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Post by yellowperil on Jun 1, 2018 22:01:14 GMT
The Fallout from the 2001 elections 2001-3
This is the most difficult bit of the history to write - in fact this is the mark 3 version, as 2 previous attempts have been scrapped before any attempt to save them! It may though be a case study of what happens to a local party when things start to unravel- and as that is not that uncommon a state of affairs it may be of some interest , however painful this is personally.
A number of things were going on in the last half of 2001, few of them good, and they get hopelessly muddled up:
1.We were engaging, as we always would, in a thorough examination of the elections, what had gone right and what had gone wrong. Only this time the latter list seemed to be a lot longer than the former. And we were approaching a consideration of the outcomes with more tiredness and indeed bitterness than ever before, not least because we had gone into these elections reasonably confident of holding our own , even though we had known the elections would be difficult. I had to consider whether two decisions I had made, not to stand myself in RW, and to hand over the campaign managership to Bob Davidson in favour of being agent, were fatally flawed.
2. We were deciding, that is Eileen and I, that the time had come to plan to resign as councillors in 2003,.This was a combination of 3 things
(a) age (not in itself an absolute- we were 64 in 2003 so would be 68 if we served another full term and didn't cause unwanted by -elections)
(b) deteriorating health - at this point mainly mine and I had just been diagnosed as diabetic, it was still a few years more before Eileen's dementia was to become evident - the first sign of that , in fact was to be in 2007!
(c) our new wards and the extreme difficulty of defending them. A few years earlier we would have risen to the challenge- after all we had started off by winning hopeless wards - but we weren't sure we could do it all again. Eileen particularly had had 16 good years and had no particular desire to get stuck in to High Halden and Charing Heath. My ward was virtually unchanged apart from a silly name change but it had only just stayed loyal last time and the Tories would throw everything at next time. On balance, it seemed like time to go.
3. I had a plan! Even now, I don't think its appropriate to go into that in detail on an open forum, but I can say I had schemes to tighten up our procedures which I was confident if implemented would have made us much more competitive, To implement it I needed one more year as group leader- I felt that my time as group leader had been largely wasted as it had necessarily been reacting to events, and notably the two elections.
What actually happened instead was that the group decided by a narrow majority (and with depleted numbers as two key councillors were absent),to change the leader instead on the grounds I would not be around after 2003. I was it may be said pretty devastated by the decision. I considered my position but decided to resign the LD whip and go independent. I was ringing the officers to tell them first thing the next morning.
At this point, I have decided to go back and tell the story of this leadership election in full. After all this is what this thread is supposed to be all about, isn't it - "adventures in elections"? Even ones where the full electorate was 9?
First of all, where was it taking place? When we had larger group meetings, and necessarily when the group size was mid-teens ,often augmented by candidates and non councillor party officers up into at least the twenties, the group would book the members room for their meetings- a room that could seat 50/60 easily round a big table, but that had two disadvantages. From time to time the "enemy" would walk in and look surprised, not having noticed the room was booked for a meeting, and then there was the grim nature of the room itself, a vast windowless basement of the Civic Centre behind a massive steel door - yup, this was the nuclear bunker all ready for Armaggedon. However, we weren't meeting there, it was worse. Off the main bunker room were smaller committee rooms suitable for about 10-12 to sit round a table, and they were allocated to be the offices of the opposition group leaders. And for added privacy now the group size was down to 9, that's where we met. The really grim room only brightened by the walls covered with paper predominantly in yellow- a collection of dozens of the best Focus leaflets over the years. Bar charts were staring down at you from every corner. The group actually meeting numbered 7- two members , Brian Norris and Rita Hawes, had sent their apologies. Rita I think was totally unaware of anything significant was going to happen, I suspect Brian did and his other engagement was an excuse to avoid being put in an awkward situation.
It was soon obvious that a group within the group had a different agenda from mine and a proposal for George Koowaree as leader was soon on the table. Now George was a lovely man and a brilliant councillor and one we could guarantee getting re-elected, but he was chaotic- it was part of his charm, but to my mind not the person for the next year when we needed I thought a lot of forward planning and difficult decision making. I would have been quite happy to see George lead the group into the next election- just not yet, please. Of the others, Bill Heaton , the official deputy, was mired in profound problems of his own- his health was deteriorating fast and his wife Sue had recently attempted suicide while under the influence of her prescription drugs, by jumping off the bridge over the M20, and was now wheelchairbound. Bob Davidson was fairly aggrieved by my opinion that he hadn't done what was expected of him as campaign manager, and was fairly disillusioned with the party generally, so that in due course he would indeed defect to the Tories, but oddly at this stage was accusing me of being too pally with the Tories! Barbara Simmons having been a brilliant time in her 4 years as chair of planning, and then as Mayor, was struggling now to keep motivated. 4 votes there for George. 3 votes (Fred Winslade, Eileen and myself ) for maintaining the status quo for one more year. I tried arguing for delaying a decision until the two missing councillors could attend a meeting- this was too important a decision to make without a full house- but couldn't get agreement to that either, so that was when I had had enough and resigned the whip. Eileen joined me in doing so.
