LibDems giving up on Norwich South?

An interesting slip in this piece on LDVoice today by a former LibDem Agent in Norwich where he laments the rise of the Greens in the City.

He says:
And the Greens are becoming better organised at first-past-the-post politics. They managed 22% and a close third behind Labour and the Tories in Brighton Pavillion at the last election. And at local government level in Norwich, where the Lib Dems ran City Hall as recently as 2006, they are now the official opposition to Labour. All of the Green gains have been deliberately targeted at Lib Dem expense, and all in what should have been a strong Liberal Democrat Parliamentary prospect at the next election.

Notice the tenses there — it should have been a strong parliamentary prospect but now, persumably, isn’t. Recently the EDP said that the Green gains and the strength of the Tory recovery locally made the seat a “4 horse race”. One City Councillor even predicts that the LibDems may come 4th.

Interesting times, wondering if the LibDems can hold it together.

LibDems looking "very stupid indeed"?

Yesterday’s EDP reported that Nick Clegg got himself tied in knots when trying to justify the LibDem claim of a “two horse race” in Norwich South. The EDP put it to Mr Clegg that it was, in fact, a “four horse race” and his arguement against this seemed pretty lame. Apparently people know that there is no point voting Green or Tory, says Mr Clegg.

Well try telling that to the residents of Bowthorpe, Thorpe Hamlet, Mancroft, Eaton, Nelson, Wensum, Town Close, University – all of which elected either a Tory or a Green or had one or other in a close second place.

If the LibDems go down this line, they’ll make themselves look “very stupid indeed”. Not my words – that of a wise old bird from the party I spoke to yesterday.

But don’t expect the LibDems to be honest with anybody anytime soon.

Tories take lead in Norwich South, say pollsters

The Conservatives have taken the lead in the new Norwich South constituency, according to respected political pollster “Electoral Calculus”. Reflecting massive Tory poll leads and victories at last week’s local elections in the City, the latest poll puts the seat at:
Conservative 30%
Labour 29%
LibDem 25%
Green 15%

I check the site regularly because of the seat-by-seat breakdown of its poll findings and this is the first time and suggests a win for the Tories (albeit with a majority in the hundreds) for the first time. It also shows the lack of impact of the LibDems, who continue to decline across the City.

I take some comfort from this but think things may change between now and polling day; I think the Greens for example will do better but at the further expense of Labour and the LibDems; but it does suggest that our campaigning locally and nationally is working.

Interestingly I was talking to a friend of mine, staunch Labour, today who said that for the first time his vote was up for grabs. He thought Labour had lurched into one too man disasters and that Clarke’s time was up. If I vote tomorrow, he said, it would be for you. But, he added carefully, it isn’t tomorrow so things might yet change. I can handle that caveat to his support; because it’s my job in the next 2 years to give him a positive reason to vote for Cameron and myself.

Back into Action

Whilst the local elections are really the one concerted time you get on the streets meeting and talking to local people, it does have a sense of artificial reality about it.

I have spent the last few days simply doing the case work I have built up from a few weeks on the doorsteps!

Bank Holiday was a fantastic family weekend away, with Lou’s brother in London – very relaxing although the toll of limited sleep in the last week did impact on me! It was, though, great to be at the center of the Boris earthquake that took the capital by storm. I found myself watching another election count (the Mayoralty took about 24 hours to do!) and it almost (and I mean, almost) felt as good as winning in Bowthorpe.

By Tuesday night I was back chairing the Bowthorpe & Costessey SNAP Panel; an extremely well attended meeting it was too and the people there certainly made their feelings about the policing situation in the area clear. The Evening News report is here and we came out with 3 priorities – cutting crime in one area of Clover Hill, tackling parking in New Costessey and working on a youth centre for Bowthorpe. I am most determined to make sure that these priorities become realities and expect results; the people who put their trust in the democratic process deserve it.

