Fabian Society: “We Support Boris Johnson”
I’m afraid this is one of those times where the headline is misleading. Still, it got your attention and maybe a laugh.
The remark was at an event entitled “Is Britain Broken?” between the Bow Group and the Young Fabians. A certain Fabian speaker on the panel made the remark, referring to BoJo’s reference to the idea of a broken society as “piffle”, something he suitably blustered his way out of at this year’s Party Conference.
Unfortunately this was not a particularly enjoyable debate. It quickly descended into partisan recrimination and “yah boo sucks” party politics. This was a shame as some rather good views and opinions got drowned out in a divisive shouting contest about who could paint the most dystopian picture against who could sound the most optimistic. It left you wondering what the point of these joint political events
This was probably due to the choice of title. It led to an argument really over what you emphasise in politics, with the Labour side going off on extended rants about the Conservative Party.
Still, I got to make a light-hearted jab at Hazel Blears over her comments about blogging, sinister and corrosive nihilist that I so evidently am.
At least the drinks afterwards had some decent discussion.
UPDATE: I’ve just been doing some digging regarding one of the speakers. Dr. Stella Creasy, Labour PPC for Walthamstow and (obviously) speaking on the Fabian side was the worst culprit in the partisan attack stakes. Rather than debate the question, she launched into two and a half minutes of Tory-bashing while sneering at anything that anyone else raised that challenged her ideas, as if we were all nuts. Given her rather impressive academic CV, one cannot but think that this was a wasted opportunity. We could have had a really interesting debate on the issues at hand, which she obviously has some knowledge of. It’s not like she couldn’t have even got some side-swipes in while making her point. But instead she opted to go for nothing but blue-bashing. What a waste.
Sphere: Related ContentConference Report
Having vaguely paid off my debts to the much-absent phenomenon at conferences called sleep, I am now in something of a state to give an account of those two days.
After an inauspicious start due to a technical error with the train, I travelled up to Birmingham and got settled into my hotel. From there a brief ride to the ICC and an attempt to navigate through a sea of leaflets. Being what has now been termed a “conference virgin“, I failed to keep my wits about me and suddenly found myself burdened with tonnes of them.
I have always wondered if M.C. Escher’s work could ever be made into a reality, and, as Niall Paterson noted, the ICC has managed to come very close to achieving it. Continuing this artistic theme were a series of posters on a soviet theme. The traditional messages one would expect of such posters were instead inverted with conservative themes of the importance of civil society, personal responsibility and the rejection of the overwhelming state.
My morning was spent floating between the various stalls I had noticed in my conference guide, accumulating a modest amount of freebies. Of particular note was the stand run by Total Politics, distributing free copies of the Guide to Political Blogging 2008 (look in the back to find me listed), and the must-have UK Politics Top Trumps cards.
The internet cafe was distinctly disappointing. For a conference of thousands of representatives we had access to five computers. This was part of the reason why my intention to live blog consistently was significantly curtailed, and I can’t have been the only blogger to have felt let down. Despite the prominence of the centre-right on the blogosphere, it was a significant failure to not make our job easier and ensure regular, favourable coverage. It is distinctly inconvenient to have to drag a laptop all over the ICC, let alone find somewhere quiet to sit and write. The sight of Tim Montgomerie and Dan Hannan hunched over their laptops in a corner of the Freedom Zone was amusing, but not ideal. Something to consider in subsequent years will be the provision of blogging facilities similar to those provided to mainstream media outlets: a place to plug in your laptop and type away from the distractions of the main hall.
Following this was a lunch at the Salisbury Club. A useful opportunity to meet with friends and newcomers alike. As this was what had brought many Conservative Future types to conference, it became a vital way of working out how to plan the rest of one’s time and navigate the dizzying array of fringe and social events.