I now think that if I had used my resignation as a negotiating tactic that would have worked-indeed George soon afterwards came to see me and said he had thought up a way of resolving the issue, which was for me to serve one more year and put my plan into action and then he would take over - I didn't point out that was exactly what I had been proposing all along, but just said it was too late- I had already pulled the nuclear trigger (an appropriate enough metaphor seeing where we were at the time) and I was not going to withdraw my resignation now.
I was to enjoy my last period (almost two years) as a councillor sitting as an independent Liberal Democrat- Eileen and I formed a little group of two, who were clearly to be differentiated from the other Independents-we weren't giving up membership of one group to become associated with another group with whom we had less in common. But I have to say I quite enjoyed the freedom to do and say whatever I liked without having to be beholden to anyone. And I did enjoy winding up Tories, especially, by telling them to break off the shackles of commitment to a party they didn't really believe in very much, and to taste the freedom of being away from group pressures. I particularly got at Richard King my opposite number at County who shuffled and harrumphed as I got at him on this one in parish meetings - I knew very well he had no idea really why he was a Tory, except he had always been so. He had told me so.
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Post by yellowperil on Jun 2, 2018 21:54:06 GMT
Looking towards the Ashford Borough Council Elections 2003
I approach the 2003 elections very aware that these are going to be very different from what went before, For a start for the first time Ifor a long while I am not really involved. I am not standing myself, nor is Eileen, and I have no real responsibility for any of it- not a campaign manager, not an agent, nothing. I could if I wanted go on holiday and forget there were elections on . I don't in fact go that far, but I intend to limit my involvement to giving a bit of advice to some friends who are standing, and, yes, well, a bit of delivering here and there, and yes, well, maybe a tiny bit of canvassing....there was a potential slippery slope there but any commitments I eventually undertook were minute compared with any election since 1983. And I didn't go to the count!
Then there was the business of all the new wards, new divisions, and lots of new names. When I look back at these election results some 15 years after the event I see a lot of unfamiliar names, ones I can't put a face to. Not altogether surprising in opposition candidates who may have only been paper ones, or at least on-offs, but some of those unfamiliar candidates were standing as Lib Dem! I also notice the names of some successful candidates who I have never encountered as councillors- some pretty funny people got elected at this set of elections ( I should make it clear that I am now not talking about Lib Dems!) It is clear that as an insider guide to this set of elections I won't be as much use as before but perhaps I will be able to be more detached?
I have already discussed the new wards. What I haven't said was that we encounter a whole new party, and one setting out to become the new principal opposition at that . This is AI- the newly minted Ashford Independents. This is of course before the days of the (x) Independents being the rag tag remnants of the local UKIP, These were a genuine Independent Party, set up quite professionally and recruiting not only a number of traditional indy councillors and candidates, but lots of new enthusiastic members with a vaguely NIMBYish set of beliefs- hostile to most of the Ashford developments that to some degree the Borough Council remained committed. It was very much the brainchild of Peter Davison, with Tony Maltby as his right hand man, and those two had been leading Tory councillors ,but they were gathering up a lot of ex- Liberals and ex-Lib Dems to their ranks like Reg Harrington, Keith Brannan. Malcolm Eke, Melvyn Elliff, etc, and there was a distinct possibility that they would be more of a threat to Lib Dems than to Conservatives or Labour. They were clearly drumming up a lot of support in areas and wherever a lot of developmemt was proposed -around the Great Chart, Kingsnorth, Mersham and generally all the villages close to but not yet engulfed into, the Ashford conurbation , as it was fast becoming. It was also a major force in Ashford East, the old Liberal heartland. We found out they were standing candidates in all those areas - and seriously standing to win - 16 candidates in all out of the 43 -strong new council, AI was a really serious threat to the Lib Dems especially, although they claimed to be anti- Tory.. It was no longer my job to counter this threat.
In the following threads I will look at the elections in each of the seven county divisions, but that means I will make some arbitrary decisions as to where to put the split wards, i.e those divided between divisions. There are no such problems with the three main Ashford town divisions: Ashford Central, Ashford East and Ashford South., nor with Ashford Rural West, though it may seem odd to now find Boughton Aluph in rural west rather than rural east. In the case of Rural East, I include the split wards of Saxon Shore and Weald East. Ashford Rural South will include Weald South even though Woodchuch which is part of Tenterden is a substantial part, so Tenterden in turn looks a bit light with only 6 wards listed compared with the 10 before. So the seven groups of wards roughly corresponding to the new divisions split as follows:
Central 4 wards with 6 members
East 5 wards with 6 members
South 4 wards with 6 members
Rural West 5 wards with 7 members
Rural East 6 wards with 7 members
Rural South 4 wards with 5 members
Tenterden 6 wards with 6 members
Total 34 wards with 43 members
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Post by yellowperil on Jun 3, 2018 7:56:56 GMT
Ashford Borough Council wards by new county division 2003- Ashford Central.
