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!
Monthly Archive for October, 2010
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Today I travelled down to Peterborough to attend the UKIP leadership hustings, which were a lot better organised that the hustings I attended back in 2009, as well as a lot better attended. The hustings took place in a very nice hotel, that I think judging by its architecture was at some stage, a stately home.
In my head, I already knew who I wanted to vote for, but I still went into the room with an open mind. Clearly if the other candidates were as good as their supporters say they are, then there must be a chance that I would be persuaded to vote for them?
Winston McKenzie gave the first opening speech out of the candidates, with one of his trademark talks, full of passion and motivation, something that we have all come to expect from him.
Next it was Nigel’s turn, who delivered a great introduction and charmed everyone with his energy and enthusiasm. In his opening speech, he put the other candidates on the back foot by simply saying to the audience ‘Out of all the candidates on this platform, who would Ed Milliband, David Cameron and Nick Clegg fear the most in a leadership debate?’ Nigel succinctly pointed out that the leaders’ debate that took place for the General Election, would likely take place for the next European elections, which UKIP will take part in, given our 2nd place in ’09 and that it will be vital the UKIP leader do well in these debates, if the party is to do well.
Next up was Tim Congdon, who I had never heard speak before. You could tell instantly that he was not a natural speaker, with some of his key points for his leadership bid lost in his nervous style of speaking. All of the people present picked up on this. The stark contrast between Nigel and Tim was obvious, and based on his speech delivery and some of his messages, I doubt Tim will walk away with the UKIP leadership, despite his good intentions.
David Campbell-Bannerman took to the floor after Tim, with a solid performance and clear aims for what he wants to achieve. I was actually quite impressed with DCB’s speech and it is obvious that he has gained lots more speaking experience since his first speeches when he was elected to the European Parliament. David will gain lots of support with pushing the message that ‘policies will make UKIP a credible party’, something that I do think the party should continue to promote.
Throughout the questions the debate was well managed and the candidates mostly well behaved. There were some negative comments from Tim about party membership figures, and on one occasion made an attack on Nigel. Apart from this, all the other candidates answered the questions without bringing negativity into it, which was nice to see.
Although no candidate was a ‘clear winner’, Nigel had received the most applause in most questions, but there was plenty of support for the other two serious candidates, Tim and David.
To sum up, despite people say that Tim is in the running for the leadership, I doubt he has what it takes to be taken as a serious leadership contender. It’s a two horse race as they say, between David Campbell-Bannerman and Nigel Farage. David still has a lot to do if he wants to topple Nigel, who has mobilised his supporters in great numbers.
You might be aware that I have spent some time designing leaflets and campaigning in the recent Harbour ward by-election, which took place a few days ago. The results were:
Lancaster CC, Harbour ward.
| Morecambe Bay Independents | 287 | (47.7%, +10.6%) | |
| Conservative | 161 | (26.7%, +7.5%) | |
| UKIP (Dr Fred McGlade) | 86 | (14.3%, +14.3%) | |
| Liberal Democrats | 68 | (11.3%, + 11.3%) |
Majority 126, turnout 12%
MBI hold
As I discussed in a previous post, Labour had failed to stand a candidate due to a paperwork error, which should of meant that Labour voters would have to vote for another party. However, what seemed to of happened instead, looking at the poor 12% turnout, is that almost all Labour voters didn’t bother to vote, you would naturally expect some fall in the number of labour voters, but never almost all of them. In my opinion they should of voted despite there not being a Labour candidate, as they still have to put up with the candidate that is elected in the end. If I had to vote in an election where there was no UKIP candidate, I would at least vote for the candidate that had some of my core beliefs.
Apart from the Morecambe Bay Independents, who without interference from Labour voters would retain the seat, the other parties relied on attracting Labour voters to have even a slight chance of winning. This was also a part of our strategy in the Harbour ward which was the only viable way of toppling the MBI candidate. When Labour voters failed to turnout, it is clear the parties each retained their core vote, leaving us to squeeze what votes we could get from the others.
All things considered, we did quite well to achieve 14.3%. It is clear that people are opening up to the idea of voting for UKIP, we just need to make sure we keep their support.
I did hope to update my blog a lot sooner, so I do apologise. This week has been very busy, especially the past two days.
The next edition of the North West newsletter, which I design and edit, will be going to print sometime next week. As you can imagine, a week before it needs to be finalised, I have spent quite some time chasing articles and photos from contributors as well as ensuring all of the latest updates about what is going on in the region are also squeezed in somewhere.
Also, the Harbour by-election, (Which I will cover in detail in a post later on), has required me to spend some of my time updating the North West website with some new graphics, as well as run the North West region’s online presence on Twitter and Facebook throughout polling day.
Today I also managed to get the go ahead for a new way to communicate with the members, which should improve communication between the regional office and the grass roots members. But that is all I can reveal on here!
To top off my day, I managed to get two questions for the EU Commission drafted, which with any luck, will expose the European Union even further as the corrupt, undemocratic, wasteful bureaucracy that it is.
I already have a few things I want to write about over the next few days, so my blog should be updated every day at the very least throughout the next seven days.
Today, a Young Independence Council meeting was held in the UKIP Sheffield office.
For those of you who do not know what Young Independence is, it is the youth wing of the UK Independence Party. The council is responsible for the day to day running of the youth section that involves influencing party policy, promoting UKIP to the younger people in society, be it in universities or on the street and supporting young UKIP members in elections, public speaking etc.
The meeting went very well with lots of positive discussion taking place. I feel as though we have a plan of action of how to take Young Independence forward which will be quite exciting when it starts to come to fruition.
The next meeting will be held at the end of this month, which should keep the momentum from this meeting going.
It is fast approaching the time for the next Parish Council meeting, which will be taking place on the 6th October.
Today I sent out the summons and notice of the meeting, which are legal requirements. I will be working on the agenda over the weekend to give the other Councillors plenty of time to read the supporting documentation, which this month includes a planning application for new Traffic Regulation Orders around Manchester Airport.
As well as doing some parish work, I was able to update the North West website and produce and send out my weekly election report to various people in the North West.