For the rest of the afternoon I managed to get into the main hall to watch Boris Johnson’s speech and the Armed Forces session. Boris was, as one would expect, on good form. He made a witty riposte to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s criticism last year, before moving on to his traditional humourous territory. The Armed Forces session had an impressive array of speakers, featuring Liam Fox, Frederick Forsyth, Simon Weston, Col. Stuart Tootal and two former Majors. The tone was distinctly angry, with Forsyth claiming that around sixty soldiers had died as a direct result of the “blithering incompetence” of a government that had failed to adequately fund a war on two fronts while “frittering billions away on trivia”. Weston and Tootal made particularly impassioned personal pleas, particularly over the issue of dedicated military hospitals and the fractured civil-military relationship in some quarters. The reception of the audience was largely one of restrained outrage: were the panel not all on the same side, a Cherie Blair moment could have ensued.
After that I went over to a meeting of senior members of CF, where I gave a speech that, while not to everyone’s taste, was nonetheless well-received. Given that it was something of a maiden speech, I may have got a little carried away with myself though. Much discussion followed adjacent to a rather heated debate, as prior to that I had been something of an unknown. Accusations of being a plant of the leadership were subsequently thrown round, which was a rather flattering idea. The rest of Sunday evening was given over to drinking in an entirely serious and non-celebratory manner. Of particular amusement was encountering Alex Hilton, author of Recess Monkey and joint owner of LabourHome, who one can only conclude had either undergone a Damascene conversion, or suffered some immense traumatic brain injury. He seemed to think that not only was he a Tory, but an investment banker as well. He gave the impression to several leading figures that he was a Tory candidate. I do hope someone’s informed his CLP.
Sunday had an early start attempting to get into a fringe event run by Tories in DC over whether a Conservative ought to vote for Obama or McCain, with representatives from both campaigns. Despite arriving reasonably early the event had already filled far beyond capacity; the US elections are by far a settled question within the party. Forced to forage for food elsewhere, I headed back to the ICC once more. This day was centred more around the Freedom Zone, an off-site fringe marathon organised by the Freedom Association. The first event I attended was a session by Dan Hannan and Douglas Carswell promoting their new book The Plan, an articulation of ideas of Direct Democracy, Parliamentary Sovereignty and Euroscepticism condensed into a series of legislative instruments supposedly achievable within a single twelve-month session of Parliament. Having bought a copy and had it signed, I started to read but have yet to get beyond the diagnostic and into the prescriptive. What it has offered so far is interesting, although it gives the impression of overstating the case as a means of opening gambit.
Bumping in to Iain Dale and David Davis on my way out, your intrepid author then wandered back to the main conference area to watch George Osborne’s speech on one of the TVs. I had said earlier on my Twitter feed that he was going to have a significantly more important role than had otherwise been predicted, and in that I was correct. He struck the right tone: he made no attempt to defend the crass amorality of some in the financial services sector, and called for a return to traditional fiscal conservatism. While there has been some dissection of his proposals on freezing council taxes, particularly the issue over it being voluntary, there is nonetheless an argument that it is still achievable. By being elected on the back of such a promise a Conservative government would have a sufficient mandate and influence to be able to pressure councils into adopting such measures, appealing to popular authority over what looks to become a key proposal from the conference.
Lunch was taken at a fringe event organised by the Electoral Reform Society’s Votes at 16 campaign. This was poorly chaired: he did not even bother to hide his partiality, and despite having my hand up for almost the entirety of the event, I only got called on to speak at the very end. A little attempt to keep one’s biases to a minimum or at least acknowledge the chap with a pageful of notes who was first to raise his hand would have been enough to mollify me. Votes at 16 presented, as per usual the best argument against their own case: dogmatic, uncompromising, unsophisticated and hectoring, sticking to the usual lies about being able to fight in wars and likening themselves to the suffragettes. They were rather amusingly countered by Donal Blaney, who turned their own arguments against them. Despite these pitfalls the debate was nonetheless rigorous, and enjoyable.
After this I ended up getting collared by the Chairman of Conservative Future, Michael Rock, who decided that I was “sound” and thus thrust a business card into my hand. I then got to establish my vastly impressive leadership skills by showing an assortment of representatives the way to the Freedom Zone once more for a discussion entitled Freedom and the Internet, chaired by Iain Dale, and involving Guido Fawkes, the Devil, Nadine Dorries and Dizzy. A sensible discussion over the implications of this relatively new medium ensued, with numerous other bloggers including Mike Rouse and Tory Bear in the audience. I made a slightly rambling point about Derek Draper’s attempts at a “rapid rebuttal unit” being likely to fail (something I intend to write about at a later date), and was subsequently accused by Guido of reading Dale’s blog “500 times a day”. This of course is a completely false allegation: I only read his blog 400 times a day.