Here at least by twenty-first century standards this had an old -fashioned look- no AI candidates here -two horse races in Bockhanger and Bybrook, quite a close -looking 3 way split in the double seat in Stour and a free for all in the other double seat,Godinton, enlivened by a double Green intervention and the fact that the Lib Dems had only a single candidate in Patricia Packham, Bob's wife (definitely Patricia, she hated being called Pat). So only 3 LD candidates for the 6 places, with two Greens but full hoses for Con and Lab.
In Bockhanger one might have expected Stuart Storey not to have too much trouble defending what had become a reasonably safe Labour seat, even though there were boundary changes, while surely nobody in Bybrook could vote back the Tory councillor Marion Martin, seen as the absolute joke candidate even though she had been winning elections here on and off for years. Godinton was in effect the new Central ward, though losing the town centre- could be a close battle but expected that that might be between Tories and Labour, who had often fought over that Central ward- the days when I myself had come close in Central were long forgotten. In Stour the Smiths were now able to form a husband and wife team in the ward they lived in and half of the new ward was formed from Fred Winslade's old Henwood ward, so looked a goodish if challenging prospect- mainly challenging we thought because the Labour team was headed by Mick Hubert who was always a formidable opponent and might drag his relatively unknown teammate up with him. Nobody took the Tory challenge too seriously when it was headed up by the Mayor...of Tenterden.
Bockhanger
N Greaves (Con) 350 (59.8%)
S Storey (Lab) 235 (40.2%)
Bybrook
M. Martin (Con) 381 (62.8%)
M Permall (Lab) 226 (37.2%)
Godinton (2)
P Fracey (Con) 463 (48.6%)
B Heyes (Con) 406
I Groves (Lab) 209 (22.0%)
D Topley (Lab) 193
P Packham (LD) 175 (18.4%)
P Fillery (Green) 105 (11.0%)
L Sansom (Green) 49
Stour(2)
M Hubert (Lab) 458 (38.7%)
M French (Con) 414 (35.0%)
W Davies (Lab) 406
C Main (Con) 402
J Smith (LD) 312 (26.4%)
S Smith (LD) 233
Well this was obviously going to be one of those elections where the voters hadn't read the script! We already must have sensed this was going to be a pretty disastrous night for Labour (unless you were Mick Hubert), and not as good a one for Lib Dems as might have been hoped. The Conservatives looked as though they were in for a very good night indeed, though we were yet to see what effect the intervention of the new AI party would have. where they were actually standing against Tories. The new Councillor French would in due course add the mayorality of Ashford to his collection- Tenterden had just been the start .Real disappointment for the Smiths who really should have been closer- I suspect they didn't get the help they richly deserved.
overall Con 5, Lab 1
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Post by yellowperil on Jun 3, 2018 9:20:22 GMT
Ashford Borough Council Wards by county division 2003- Ashford East
We are used to the old South East division, of which East is the successor, being rock solid Liberal/ Lib Dem for a very long time -from well before Ashford Borough was created indeed. In the past the only slight breaches had been in South Willesborough with its independent streak, Willesborough Lees with an occasional Tory challenge, and Henwood had sometimes been a bit iffy, but the latter had now gone out of the division anyway. Surely though the bedrock of the old Ashford Liberal heartland- the old wards of Windmill, Waterside and Twelve Acres were absolutely safe? Well, up to a point, Lord Copper. Twelve Acres had been now married to Newtown which if anything was more independent-minded than South Willesborough with which it had been paired. -quite a challenge for Brian Norris to defend. Bill Heaton was gone from Willesborough Lees and unable therefore to defend the new ward of Highfield which would have been made for him as his own patch, so the task of doing that depended on Jill Norris, Brian's wife, another difficult husband-and -wife double election therefore. Surely the Koowaree/ Davidson partnership in the new North Willesborough double ward (incorporating, Windmill, Waterside and the old Lees ward less Highfield) was still solid? Probably but an interesting challenge by Stephen Cochrane. The former chief environmental health officer, then Tory councillor for Central, had shifted wards to fight here in his own home territory. Then there was Norman, the combined Eastmead/Hampden ward, which Barbara Simmons had elected to fight as it contained the bulk of her old ward , rather than fight Victoria which contained another bit which was swallowed up in a big new double ward. But the challenge here was not only Melvin Elliff, a former Lib Dem candidate living in the ward and now fighting for AI, but no fewer than two other retiring councillors. Lou Parsons , the retiring Conservative councillor for Hothfield was probably not a serious threat and could be seen off - the assumption was he was really retiring but willing to go for a paper candidacy on the way out. But the Labour candidate was deadly serious - Les Lawrie, former Labour leader,like Barbara an ex-Mayor, and expecting to take on Norman which from the Labour side looked like the natural successor to Mike Hayes's Hampden stronghold.From the Ashford Independents point of view they would be really gunning for both Barbara Simmons and Les Lawrie as key figures in the development plans for Ashford, and now they had both of them intheir sights.