Also that day the news broke about the apparent fiddling of crime figures by the Norfolk police, who were told in a leaked memo that they should be sure a crime was committed before recording it. They admitted that they were being driven by targets set by the government. So if a car window is smashed, that wouldn’t count as a crime because you couldn’t assume it was done on purpose without evidence.

No wonder people don’t have faith in government crime statistics withthis happening. Labour are saying crime is falling but people know it isrising in key areas. Every crime needs to be reported, every crime needs to be invetsigated and every crime needs to be logged as such. Just because its a neighbour dispute or petty vandalism, doesn’t mean it isn’t a crime. This is outrageous. The Chief Constable needs to make a statement at once, reassuring people that every crime a policeman comes across and every crime that is reported is logged. We need to know we can trust the crime figures. I did an interview for the lead story on Look East for the BBC which went out at 6.30pm; certainly made an impression given the amount of response to it.

After that I then got to a residents meeting in Bowthorpe to discuss more anti-social behaviour issues.

Wednesday night was then a residents meeting in Town Close; interesingly those there weren’t shocked by the LibDem collapse in the polls both locally and across the City. I knew a couple of party supporters there but most I was meeting for the first time. So many said that the LibDems were now out of the race to be our next MP and they knew that Cameron could beat Brown (hence a 26% poll lead) but that Clegg would keep Brown in power. Interesting stuff and a line we need to push harder. The meeting was very successful indeed.

I then went on to a party meeting / celebration drink at The George in Arlington Lane with a dozen or so of the key party activists. We did a lot of planning – more news to come – and there is a real feeling of momentum now. One said to me that he couldn’t wait to get back on the streets campaigning given the political backdrop. We are raising money, getting money and winning support faster than ever before.

And tonight? Admin, marking and lesson planning – oh the glamerous life of the PPC!

Challenging Clarke

On Friday night I was honoured to have been selected at the new Conservative parliamentary candidate for Norwich South – it was a packed meeting, much larger than for the 2005 election and I have to say that the overall quality of candidate was very good and I hope that both Martin and Will go on to find good constituencies.

Everybody who wants to become an MP, I think, dreams of doing so in their home City. I live here, work here, my kids go to school here … I have a real stake in this community and am dedicated to making it working better. Norwich is a fantastic City and, above all, I am going to run a positive campaign. I think that this City and its citizens are really going places and above all, I want to be a part of that; hopefully as our MP. I reserve the right to highlight failure and criticise, but when I do so I will always offer a positive alternative for people.

The Norwich Conservatives go from strength to strength locally; our canvass in Chapel Break, Bowthorpe, and also in Eaton yesterday show us that more people prefer a new Cameron Conservative government to the old failed Labour one under Brown. People weren’t just anti-Labour but they were becoming pro-Conservative again.

Why is this? Because whilst we may getting richer as a City in material goods, there are still real concerns when two local High Schools are under OFSTED scrutiny, when our flagship hospital doesn’t have enough beds and when anti-social behaviour still impacts on our estates. I’ve written in detail about my response to those problems here and I hope that when Cameron launches our manfiesto, it tackles those issues. And, before you ask, I won’t be employing my wife or any other member of my family – mostly because the girls are too young to be of any real help and I don’t think Louise would want to spend that amount of time with me!

So now’s the time to get on with the job – I’ve got a campaign team to put together and a plan to create. I like to think I have shown the dedication to this City and have the experience to really make a difference. Given the positive reaction of friends in the City and party members, I think this may well be a really fun election to fight!

So Mr Clarke, who has this week been worrying about a Conservative revival, ought now to be worrying about the Conservative revival in his own back yard!

Surveys, membership, events and campaiging

All those who are gloating about Cameron’s apparent unpopularity are welcome to look through our postbag at the moment. We are currently running a survey in Earlham and the Bluebell Road area. Whilst Eaton always gives a solid lead, we are now picking up support in Earlham too. When we did this survey last year Labour were ahead by 8-10% in Earlham and the results so far are neck-and-neck – with LibDem support completely non-existant. We are getting people rejoining the party – members who have been lapsed for many years as well as new members from across the City. We’re also getting more and more people getting involved – I can’t believe we have more deliverers on the Larkman than we need, and also more people coming to canvass sessions. Our events – with some top name speakers – are rapidly becoming sell-outs.