My time at conference rapidly drawing to a close I then moved over to the pub with several of the audience before getting sidetracked into a rather vigorous discussion regarding the relationship between morality and the state. I fear that my case may have been somewhat less good than I thought it was at the time. Suddenly on full alcohol-fuelled speech mode, I ended up giving an impromptu tirade on the care system, before catching up with myself and realising that this was probably not appropriate conversation given that the pub was acting as something of a safe haven from the oratory of the ICC. Moving back to the Freedom Zone once more I ended up discussing the Russia-Georgia conflict over a cup of tea and sandwiches, before moving round the room collecting as many assorted freebies as possible.
Having stashed my bag with as many freebies as possible, I did one last lap of the ICC and had a quick chat with the local CF Branch, before heading home. Thanks to a bizarre number of taxis refusing to pull over, I had to run to the station, and in a moment of pure drama (if one does not own a TV), jumped onto the train as it started moving off the platform. Doubtless in violation of some Health and Safety regulation, but “it didn’t do me any harm”.
Conference was overall a rather enjoyable experience and an excellent source of debate and centre-right ideas. While there have been some suggesting that we should get rid of them, away from the pageantry of the main hall a lot of the debate, discussion and networking that is vital to modern politics goes on, and doing away with a means of meeting people of a centre-right persuasion from all over Britain would only be bad for conservatism as a whole. Despite the rather fast pace of events affecting conference, making the slogan “Plan for Change” rather prophetic, it was nonetheless able to respond well. How it plays out in the media in the next few weeks will be very interesting indeed.
UPDATE: I have been informed by Mr. Hilton via the comments section that at no time did he actually consider himself an investment banker or give that impression, and have updated the article accordingly. I apologise for any distress this may have caused him and his political career.
Sphere: Related ContentBlogging from Conference
Now that I’m settled in Conference I’ve got a set of measures up to ensure as much coverage as possible.
First, my Twitter Feed will have the most up-to-date postings of brief observations and thoughts.
Second, I am using a service called VR+ to do a form of podcasting. I make no guarantees as to doing this, but should I do so you can find the feeds here. I will make a post if that is the case.
Finally, I will be continuing to post to this blog as and when possible. I should be able to upload photos from my BlackBerry as well as write some more detail if I get the chance to.
So far after a somewhat extended journey spent sleeping, reading the papers and listening in on BBC journalists, I have arrived and am now writing from the official party internet café. I have the morning largely to myself to get acquainted with the layout of the conference centre and go to lunch with some of the senior people in Conservative Future. Following that my schedule is now slightly out-of-date. Because of the current economic conditions several events, such as “celebrating electoral success” have been cancelled to ensure that Ben Brogan’s “Tory Hubris Watch” and other similar activities are not the dominating theme. Given that I had signed today over to official events I now have considerably more free time than I expected.
Tomorrow I intend to attend predominantly fringe events, as well as a free breakfast, focusing around themes of social justice and excessive state intrusion into the private sphere.
Sphere: Related ContentCrewe and Nantwich Diary: Days 3-4
VICTORY!
Conservatives win Crewe in Landslide: 59% turnout; 20,539 votes; 7,860 majority (greater than Gwyneth Dunwoody’s); 49% of vote; 17.6% swing.
Apologies for not putting a post out last night, but I didn’t get back to my hotel until 5 this morning.
I decided against doing the “dawn raid” of leafleting at 4.30 yesterday morning. By the time I’d finished writing up the previous day’s efforts and uploading photos it was already half past ten. Knowing that it would be a long day, prudence took priority, and I opted to get a good night’s sleep instead.