Aylesford Green
R Encock (AI) 168 (33.5%)
M Allcock (Lab) 133 (26.5%)
B. Norris (LD) 98 (19.5%)
J Holtum (Con) 52 (10.4%)
J Kelliam (NF) 51 (10.2%)
Highfield
M Larkin(AI) 289 (47.2%)
J Norris (LD) 168 (26.5%)
T Coultrip (Con ) 167 (26.3%)
Norman
M Elliff (AI) 223 (35.7%)
B Simmons (LD) 184 (29.4%)
L Lawrie (Lab) 146 (23.4%)
L Parsons (Con) 72 (11.5%)
North Willesborough (2)
SG Koowaree (LD) 584 (40.1%)
R Davidson (LD) 558
R Stubbs (AI) 374 (25.7%)
S Cochrane (Con) 364 (25.0%)
M Pryke (AI) 337
D Marriott (Con) 294
M Kirk (Lab) 135 (9.3%)
South Willesborough
M. Eke (AI) 327 (68.6%)
J Blackman (LD) 105 (22.0%)
C Vavasour (Con) 45 (9.4%)
So if we were wondering whether the threat posed by Ashford Independents was real or imaginary , now we knew. They were a well-organised outfit, capable of winning seats off us, and of even out-challenging the Conservatives as our rivals in our greatest areas of strength. The Lib Dems looked to be retreating into their last stronghold. Stephen Cochrane, though, had somewhat overestimated his personal vote, and this division was not particularly encouraging for the Conservatives also, particularly as we awaited the first results of AI/ Con battles. From the look of that Les Lawrie result, the Labour performance was heading from the challenging to the catastrophic.
overall: AI 4, LD 2
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Post by yellowperil on Jun 3, 2018 13:54:12 GMT
Ashford Borough Council wards by county division 2003- Ashford South
We now come to South, always the Labour stronghold with lots of wards just about guaranteed Labour wins -surely nothing would be changed there? But the wards have an unfamiliar look to them and its quite difficult to navigate round, especially the two new double wards of Beaver and Victoria. Established councillors with well known names suddenly had to make contact with a lot of new constituents -maybe not a problem when the party was doing well but a bit of an issue when Labour was in any case on the defensive nationally. The two Alans (Allcock and Wells ) were a new team in Beaver ( presumably with a plumbing job in mind?), while Derek Madgett and Brendan Naughton looked pretty safe in Victoria, the new ward mainly formed from their 2 predecessor wards of Musgrove and Victoria Park respectively. Steve Williams had to defend Singleton South, approximating to the old Singleton ward while Harriet Yeo, my old student and sometime Labour Party national executive member Harriet Yeo had been selected to stand in the new single-member Stanhope, with Palma standing down and Vicky McDonald being deselected. Quite a lot of rumbling over that one within Labour, I understand, which accounts for the rather surprising emergence of Vicky as the Lib Dem name on that particular ballot paper. otherwise the Lib Dems were not contesting Beaver or, astonishingly, Singleton South, which had been so strong for them a few years earlier. Hopes had to depend on a pair of rather unflashy likely lads- Bobs Packham and Cowley , journeyman candidates who always just got on with the job without a lot of fuss, but who would be likely to have their work cut out keeping up with Messrs Madgett and Naughton. I felt they needed some help and I did put in a bit of help in Victoria, one of the main places I did anything for that May apart from a bit in our home wards.The Tories appeared to be mainly paper candidates except again perhaps in Victoria where the Tory pair included Rita Kegos , another ex-councillor wandering around in search of a ward, and I would think Rita was going for it, in a rather crowded field -there were also a couple of Greens. Only one AI candidate in South, which was Carol Brunger, Malcolm Eke's partner, standing in her home ward of Singleton South. Probably just a paper candidate, we thought.
