the sandals are off

We had a very good turn out for the Remembrance Sunday parade and service in High Wycombe.

Remembrance Sunday – and in particular, the two minutes of silence – is an opportunity for reflection. I am by nature a seeker of peace. I find the idea of young men and women facing death and danger to do our bidding almost too sad for words. I am not a classical pacifist, but I do believe it is incumbent on us to exhaust every peaceful and diplomatic means before resorting to armed conflict.

Today I reflected on the fact that I live in a democratic country. I enjoy the freedom to speak my mind, and participate in the democratic process. I owe that freedom to people who risked their lives and in too many cases, paid the ultimate price. We must always remember that in the two biggest armed conflicts the world has ever seen, we fought to protect our free and democratic way of life in the face of tyranny. We must never forget.

Sadly, today we still have service men and women risking their lives daily. Whilst we debate the rights and wrongs of present conflicts, we must remember that our volunteer armed forces never question their duty. I hope and pray that our politicians do everything possible to safeguard our men and women, by ensuring they are well equipped, and by seeking to bring them home as soon as they possibly can.

We are living in strange and interesting times. One thing that never fails to surprise me is how Prime Ministers never seem to realise when the game is up. They always enter a delusional twilight world where they think they should just go on and on, even when the overwhelming evidence is that they have lost all public support. Labour’s humiliation across two sets of elections last Thursday has broken all kinds of records. It must be apparent to Gordon that he is about as likely to win the next General Election as (with apologies to Monty Python) Tarquin Fim Tim Lim Bim Wim Bim Lim Bus Stop Fatang Fatang Ole Biscuit Barrel. But still he goes on deludedly surrounding himself with a dwindling band of ‘yes’ men and women, while anyone who dares to question him is either fired or resigns.

Apparently one opinion poll says over 40% of the electorate want him to stay. Maybe, but they will be the supporters of the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats who know that the longer he stays. the more seats Labour will lose.

At the current rate of decline, Labour could easily be facing another twenty years in the wilderness.

I once worked at a building which overlooked a humped back bridge. One day, the traffic lights beyond the bridge failed causing a tailback of traffic towards the bridge. From my vantage point, I could see traffic approaching the bridge too fast. All day long there were squeals of tyres and the occasional crunch as accident after accident occurred (thankfully none of them serious – but all of them avoidable). Watching Labour destroy itself wilfully is the same experience, You can see what they are doing – but they are going to do it all the same.

It won’t be the same without them.

Back in blogging mode after about ten weeks of solid electioneering, it’s time to pore over the results and see what we have learned – and where we are.

In true blue Bucks (the only council in the land which has been continuously Tory for 120 years), we made a net loss of one seat. Disappointing, but probably not that surprising. What that doesn’t tell you is that we gave them a hard fight – and had them looking very worried at the count. We also triumphed in our target division where our two Labour defectors retook their seats handsomely under the Lib Dem flag.

The wider picture is that our share of the vote nationally was 28%. That we made a small net loss of councillors says more about the unfairness of our electoral system than it does about our level of support.

An interesting exercise is to plug the vote shares into an electoral prediction tool, like the one at http://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/. If you input 38% Tory, 28% Lib Dem and 23% Labour, you could be forgiven for expecting to see the Lib Dems forming Her Majesty’s Opposition! Those of us who know better will groan when they see that that still delivers twice as many Labour MPs as Lib Dems.

Still, if I were the PPC in any Labour held seat, I’d be quietly rubbing my hands now in anticipation of a very interesting battle. If I were PPC in a Labour/Lib Dem marginal I’d be chatting to my employer about possibly not being around in twelve months time!

We have much to be optimistic about, but there’s also real danger too. Many of our finest MPs will be defending themselves against a Tory onslaught. We must not allow them to be swept away. The good news here is that there is evidence that many are not yet convinced by Cameron’s Tories. Turnout was low, and the results yesterday were partly a result of voters voting ‘anyone but Labour’.

The Labour vote is blowing away in the wind, but if want to pick up those votes, we have to earn them. We cannot sit back now, we have less than twelve months (maybe much less) to show people why we deserve their support!

For anyone who hasn’t heard, we won the Totteridge by election. The following are a few thoughts on the experience which may encourage others!

We went into this in third place. At the last full Council elections two years ago, we only fielded paper candidates in Totteridge. This two member ward elected one Tory and one Labour – but the Labour councillor (who was the one who had tragically died very suddenly) was popular and hard working. In other words, the Tories might have expected to take both seats had it not been for the personal vote of the Labour man. The Conservatives really should have expected to win this by election with a half decent campaign.

The Tories helped us out however, by selecting an untried candidate with no track record. They had also recently decided to close our local lido. This pool closure was something we had already campaigned against, and achieved a lot of public support. So we had an issue, and we decided to fight hard on it.

We worked hard. We canvassed every day. We had a lot of outside help from other parties (for which I thank you all). We had a good agent who orchestrated a classic Lib Dem by election campaign. We put out lots of well written literature. By the end of the campaign we had canvassed the ward three times and a had very good idea that it was winnable. On polling day, we delivered leaflets from 5am and didn’t stop knocking up until 9.45pm! We did everything we possibly, humanly could have done.

At the count, people kept taking me to one side and telling me we were ahead. By then, I was somewhat knackered and running on adrenalin only. When the result was announced, we had won by a country mile with over 50% of the vote. It was beyond our wildest dreams – but well worth every ache and pain.

Thank you to everyone who helped. This was a fantastic team effort, and everyone who played their part should feel proud of it!

• New shoes £50
• New toners for printer £150
• The looks on the faces of the Tories when the realised they had blown it – Priceless!

Totteridge by election is taking on a whole new life of it’s own. The sad death of the incumbent Labour councillor wouldn’t normally have caused a political earthquake (Labour only held three seats anyway), but Wycombe’s ruling Conservatives have been making a pretty bad fist of things lately.

They recently decided to reverse an earlier decision and squash moves to make High Wycombe a Fairtrade Town citing ‘cost’. As far as I’m aware, they are the only council to have done this. But it get’s better. At the recent budget setting, they decided to hike our Council Tax by an above average 3.2% – and at the same time announce a raft of service cuts.

One of the cutbacks is the closure of our unique open air swimming pool set in famous park land called ‘The Rye’. We organised a petition which was signed by well over 2,000 people, but the Tories just said we were ‘pandering to public opinion’. They also cut funding for a lot of other important services too.

Our outstanding leader of the opposition, a Lib Dem councillor called Brian Pollock, came up amendments to the budget which would have saved the pool – and prevented other service cuts – while keeping the Council Tax increase below 3%. The Tories voted it down, so we now have the bizarre situation where the Conservatives voted for a higher council tax increase!

I’ve agreed to be the candidate for the by election. Possibly very risky – but it will certainly be interesting. Those who enjoy a good campaign will be made very welcome in Wycombe between now and April 23rd!