Despite having a rather leisurely sleep, the first campaign office I went to on polling day was working at an even more leisurely pace. I had to wait an hour before it opened, before finding out that there was little to be tasked with. Nonetheless I did manage to grab a bit of internet access to find that ConservativeHome used my photo (with attribution) of Nick Clegg looking less than optimistic. I was promptly re-assigned to the Victoria Street office in Crewe, where I’d been working most of the week. A few of us were quickly assigned with “knock-ups”: going round to known Conservative supporters and giving them a letter in person. We did this several times throughout the day. Overall a positive response until later in the day, when Bluechip started to get very quickly out of synch with who’d already voted. After five households in a row going “we’ve voted Tory, go away”, we came up with a clever idea to go straight to the tellers to get the polling numbers and strike off those who’d already voted. Moving to the more non-confrontational line of “we’d like to confirm that you voted” was also much more successful. Despite the number of letters we had to deliver, we got through them surprisingly quickly.
Although I had observed in the past few days a dearth of Labour activists, this changed on polling day. Labour was supposed to have brought in a train of activists, and there were a few out and about. I spotted four in total, but their hearts weren’t in it. A lot of their activists stayed at home, fed up with the tactics their party had used. I also met a couple of LibDem campaigners, one of whom I had tea with who turned out to have formerly lived in my area. A slightly surreal conversation about change and continuity over the last fifty years followed. Nice chap though.
Between rounds of knock-ups I worked as a teller for about four hours. Tellers are party workers who stand outside polling stations taking down poll card numbers. These are then used to cross those that have voted off our database to ensure that they do not get any more leaflets, calls or canvassers. Unfortunately not everyone realises what the tellers are for, and several of us got berated by voters who thought we were there to find out how they voted. Once they saw the telling slips and our briefings for themselves, they promptly gave up and left. I worked three different polling stations. The first was out in the sun with only a few voters coming in; a good opportunity to rest. The second was a tiny polling station for a few voters, and I got to enjoy a complimentary pack of wine gums from the party. The final one was at a bowling green, which was much more busy. I managed also to get a drink and some food from the bar, and on a break from telling talk to the people who had already cast their vote. The level of working class Conservative support is amazing.
The fact that the only tellers were from the Conservative Party gave the first hint that we might be winning. The LibDems had given up and gone home, and Labour were so short-staffed that they simply didn’t have the manpower to spare to have tellers. A good sign came at about 2pm. A local Conservative councillor came to where I was telling and gave some great news: hardcore Labour voters were staying at home and activists were unable to get them out to vote. We already knew that the postal vote had favoured us, and that we had been very successful at getting our own vote out. The Labour hardcore had decided not to vote because they were fed up of the tactics their party were using: they didn’t want to betray their party, but at the same time they hadn’t been given a single good reason to vote by their party. When you insult the intelligence of the electorate, they throw it back in your face.
After the last round of knock-ups at 9pm, we returned to the Victoria Street office. We put in the last pieces of telling data then closed up. I got my hands on a party T-shirt that makes me look like a tree surgeon, and we moved on to Nantwich. There was a party mood in the air at the Nantwich Conservative Working Men’s club: the question wasn’t whether or not we’d won, but by how much. Labour were predicting a Conservative majority of around 7000, which meant that they expected us to win by about 3000. Cheers whenever Eric Pickles or Edward Timpson appeared on the TV, and the good news kept on coming in: turnout at 60%, and the level of majority kept climbing.
Jolly nice chap he is too
At 2am we were told the result was ready to be declared and headed down to the town hall, placard and baloons in hand. We then had a long wait for the result to be called, followed by a number of interviews with the media before Timpson finally came out. Fortunately the waiting was interspersed with the party’s other favourite candidates: both The Flying Brick (Monster Raving Loony) and Miss Great Britain came out to have a chat, and got a good round of cheers. I’d kept missing The Flying Brick when out campaigning, much to my disappointment, but finally got to meet him this morning. He even recited a poem he had composed.
Someone managed to get their hands on a radio as we heard the result live. It was better than we’d expected. A gigantic swing, a great turnout, a huge number of votes, and a majority greater than Gwyneth Dunwoody’s was. All that was needed then was for our new MP to come out. This took a bit longer than expected thanks to the previously-mentioned interviews with the media. The message coming out from the Conservative team was “we’ve waited 20 years, what was another hour”? A few activists quipped that they were under 20. The campaign team came out first to big cheers and thunderous applause: Eric Pickles MP and Donald Potter, the local association chair, got a great reception. When Timpson came out there was jubilation: the noise was almost deafening. We then had a little victory parade back to the constituency association, where champagne was laid on.
