Monthly Archive for August, 2011

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.