Beaver(2)
A Allcock ( Lab) 636 (70.9%)
A Wells (Lab) 619
G Taylor-Lowen (Con) 261 (29.1%)
J Rymer-Jones(Con) 259
Singleton South
C Brunger (AI) 191 ( 38.6%)
C Bell (Con) 175 (35.4%)
S Williams (Lab) 129 (26.1%)
Stanhope
H Yeo (Lab) 173 (46.0%)
V MacDonald (LD) 103 (27.4%)
J Smith (Con) 53 (14.1%)
T Blackham (NF) 47 (12.5%)
Victoria (2)
R Packham (LD) 342 (35.6%)
R Cowley (LD) 333
D Madgett (Lab) 324 (33.8%)
B Naughton (Lab) 320
M Rice (Con) 198 (29.6%)
C R Kegos (Con) 190
H Dawe (Green) 96 (10.0%)
P Harvey(Green) 60
Well no end to the surprises there, but the overall impression is that Labour's disaster kept on coming, except in Beaver (and maybe what saved them there was the only opposition had come from a couple of Conservatives who were probably going through the motions) and in Stanhope (where I suppose you might say the selection of Ms Yeo had been justified?) Otherwise, the defeats of Madgett, Naughton and Williams on top of earlier ones of Lawrie and Storer, might have seen yet more? Joy tinged with relief in Lib Dem circles at the rather unexpected triumph in Victoria.
And at AI headquarters probably similar emotions over Singleton South.It does occur to me that quite a few of the AI successes across Ashford ( Eke, Elliff, Brunger) had been trained up in their electioneering skills by me- what had I done?
Overall- Lab3, LD2, AI 1. and for the 3 main town divisions added together Con 5, AI 5, Lab 4, LD 4. 18 decided with 25 more seats to declare!
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Post by yellowperil on Jun 3, 2018 17:38:42 GMT
Ashford Borough Council wards by county division 2003 - Ashford Rural West
The Rural West seats were going to be so much less interesting for the Lib Dems this time, and I don't think anyone started with an assumption we would be able to hold Eileen's seat or mine in the changed circumstances, and there were no obvious replacements available. Weald Central would be a nightmare to find the right candidates interested in fighting this weird collection of parishes -we heard even the Conservatives were struggling to find someone suitable. I had failed miserably in the search for a successor within my ward: my most serious failure I always thought. Boughton Aluph we should be able to hold, but there was a rapidly growing urban fringe which soon would have more voters than the rural parishes, so Rita was having to start again with a very different set of problems. She would miss the voters of Challock and Molash with whom she had built up such good relations, and she was always at her happiest out in the deeply remote bits of her old ward. At least there no problem having a candidate in place! Charing would have Len Mickelwright who would be a good candidate but unlikely actually to win, releasing Bob Rawlings to go off and be a paper candidate somewhere else- he felt he was getting a bit old to do it for real any more! John Hawes would be at very least plausible candidate for Downs West, which meant he kept the Hawes connection with Challock alive for the moment.
Jon Heuch, an up-and-coming member, a serious authority on forestry and a Charing Heath resident (and parish councillor), was now the party's agent, having taken that over from me, and was then persuaded to stand in Weald Central, He did at least live in one of the 5 villages -just that it was the one almost totally separated from the other 4. Ideally, we needed to balance that with someone from the other end of the boomerang, which would have meant High Halden,probably or at least the far end of Bethersden, but nobody was forthcoming, so in the end we went in to the election with a single candidate, right at one end of the ward, with a job liable to take him off at short notice anywhere in the world to deal with forestry problems.It was not an ideal answer.
As far as Weald North was concerned, having failed to find a candidate from either of the two villages of appropriate quality, we had inevitably to explore the other villages in the Rural West area which of course included Boughton Aluph and finally settled on Clare Hardwick, our constituency secretary, and very experienced, and with quite a good cv for the ward except for the fact she wasn't local - she was a small farmer, keeping a small flock of sheep and having some acres of pyo soft fruits. Egerton and Smarden were full of people like her! I never felt though she really exploited these links as she might have done, she felt too embarrassed at being a "wrong village"outsider. I had to keep reminding her- so was I! -though I had to admit Boughton Aluph was a bit more distant than Pluckley. Nowadays this generally seems to have become less of an issue than it was especially as my present(Conservative) councillor , Clair Bell, lives in Biddenden which is considerably further away.
We also put up a candidate in the GreatChart & Singleton ward, in Clair Yeo (no relation to Labour's Harriet Yeo) who was a promising young student but really only a paper candidate in a ward where Tony Maltby was a racing certainty for AI.
As for the Tories, they were fighting every ward and that meant of course they were actively fighting Tony Maltby, who up to this election had still called himself an independent conservative and had not been opposed by Tories, but was now deputy leader of AI. Doug Gillard was standing again for the Tories in Charing,and was in fact the only Tory incumbent defending a seat anywhere in Rural West. Neil Wallace was the new Conservative for Downs West; as we have seen Lou Parsons who might have been seen as the incumbent had gone to fight a much less likely prospect in Norman. Ruth Kelly was the Tory pick for Weald North, living in Romden Castle, the ward's only genuine castle, in Smarden. I had an
interesting conversation with her at one point when she confessed to being an avid reader of my Focus leaflets " the only place where I can find out what's really going on". She also told me her selection had been made conditional that she stopped the flow of ward newsletters at once!The Tories had resolved their selection problems in Weald Central and had come up with Bob Taylor (who never missed an opportunity to add CBE after his name!) from High Halden, and Andrew Wickham from Pluckley. Andrew we knew pretty well of course and might be considered a friend. We had helped him before over some planning issues and though he had been asked by the Tories before had refused point blank while Eileen was the councillor and said he would always vote for her! He was a big local farmer, also had a smokery business, and was chairman of the Ashford magistrates. Later he became County councillor and was persuaded to stand for Weald Central once he was quite sure Eileen wasn't!