The atmosphere inside the association was electrifying. Many activists had been up over 24 hours, and the champagne laid on ensured high spirits. A few of us found flyers saying “meet your candidate Edward Timpson PPS”, and promptly edited them to reflect the new reality. Bloggers swapped details, and I managed to put in a shameless plug for this blog (and if you’re reading this as a result, thank you). All the long hours and campaigning had been worth it. The hours of walking around, map in hand, trying to track down that last address and get a few more votes had been vindicated, and we were ecstatic. The campaign had the good national effect of being an extremely good bit of campaigning experience for activists all over the country, and a lot of us will be going back to our local associations to report on what went well and what could have been improved. This will give us a good footing for the next election. It was also healthy: several activists reported losing weight from all the walking around, and my legs now feel like they are made of steel. In 3 days I easily covered at least 30 miles on foot.
The last of us peeled off from the association at about 5am, shattered but thrilled. Now to translate this into a national result.
Bring on Henley.
Sphere: Related ContentCrewe and Nantwich Diary: Day 2
This morning I jumped out of bed and into the shower like a bolt of lightning. In that groggy immediate post-sleep state I believed that I had slept through my alarm call and was now running late for the day’s campaigning. I threw my hayfever pills down my throat and turned the TV on to BBC News.
It was 4:30 am.
The problem here is that I tend to suffer from bad hayfever towards the end of spring and the begninning of summer. The symptoms start about one hour after I wake up, subside a further hour after I’ve taken my pills, and then return with a vengeance nine hours later. Having now firmly woken up and taken my pills far too early in the day, I was condemned to spending the rest of the night sleeping badly and suffering the onset of more symptoms earlier in the afternoon than I had hoped. Fortunately it meant that I was up and out of the hotel in time to be the first Conservative activist to be in the Crewe Office. As a result I was rewarded with the vital task of making the tea. The Conservatives are the party of custom, tradition and great British institutions. There is no greater British institution than drinking of tea, and no greater custom or tradition either. As a result drinking Tea has a central place in the Conservative philosophy: the party can’t function without it. Far from being a menial task, being invited to brew tea for senior staff in the Conservative Party is a great honour, a vital task, and a sign of great trust. Or at least that’s what I was telling myself.
Following a cup of tea to wake up, I was sent on my way leafleting around 200 houses. This was a largely logistical challenge, trying to make sure that the leaflets were delivered in the target area with as little double-backing as possible. As the leaflets are all individually addressed, one has to spend a significant amount of time planning your route, and sorting the leaflets into the right order to minimise rummaging. Nonetheless it still took nigh on three hours to deliver all the leaflets. The area I covered had a roughly even number of Tory and Labour posters, but leaning slightly towards the Conservatives (although this might be my own bias). One thing is certain though: Cats are Tories, Dogs are not. Cats can’t seem to get enough of me and other Tory canvassers, and at one point I ended up getting shadowed by a tabby when delivering leaflets on her street. The dogs however were universally hostile, even in Tory houses. Nonetheless the attitude of most people there was friendly: I even had “Vote Timpson” shouted at me from a car driving by. The only voter I encountered today who was hostile was a disaffected chap who was angry that none of the parties were promising to bring back caning in schools.
After a rather long morning in Crewe I then went over to the sector office in Nantwich. This place has a much more visible Conservative presence. The area is much more developed and affluent, and (on the face of things) overwhelmingly Tory. I don’t think I saw more than two Labour posters in the entire area, and there wasn’t a single Labour activist to be seen. By comparison, the Conservatives are out in force. The Nantwich office was brimming with activists and volunteers from all over the country, all pitching in to help where they could. Being more central today I got to witness the level of activity, and it’s even greater than I thought it was yesterday. The high profile of our campaign is evident in that there were two media vans outside our offices today, and there is going to be a swarm of journos, hacks, onlookers and so forth tomorrow. Locals were coming in to get rosettes and baloons, to ask questions and to inform us as to what the other parties are up to. Kids came in to trade the paraphenalia the other parties gave them for our blue rosettes and baloons. Of particular pride have been the number of requests for posters to be displayed. There was a target of 500 properties displaying Conservative posters throughout the campaign. The level of support however has been so great that we now have posters displayed on three times that number of properties. People have been approaching our canvassers asking us to provide giant posters to be displayed on their premises. A particular coup was when a businessman offered to display a gigantic poster on property facing a main road. This occurred within a few hours.