Cameron’s “unpopularity” really seems to be paying off here in Norwich. The more “unpopular” he becomes the more members we get, the more donations we recieve, the more deliverers we get and the more events we sell out.

As the summer fades…

August is normally political silly season when desperate hacks spend their time trawling through MPs dustbins to try and create a side-bar story for their daily rag. However, with all the chat being about a potential Autumn poll this year the silly season has been quite, quite serious.

The government have been doing the real work, of course, tackling floods, foot and mouth disease, and terror threats. The Conservatives have been doing the real job of opposition – planning for government – and Cameron has been on a roll with the work on housing, GCSE results, crime, tax and now immigration (thanks, in part, to an excellent Newsnight interview). Polls which show Brown’s so-called “bounce” being halved in just a few weeks will bear out the fruitful nature of this work. The Conservatives do look frighteningly ready for a general election and the policy launches can easily be pulled into a manifesto.

However the total absence of the LibDems during this time has totally confused both bloggers and the mainstream media. You’d have to be totally misguided to believe that Sir Ming’s one decent media foray – pullout of Iraq – was planned, or even a plan to knock Cameron off the telly. This is madness – the story was, if anything, created by Brown’s people because they has control of the release of the letter in reply to Sir Ming. If I were a LibDem campaigner I wouldn’t be happy with the party yet again banging on about Iraq, it simply makes you look like a single-issue pressure group. Other than that, not a word from our little yellow chums in the LibDems. A cunning plan to avoid silly season? Hardly, with their dire poll ratings (14% reported again today) they need all the coverage they can get.

The EDP has a rather good report on Clarke’s efforts to hold onto Norwich South today and I think to some degree his confidence is held in the belief that the opposition is split 3 ways in the constituency. Those LibDems who believe, somehow, that the vast numbers of Green votes will simply come flocking back to them at the first sign of a bar chart or that Tories will vote tactically are barking not so much up the wrong tree as in the wrong forest. All three other parties dislike the Norwich LibDems with a passion. Their PPC is making zero media impact, the council group is dwindling and the campaigning still isn’t taking off. They are made mincemeat of in the council chamber and Norwich doesn’t feel ready to forgive them for their tenure in office 02-06. I can honestly say that I haven’t met a single Tory voter who is ready to vote tactically for them – in fact, most put Labour and the LibDems in the same box. The Tories in Norwich have their USPs in place and will build on those (whoever the candidate is).

The LibDems would have you believe that this is a two-horse race (cue graphic of two horses!) but I am not going to patronise the electorate like they do. I say any one of four parties could win Norwich South. Clarke says he hopes people won’t tactically vote. I’d agree, but add that I hope people vote for the party or person they believe in. Politics shouldn’t be about choosing the person you hate the least (this is, essentially, the LibDem argument) but about lending your mandate to the candidate whose vision most closely matches your own. My feel from the doorstep is that people agree with this.

If the LibDems campaign heavily on the tactical vote I think that people will reject it. I wonder if all the candidates fighting this election in this constituency would be willing to sign a “positive campaign” pledge and promise to focus on policy and not tactical voting? It sounds like Labour and the Conservatives would … will the Greens and LibDems? Seats don’t get anymore interesting than Norwich South.

The task for the Norwich LibDems

Charles Clarke will be the man to watch come the next General Election. The odds of him holging onto marginal Norwich South must be evens but there is a long wya to go between then and now. The LibDems are salivating at the chance of winning the seat, but as I canvassed this afternoon and evening in Eaton, the doorstep responses I got clearly demonstrated the 3 great obstacles blocking the LibDem path.

