Lessons on how to beat the Tories


by Guest    
8:40 am - May 26th 2011

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contribution by Ben Singleton

From the way the media and unfortunately many people in the Labour Party itself are talking about the local elections, you’d think that such novel things as campaigning had nothing to do with election results.

“Labour did well in the north because the north is Labour and the south is Tory.” Or: “Labour did well against the Lib Dems because their national poll share collapsed but the Tory vote held up.” These comments look correct if you’re being remarkably lazy, like most of the media. But that is no basis for learning lessons about how to successfully gain the trust of the electorate and therefore win.

For many years now Blackpool has been a marginal town that’s swung with the tide of who is doing well nationally.

We had two Tory MPs before 1997, then Labour won both and held them until 2010 where the hung parliament nationally translated into 1 Labour and 1 Tory MP in Blackpool.

These local elections have been different. This has been about us taking back control of our own destiny. Blackpool’s a seaside resort that’s seen great decline and with no alternative to the tourism industry, deprivation has increased massively – exasperated further by the out-of-touch and incompetent Tory council that ran the town between 2007 until now combined with the more recent cuts.

It had risen from 12th to 6th worst area for deprivation, whilst the charity Save the Children’s research rated us 9th worst local authority for child poverty.

But one doesn’t just prop up a declining tourist industry. Such a future relies on Labour winning elections, and for the first time ever Blackpool Labour genuinely campaigned as if that was in their hands, not just a question of how well we were doing in the polls.

From the day the general election campaign ended, the local election campaign began. Every week outside the short campaign had 2 or 3 centrally organised doorknocking sessions, with activists and candidates directed towards target wards selected the previous summer.

What people said to us on the doorstep fed into our local policies, we vastly increased our voter ID and it changed the perception to us being the party of the community. The result was us taking control of the council by a large margin – 15 gains, 14 from the Tories, only one was off the Lib Dems (who are traditionally weak in Blackpool anyway).

This was one of the best results in the country but we didn’t do anything particularly special – we just campaigned hard all year round and took the time to talk to people about their issues.

The point the local party here has learnt however is (and we looked at the successes of places like Oxford who made gains against the trend), as much as socialists like me would like to see a more significant political change nationally, you can’t blame Ed Miliband for your own failure to organise properly on the ground.

The central party could help by providing more local organisers or by enthusing the members with greater party democracy but ultimately it comes down to local activists doing the donkey work at local level.

—
Ben Singleton is a Campaign Manager for Blackpool Labour.

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Reader comments


1. Workman Fred

“But one doesn’t just prop up a declining tourist industry. Such a future relies on Labour winning elections”

Why? Does Labour know how to persuade people not to go on holidays abroad & go to Blackpool instead. If a seaside town is in decline I fail to see how any parties policies can save it.

2. Cylux

We’ll be getting some tourism this weekend. Though I’m not sure the EDL is the market that the local hoteliers are really after.

3. Flowerpower

6th worst area for deprivation

Odd if Labour hadn’t won then……. practically a client electorate for statists.

4. Watchman

Flowerpower,

Blackpool is pretty politically anamolous – although it has crushing (and seasonal) poverty some still aspire to live there, and unlike most northern towns beginning in B (there seem to be a lot of them…) it is not based round mills and factories. It is a wierd mix of aspiration, despair and illusion – which also means that local politics can be particularly difficult to transfer nationally (which makes Oxford a very good parallel).

5. thomas

So what you’re saying is that in Blackpool Labour did well electorally by promoting a safe ‘conservative’ vision, just better organised and less incompetent than the local Conservative party, and won lots of seats from them as a result.

It is also unclear from the text of this post exactly how Labour winning elections is connected to reversing continued rises in deprivation and the ability to reverse a decades-long decline which has continued through periods of control by both Labour and Conservatives.

Further explanation is required.

6. Dom

I agree with this up to a point. I followed the elections in Brighton and Hove closely and what struck me is how arrogant the Labour campaign appeared to be. Activists seemed to have convinced themselves that because they were 10 points ahead in the national polls, there was no need to campaign too hard because they would obviously do well. Some were claiming that all you needed to do was look at the national polling for “proof” that Labour would make significant gains. Labour seemed to be campaigning as if a lack of trust in the party didn’t exist. It’s taken them three straight defeats to realise that it isn’t 1997 any more.

Brighton & Hove is anomalous, of course, because it’s one of the few places in the country where voters now actually have a choice to vote for an alternative. Labour failed to realise the scale or nature of their problem in time and now it’s too late for them in Brighton and Hove. They’ve twice managed to convince many people to vote Labour “because the Greens can’t win” and “a Green vote is a Tory vote” and they’ve twice been proven wrong. Their use of fear has angered many people.

Labour can’t afford to make these campaigning mistakes in places where there is no alternative. They need to starting taking action now, not in four years time.


Reactions: Twitter, blogs
  1. Liberal Conspiracy

    Lessons on how to beat the Tories http://bit.ly/kwM8pB

  2. Simon

    RT @libcon Lessons on how to beat the Tories http://bit.ly/kwM8pB > what is 'Blackpool'? Is it a deficit reduction plan?

  3. Daniel Pitt

    Lessons on how to beat the Tories http://bit.ly/kwM8pB #ConDemNation

  4. thesocialistway

    Lessons on how to beat the Tories http://bit.ly/kwM8pB #ConDemNation

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    [...] the inevitable election win by Labour, a triumphant Singleton took to the internet to tell the socialist world of his achievement, penning an article titled ‘Lessons on how to [...]





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