing some dirty tricks in this campaign, from DCB getting Nigel pulled off Question Time, to candidates stating certain high profile members are switching sides. All this of course is to be expected, but now the hustings are over, all we need to wait for now is the final result on the 5th November.

The 5th will be an exciting time for the party, whoever wins, a fresh new team will be brought into the party, win an aim of making it even more electable. Given that when a new leader will be elected, an entire team is brought in, the party could move in several new directions. This alone could make this leadership election the most important internal election in its history.