Ashford Independents were contesting 3 wards here- Great Chart & Singleton, of course which as I have indicated was a near certain win; Weald Central, where the candidate was Keith Brannan and we were still quite well disposed to- a better choice than any of the other AI prospects, so that we could claim that only standing one candidate to give him more chance of beating the Tories; and Derek Swann in Weald North . Of course that last led to some confusion among my former supporters as to who they should vote for - a Liberal Democrat like me, or an Independent , as I had become for the last little while, and Derek Swann was certainly going around suggesting he was my natural successor , forcing me to go round saying no,no , vote for Mrs Hardwick, don't vote Swann, but I'm sure that message didn't get to everybody.
Labour only contested 2 seats, John Moriarty the High Halden businessman who had been a frequent Labour candidate in recent years was a Labour candidate in Weald Central, so in this strange 2 member ward three parties were running one candidate each. There was also a Labour candidate in Downs West.
Boughton Aluph & Eastwell
R Hawes (LD) 391 (71.6%)
S Killick (Con) 155 (28.4%)
Charing
D Gillard(Con) 441 (67.4%)
L Mickelwright (LD) 211 (32.6%)
Downs West
N Wallace (Con) 412 (56.9%)
J Hawes(LD) 242 (33.4%)
V Horton (Lab) 70 (9.7%)
GreatChart & Singleton
A Maltby (AI) 298 (56.5%)
CCampbell (Con) 189 (35.9%)
C Yeo (LD) 40 (7.6%)
Weald Central
R Taylor (Con) 975 (48.0%)
M A Wickham (Con) 920
K Brannan (AI) 563 (27.7%)
J Heuch (LD) 308 (15.2 %)
J Moriarty (Lab) 184 (9.1%)
Weald North
R Kelly (Con) 538 (58.0%)
C Hardwick (LD) 225 (24.2%)
D Swann (AI) 165 (17.8%)
So few surprises here, with the Conservatives able to hoover up the Weald Central and North seats but Rita Hawesand Tony Maltby in control of their wards for LibDems and AI respectively.
So overall Con 5, AI 1, LD1 and after 4 divisions Con 10, AI 7, LD 6 ,Lab 4.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 3, 2018 19:31:55 GMT
Bit surprised you defected over being removed as leader for what seems to be a fairly defensible (and non personal) reason after all you did. Get the impression that you slightly regret doing so with the delivering and canvassing by the end. It must have been very hurtful so I completely understand either way. A general shame.
I’m slightly sad that the independent liberal didn’t get his comeuppance. He’s the bad guy of this story for me! Maybe Jo whatsherface too
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Post by yellowperil on Jun 4, 2018 6:33:37 GMT
Bit surprised you defected over being removed as leader for what seems to be a fairly defensible (and non personal) reason after all you did. Get the impression that you slightly regret doing so with the delivering and canvassing by the end. It must have been very hurtful so I completely understand either way. A general shame. I’m slightly sad that the independent liberal didn’t get his comeuppance. He’s the bad guy of this story for me! Maybe Jo whatsherface too Yes of course I regret the decision I made, even more with the hindsight of 17 years, but always I knew it was not my finest hour - a combination of fatigue, poor health, disappointment and anger drove me to it. It has not been easy to share this moment in my history , but this site is all about learning about such moments which are very much part of the fabric of political life and in the end are more important than just the mere numbers (I know , rank heresy for some on this forum). I will still take issue with you, though, over the word "defected". I consider that I did not defect. Had I joined the independents and helped set up their new party, that would have been a defection (and a half). I merely stepped down from the group, remaining a full member of my party and retaining Lib Dem in my description to differentiate myself from the other independents. The acid test for me (and the one I always applied in the case of Gordon Turner and others) would have come if I had stood again for election and opposed my former comrades, but that was not going to happen and never would have happened. In the event I was going to stand for election once again and in full Lib Dem colours, just not for the BC. I get the impression you are enjoying the political soap aspects of this thread, which is good, but I would caution against seeing this as being about good guys and bad guys.I do not see Gordon Turner or Jo Hawkes as the bad guys, nor myself as the good guy exactly either. We were all complex human beings, sometimes doing the right thing, sometimes not, sometimes making bad mistakes. All human life is there. |
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Post by yellowperil on Jun 4, 2018 7:51:06 GMT
Ashford Borough Council wards by county division 2003 -Ashford Rural East (but note adjustment)
Adjustment:Saxon Shore and Weald East, included here, are split wards.
