Now back to business

By Chris Piper

As someone who worked for The Labour Party and will always be a consummate political junkie, being 10,000 miles away in Australia did not stop me following the recent local election. Whilst it felt weird not being on the frontline undertaking canvassing or leafleting, I did console myself by following events on election night by streaming the BBC coverage. I was there listening in with great satisfaction as Lib Dem seats fell in the north, whilst also sharing every Labour supporters disappointment as the bleak picture became clear from Scotland.

A few days on, it is probably healthy to take stock of where we are and where we need to be. It was always clear that some of the wilder speculation of the potential gains being promoted by the media was always going to be wide of the mark, especially given the position we were in only a year ago. To have won an extra 800 council seats is certainly a step in the right direction. However more work needs to be done if we are going to be in a position to challenge the real enemy in 2015 – David Cameron and the Tories.

The parties who can probably take the greatest satisfaction are the Tories and the SNP. In relation to the Tories, despite enacting some of the biggest cuts since Thatcher’s early 80’s monetarist experiment, they walked away with 4 extra councils, as well as 81 extra councillors. This is an extremely impressive achievement, especially when you consider the incremental council seat losses suffered by Labour throughout the 13 years of Labour government. With the exception of 1992 local elections in the aftermath of John Major’s dramatic re-election, you would have to go back to the Lawson boom local elections of 1988 and 1989 when a governing party last gained seats overall at a local election.

Whilst trying not to be too downbeat or downplay our activists’ hard work, it was a somewhat mixed night for Labour. It was amazing to see the Lib Dems seen off across a number of northern cities. Having seen their sanctimonious claptrap and Focus mistruths for a number of years, it was good to see them finally being held accountable for their actions. However largely unseen due to the media focus on the Lib Dem northern wipeout and the SNP triumph in Scotland, was the Tories quiet consolidation of their electoral position in their recently won key parliamentary seats.

At the next general election, the real battle will not be in Liverpool or Sheffield but in the numerous towns and cities up the M1 and M6. If you look at the likes of Rugby BC, Redditch BC, Worcester CC, Dudley MBC, Warwick DC or Tamworth BC, our progress was more modest than some of the northern gains. Indeed in Warwick DC and Worcester CC we actually lost seats. Whilst we were fighting a proxy fight against the Lib Dems in safe Labour Parliamentary seats, the Tories were using their new incumbency and resources to successfully defend marginal council seats in marginal parliamentary seats. Hence key council seats like Overslade in Rugby saw a swing to the Tories since May 2010 despite the national 5% swing from the Tories to Labour in the same period.

In Warwick DC, the Tories actually gained a seat and cemented their position in the Warwick North council seat by winning all three council seats in that formerly split ward (in 2007 we topped the poll and were only 2 votes away from winning a second seat). Again this was despite the national 7.5% swing from Tory to Labour since 2007. This part skilled blue collar and part white collar ward helped propel Labour to three narrow but crucial victories in the Warwick & Leamington parliamentary seat. The Tories have since turned the tables in this ward and have carried this through to parliamentary and local government success.

In Dudley MBC, though we gained two seats (including the council leader’s seat) these were both in Ian Austin’s Dudley North. The bellweather wards in the marginal Tory parliamentary seats in Dudley all stayed Tory (Belle Vale and Halesowen North in Halesowen & Rowley Regis and Wordsley in Dudley South). Likewise in Redditch BC, though we scored an important defence in the changing and currently split Batchley & Brockley ward, our two gains were at the expense of the Lib Dems. In a familiar story to other key seats that were lost to the Tories in 2010, the bellweather wards of Matchborough and Headless Cross & Oakenshaw stayed comfortably Tory.

So in keeping within the context of the West Midlands, can we draw some more positive conclusions? It was clear that in the key seats that we held in 2010 such as Birmingham Edgbaston, Telford and Dudley North, we made firm progress in the council elections. Indeed in every case we won seats in excess of what might have been expected taking both the national swing and more local swings elsewhere in the same local authority. In Telford, over a dozen gains across the constituency helped propel Labour back into control of Telford & The Wrekin UA. As with the success of the Tories in these elections, it clearly highlights the importance of MP incumbency and the benefits this brings in terms of delivering local campaigns.

North Warwickshire BC was another positive story in that we were successful in winning a council directly from the Tories, despite not having either MP in the local authority. However this victory was not plain sailing and we can again take some important lessons from this victory. On face value, the national swing should have delivered a bounty of seats to Labour. However when compared to other comparable key seats with newly elected incumbent Tory MP’s, this result becomes more remarkable. This was partially the result of a dedicated local organiser, strong community ties and an important focus on electoral success locally, regionally and nationally. Whilst we cannot read too much as to who will win the parliamentary seat from this one council election, a Tory council victory would have provided them with a firmer springboard for the defence of this marginal seat (or its successor) in 2015. Where we fought fire with fire, we managed to achieve electoral success, even if it was tough fought.

The unrelenting focus therefore over the next few years has to be building up campaigning capacity and winning back council seats in the marginal parliamentary seats. If we are to fight Tory incumbents and their strong resources, than we need to improve our ability to campaign against them. Winning extra council seats has to be a top priority.

I know that the temptation next year must be to make more headlines by sending the troops back into some of our northern towns to pick off the carcass of Lib Dem councillor representation or sending them into local authorities, where one more gentle push will see us over the top and back in control of these councils. However we need to shun the easy gains, especially since the Lib Dems will continue to do much of that work for us (and in any case the 2008 seats up for election were amongst the worst in living memory for Labour with many hitherto ‘safe’ wards won by the Tories, which should come back to the fold and have done so already in 2010 and 2011).

A particular organisational flashpoint next year will be the London Mayoral campaign – again the easy choice will be taking organisers out of key parliamentary seats and putting them in Hackney, Lambeth or Newham to drive up the Ken vote. On one hand the momentum that would be lost from Boris winning a second term, could prove terminal for Labour in 2015 but on the other hand you cannot expect to gain momentum in the key seats, if at the point where you can increase representation and deepen community roots you pull out key organisational resources such as staff time and paid for materials. This is a balancing act that the party will have to resolve. However whilst the odd gain here or there in places like Rugby, Worcester or Tamwoth probably won’t register in the mainstream media, they are small but very necessary steps in Labour being able to be in a position to win the next general election.

This recent election, save the result in Scotland, served a highly important purpose in that it put us back on the winning path. Despite some of the tone above we shouldn’t get too downbeat; we were only thrown out of office a year ago and even with the cuts it was unlikely that swing voters would come back to us within a year. Now we are past this first hurdle, our rucksack stuffed with an extra 800 council seats plus a stack of former Lib Dem votes, we need to re-double our focus on the key marginal seats – even if these don’t currently present us with easy media grabbing stories of gaining councils straight from the Tories.

Smashing the Lib Dems was pleasurable but now we must knuckle down for the real business of winning back government.