The voters are still more receptive than I ever could have imagined. Notwithstanding the “bring back caning” fellow, there has been an overwhelming level of receptiveness. When delivering a pile of flyers to a retirement home I expected to be thrown out and unwelcome as any other mass mailer. To my surprise I was welcomed in by the staff, who were extremely keen on “making sure Brown gets the message”. The owner did all the delivery for me, and said that she would ensure that every resident knew that we would be able to drive them to the polling station tomorrow. People are keen to hear what the Tories have to say, and nobody is buying in to the nasty little campaign Labour is running.
Although there is some coverage of the depths of Labour’s current electoral strategy, it does not demonstrate how far they have sunk. They are running an entirely negative and vicious campaign revolving entirely around class. The latest pamphlets portray Timpson in a massive top hat and bow tie, and describe him as having a “silver spoon in his mouth”. They’ve moved away from making claims that the Wales-inhabiting Dunwoody-Kneafsey is “one of us”, and the general mood is that the rubbish they are spouting has backfired tremendously. The sort of dog-whistle politics may appeal to hardcore Labour activists, but they are absolutely useless to the undecided voter who wants to know what their policies are. The emphasis of Timpson’s background has actually helped him: people recognise the link to the philanthropic family he belongs to, and claims that he has “spent his whole life being waited on”, despite the having 80 adopted siblings from underprivileged backgrounds, smacks of petty jealousy. Crewe and Nantwich are turning on a party that penalises the successful: they want to better their lot, and are switching to a Conservative message of support for such efforts.
The Times also picked up on the class issue today. Their People section has published what has been circulating round the internet: that Moyra Tamsin Dunwoody-Kneafsey is listed in Burke’s Peerage, describing her as part of the “landed gentry”, making her the real toff in the election. Daniel Finkelstein also decries the class war strategy as electoral stupidity that ’signals the end of new Labour’. Of particular interest was the following:
Since the days of the industrial revolution there has always been something of an alliance between the working class and the aristocracy… When the fighting broke out in the streets of Leeds over the amelioration of factory conditions, radicals and workers’ leaders such as Richard Oastler saw themselves as allies of Tories such as the Earl of Shaftesbury. To be portrayed as a top-hatted toff actually represents an improvement in the Tory image
There is a long tradition of aristocratic and Conservative support for the working classes. Benjamin Disraeli, a founder of the One Nation Conservative tradition, in his days as a young radical was part of the “Young England Quartet”; a group of thinkers possessed of a romantic notion of the working classes and aristocracy united to confront the industrial revolution. Their ideas may have been little more than hopeless romanticism and unrefined radicalism, but some of the ideas their group represented formed the nucleus of the One Nation tradition. Now that the Conservatives have rediscovered this side to their identity and politics, people are starting to take the message seriously again. The message that privilege comes with duties has actually benefited from Labour’s emphasis on Timpson’s privileged background.
The other parties were barely visible. UKIP trundled round in their jeep and ranted to a few people, and the English Democrats made an attempt in Crewe to win support, but largely failed when the media showed little interest in them. They moved, muttering into their loudhailers. When the Liberal Democrats, complete with posters, placards, baloons and a significant section of their front bench arrived to walk through Nantwich, their reception was poorly received. They talked to a few bemused locals who insisted that they would not vote for a third party in such a close race, before moving swiftly on after getting heckled by a group of schoolchildren who couldn’t make their mind up whether or not they supported the Tories or Labour.
The campaign has been so efficient and well-managed that we’ve been able to finish all our tasks by around five or six, several hours before expected. Crewe and Nantwich Conservatives have always been very good at their campaigning. Now that this is no longer a safe seat they have been able to press this advantage. For example: normally the first days of a Tory campaign consist of sorting all the maps and routes. The party branch here had that already prepared before the election was announced. Nobody is kept idle and tasking has been extremely effective. We’ve been receptive to local demands, and able to adjust our strategy accordingly: those who don’t want any more attention are swiftly removed from the mailing lists, and comments and concerns by residents are relayed back to campaign headquarters.