As already noted, this version of Rural East is always odd in including the two wards long regarded as part of the Ashford urban area, Kennington and Little Burton Farm ( maybe including a long-defunct farm in its title to make it sound more rural?) Seven places up for grabs, but it was difficult to see any of them being anything other than straightforward Tory wins. Maybe Wye might display some of its greenish radicalism? The were some small patches of liberal activism in Saxon Shore but likely to be swamped in the big sea of blue- it would require extreme optimism to look for anything there.
Lib Dems had put up 6 credible candidates for the 7 places going- not too bad compared with when there had been a completely blank canvas in the old rural east. Trouble was, none of them looked remotely like winning. Myrtle Butcher in Downs North, Bob Rawlings in Kennington, Tony Hardwick in LBF, Nick Fawcett in Wye- all experienced candidates, but only Nick was on home turf. On the two-man Saxon Shore, two exciting but inexperienced candidates, Emily Neighbour who was a really good find and lived and was already active in Hamstreet- she really was the neighbour you wanted- and Bob Fletcher, our new party chairman and a former BBC man, who chose to go with Emily rather than fight his home patch in Downs West (he lived in Hothfield). These two were serious and committed, but to convert the whole Saxon Shore area to the cause would need commitment over several elections, not just one.The one place we weren't fighting was Weald East.
The Tories, it goes without saying , had a full complement of candidates who all looked like winners- Jane Marriott now fully in charge in Downs North, John Kemp in Kennington , Norman Ayres in LBF, Paul Bartlett in Weald East, all harboured leadership ambitions. Ian Cooling was their new man for Wye in place of Colin Coey, and two lively new characters for Saxon Shore in the comedy pairing of Wood and Claridge.
Labour only had one candidate, in Little Burton Farm, and AI had put up Jack Woodford as a single candidate in Saxon Shore and rather more seriously were the sole challenge to Paul Bartlett in Weald East. The Greens were pinning everything on Steve Dawe in Wye.
Downs North
J Marriott (Con) 599 (79.1%)
M Butcher (LD) 158 (20.9%)
Kennington
J Kemp (Con) 465 (71.4%)
R Rawlings (LD) 196 (28.6%)
Little Burton Farm
N Ayres (Con) 405 (71.4%)
A Hardwick (LD) 118 (19.6%)
M Khan (Lab) 80 (13.3%)
Saxon Shore (2)
P Wood (Con) 989 (56.2%)
B Claridge (Con) 947
J Woodford (AI) 395 (22.4%)
E Neighbour (LD) 377 (21.4%)
R Fletcher (LD) 302
Weald East
P Bartlett (Con) 357 (57.5%)
M Ciccione (AI) 264 (42.5%)
Wye
I. Cooling (Con) 470 (60.4%)
S Dawe (Green) 252 (32.3%)
N Fawcett (LD) 57 (7.3%)
So rather as predicted a clean Tory sweep and the Lib Dem votes mostly respectable but nowhere near getting into serious contention anywhere- much the same could be said of the rather more limited attempts by AI and by the Greens to break through.
Overall Con 7, rest 0, and after 5 of these divisions and with 32 results declared: Con 17, AI 6, LD 5, Lab 4. Divide and Rule?
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Post by Deleted on Jun 4, 2018 7:52:31 GMT
Bit surprised you defected over being removed as leader for what seems to be a fairly defensible (and non personal) reason after all you did. Get the impression that you slightly regret doing so with the delivering and canvassing by the end. It must have been very hurtful so I completely understand either way. A general shame. I’m slightly sad that the independent liberal didn’t get his comeuppance. He’s the bad guy of this story for me! Maybe Jo whatsherface too Yes of course I regret the decision I made, even more with the hindsight of 17 years, but always I knew it was not my finest hour - a combination of fatigue, poor health, disappointment and anger drove me to it. It has not been easy to share this moment in my history , but this site is all about learning about such moments which are very much part of the fabric of political life and in the end are more important than just the mere numbers (I know , rank heresy for some on this forum). I will still take issue with you, though, over the word "defected". I consider that I did not defect. Had I joined the independents and helped set up their new party, that would have been a defection (and a half). I merely stepped down from the group, remaining a full member of my party and retaining Lib Dem in my description to differentiate myself from the other independents. The acid test for me (and the one I always applied in the case of Gordon Turner and others) would have come if I had stood again for election and opposed my former comrades, but that was not going to happen and never would have happened. In the event I was going to stand for election once again and in full Lib Dem colours, just not for the BC. I get the impression you are enjoying the political soap aspects of this thread, which is good, but I would caution against seeing this as being about good guys and bad guys.I do not see Gordon Turner or Jo Hawkes as the bad guys, nor myself as the good guy exactly either. We were all complex human beings, sometimes doing the right thing, sometimes not, sometimes making bad mistakes. All human life is there. Apologies- didn’t mean it to sound like a criticism, more a sad event after 20 years. Wonderful thread! |
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Post by yellowperil on Jun 4, 2018 10:16:52 GMT
joe- didn't take it as a criticism so no need to apologise- glad to know someone thinks its interesting enough to wade through- just clarifying my position.