Firstly is that the former Labour vote isn’t going en bloc to the LibDems – it seems to be splitting between the two other main parties, and in Eaton village at least mainly to the Conservatives. People still realise that next time the PM will either be Cameron or Brown. The LibDems, despite the rise in bar charts, are still not seem as the natural challengers in the seat.

Secondly the stubborn nature of the Tory vote. The LibDems are ruthlessly targeting the big Tory vote in Norwich South to encourage them to vote tactically. However it seems the Norwich Tory vote isn’t in any mood to put a LibDem MP into parliament any more than a Labour one. I cannot image a single Conservative voter I spoke to today voting LibDem, even tactically. In fact, there was much venom saved for the LibDems, particularly because of their disasterous tenure in charge at City Hall.

Thirdly is the creeping Green vote. I used to think the Green vote only existed where their party worked hard. But Ramsay’s media strategy must be paying off – they have a healthy vote, even in the bastion of Eaton village. Most of note was the fact that nearlly all the Green voters were ex-LibDem ones.

All this spells trouble for the LibDems and their ill-fated campaign. The Greens and the Tories will rain on their parade and I fear that whilst Ian Couzens may be gone, his shadow looms large over their efforts.

By now the LibDems should have a set place as the clear challengers and a lock down on the tactical vote against Labour. They haven’t – and this makes me thik that something is wrong. Is it their party, their record, their campaign or their candidate? I understand some senior LibDems think it may just be all four.

A Wild Weekend

Although I’m still feeling dog rough, the antibiotics have atleast given me a new lease of life – so this weekend I threw off the duvet and endless DVD repeats and started to get back to life as normal.

Saturday there was plenty of activity in the constituency – with teams out in Eaton, Bowthorpe, Catton Grove and Wensum (yes, Wensum). Although I wasn’t there we apparently got a great response in a traditional non-Conservative part of the ward. Our candidate there, Paul Wells, was pretty enthused by the response by all accounts. I managed to trudge round for a few hours in Bowthorpe but eventually my cough got the better of me. I spoke to a lot of people in that time and learnt a few things about former Labour Councillor Ron Borrett that I didn’t know before! Maybe more on that later… I like canvassing in Bowthorpe at the moment because there seems to be a real feeling that things are, slowly, getting better in the area. A real sense of hope for the future.

Thanks God I was feeling better by Sunday morning because we had a crowd round at ours for Emily’s birthday (Mark I) – the first of numourous events this week! A couple of bottles of decent red seemed to do more for me than all the antibiotics in the world … I’d forgotten how our friends without children still like to party. Still, always good to be the (most) sober one at the end of the night.

I have finished the day, depressingly, but cross referencing various notes for our manifesto for this year’s elections. We have the formal meeting for that on Tuesday so should be interesting. We have some pretty radical proposals this year so keep half an eye out!

It’s been a long time since I have felt this good at the end of a busy weekend … and actually looking forward to work again tomorrow. Life, as they say, is good.

Norwich South AGM

Tonight’s Norwich South Conservative AGM was one of the best – and best attended – in many years. Although no shocks in terms of voters (or even any difficult questions) it was nice to start from the point of financial health and electoral success.

I was elected Chairman of the Association and I take it over at a real high point – we have more and more people joining each day, a better events programme and a real chance of gaining more and more seats next May.

In terms of the team I made very few changes given the wide-ranging reshuffle we had only last December. John Wyatt, Deputy Chairman Membership, becomes the Senior Deputy Chairman – meaning he will stand in for me if absent. Niall Baxter continues as Deputy Chairman Political and Eve Collishaw’s job shifts slightly to Deputy Chairman Fundraising.

Despite recent ill-health I am thrilled that County Cllr Judith Virgo remains as President – and her team of Vice-Presidents is much stronger this year including Eaton’s Vic Hopes and new-comer Doris Le Grice.

Carrie Chandler continues as Norwich South CF Chairman and Richard Davies as UEA CF Chair. Both will serve on the Executive, along with newly promoted Malcolm Chamberlain, Paul Wells and Eileen Wyatt.

Thanks to all for their support and I look forward to a great year!