That’s about as much as I can write for today. I’m sorry if it’s rambling but I’ve had a long and tiring day. Tomorrow I actually do have to wake up at 4, as we prepare for the “morning raid”: a last-ditch effort at sending round the last bits of electoral literature. After that I’ll be working as a teller at a local polling station.
Sphere: Related ContentCrewe and Nantwich Diary: Day 1
I like elections. They’re a fantastic time to get out and meet people, and participate in what is often an exciting bit of politics. They are the fundamental affirmation of democracy: not only are the moment when we get to hear what politicians think about issues, and hold them to account for them, but they are also the best moment for politicians to interact with the public en masse. When out campaigning, canvassers, candidates and politicians don’t just promote themselves, their policy or their candidate, but they also use the time to get vital feedback from constituents about local issues affecting them. An election can be used by people to bring issues to the attention of politicians that they might otherwise overlook.
By-elections are a particularly special breed. They become not only a microcosm of society, and the place for speculative snapshots of general polling trends, but also a microscope of local politics. With the large resources and people that pour in to contest a significant by-election, the issues that affect constituents can be brought to the attention of the most senior of politicians in a way that could not happen in a general election. Suddenly local issues take on national significance. Crewe and Nantwich is at present a bizarre place to be. Notwithstanding the absence of several MPs over the HEFA Bill today, a major chunk of the Westminster village has descended on this area to take part in campaigning. High-flyers from all the parties (with the notable exception of Gordon Brown) have been participating, and the condensation of so many of the political class in this place is bizarre.
What is really bizarre about this election however is the level of Conservative support one encounters. On my way from the hotel to the campaigns office, I spoke to a Taxi driver who proudly declared that he was voting Conservative for the first time in his life. He is not the only one: throughout canvassing today the story that was most persistent was the person who had voted Labour all their life now determined to vote Conservative in these elections. The level of disaffection with Labour and goodwill towards the Tories has to be seen to be believed. Not all of these were protest votes either: they were more than willing to talk to us, to share their concerns, and were willing to stay in touch. Indeed, after today’s campaigning I started feeling a little (but only a little) sorry for Labour activists: many constituents were all too keen to tell us what they felt about Labour, and one can only imagine how much more forceful they would be when talking to campaigners actually from the Labour Party. There is a serious sense of disillusionment with Labour here, and that has gone beyond protest votes right through to the point where people are actually receptive to Conservative ideas.
The Phony Class War Labour is fighting has fortunately backfired. Locals in Crewe are sick of the antics of a few jumped-up activists who think that portraying the candidate as “Timpson-Nice-but-Dim” in lieu of actually talking about anything of importance is what people hit by economic downturn want. The top hats have been ditched, and locals have been berating the “Tarporley Toffs” for having such patronising views about the electorate. One person (not a registered Tory) came in to the campaign office to ask if the “blokes in the top hats” were still about, and offered to give them a piece of his mind. We thanked him for the offer but politely declined. Never interrupt your opponent when he is making a mistake. Playing the class issue is not working for Labour at a more serious level either. The working class voters we encountered said Labour had betrayed them. Playing up Labour as the party of the working class only serves to contrast their campaign mantras with the actions the party has taken in government, further reducing their appeal. Indeed, the only keen Labour voter we encountered wore a suit and drove an expensive car. Dunwoody-Kneafsey would do well not to alienate all classes of society. The negative campaigning and endless attack literature is turning ordinary voters off.
I can also report a personal success. Out canvassing today I managed to convince an undecided to vote Conservative. He said he was going to do so because we were the only people from any of the parties to actually take the time to go and talk to people, rather than hiding behind negative leaflets and and silly hats. Moments like that are fantastic: after hours of canvassing and trudging around places where the majority of people aren’t in, to talk to someone and have them tell you that they are definitely going to vote Conservative as a result of talking to you reminds you that the effort is worth it in the end.
I’ve had a very tiring first day and it’s an early start tomorrow. More later.
I am in Crewe and Nantwich until Friday.
Sphere: Related Content