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Post by yellowperil on Jun 4, 2018 11:22:07 GMT
Ashford Borough Council wards by County Division 2003 -Ashford Rural South
(once again I take the group of wards mostly associated with Rural South, where the actual county division boundaries are somewhat different- so Park Farm North and South, Washford and the two-member Weald South ward are included for this purpose) .
This was always going to be a weak area for the Lib Dems- there were 3 candidates out of 5, but little attempt to go for a win . David Hilliger's canditature in PFN was a case in point, a former councillor willing to lend his name provided he could be assured there wasn't any risk of his actually winning. Gemma Carter in Weald South was different- she was local and wanted to win, we found her an experienced candidate in Rosemary Davies to be a running mate, but as with Emily Neighbour in the next door ward, this would have needed to be a long term project over more than one election. We failed to put up candidates in PFS or Washford. ( I need perhaps to say that although I am using the first person plural, I am at this stage semi-detached from all these decisions- I am aware of what was going on , but Not My Problem at this point.)
The Tories had of course candidates for everywhere and no doubt hoped for 5 out of 5- I would think their main target for the whole election was probably Peter Davison's seat in Weald South. There was certainly no love lost between the official Tories and this renegade Tory, in marked contrast to the gentlemanly mutterings there had always been around Tony Maltby. Davison , who I see as a sort-of local version of Nigel Farage,( I mean in personality - I'm not talking policy here) was loathed by the Tory leadership. Yet I still am not sure what tactical decisions were made here- the Conservatives had two strong candidates in George Weller and Mark Lancaster each representing half of this double ward (George the incumbent member for Woodchurch and the Lancaster family a significant force in Hamstreet) As far as I understand it, the Ashford Independents only put up Davison, but Eric Relf was also standing with a very similar programme but as an Independent, not as AI, so the waters were a bit muddied.
When we look at Park Farm North we find an interesting development. Reg Harrington had been a resident of Kingsnorth village for as long as anyone could remember and had progressed from chairman of the old Ashford Liberal Party (he'd resigned from the Liberals because they didn't take a tough enough line on Gordon Turner, remember?) to long time independent councillor for Kingsnorth, campaigning against all the development in his beloved parish first Stanhope, then Washford ,now Park Farm and now all that development had become four separate wards in there own right. So what does Reg, nearing retirement, do next? Well he sold his home in Kingsnorth village and bought a new property on the Park Farm estate. And was now reinventing himself as a candidate in Park Farm North on behalf of the anti-development Ashford Independents. I suppose he reckoned that the place to find voters who were hostile to more development were those who had benefited most from the last lot of development. And he was probably right. He was likely as not the one person who could keep the Tories at bay in Park Farm, anyway.Aline Hicks the AI candidate for the other half of the estate did not have the same profile as Reg (then-she does now!) and would have a much harder battle against the Tory Jim Wedgbury.
Washford looked like being a fascinating battle. Bill Miller was back and standing this time for Labour and with his campaigning skills and local knowledge might even have a chance - remember this ward adjoined (and for one bit included Stanhope, where Labour was back in the ascendancy. He was on a collision course with John Holland, veteran independent and once ( a lifetime ago) a Labour councillor himself, actually living in the ward and standing for AI. Looked a close-run thing, and there was always the possibility that the Tory candidate would come through the middle and take it.
Park Farm North
R Harrington (AI) 398 (67.1%)
W Walker (Con) 153 (25.8%)
D Hilliger (LD) 42 (7.1%)
Park Farm South
J Wedgbury (Con) 244 (61.8%)
A Hicks (AI) 151 (38.2%)
Washford
J Holland (AI) 164 (34.5%)
A Missions (Con) 159 (33.4%)
CW Miller (Lab) 153 (32.1%)
Weald South
G Weller (Con) 900 (37.8%)
P Davison (AI) 858 (36.1%)
M Lancaster (Con) 706
E Relf (Ind) 359 (15.1%)
R Davies (LD) 261 (11.0%)
G Carter (LD) 259
Rural South had been quite a triumph for the Ashford Independents, perhaps not altogether surprisingly as it was very much in the front line when it came to the issues about the scale of development and the rapid southward expansion of the town. Three of their four candidates in the area had succeeded,and with a respectable 38% for the fourth they were clearly the dominant force in this division. The Washford election had proved every bit as exciting it had threatened to be, with Bill Miller in last place but only 11 votes behind the winner.
Overall AI 3, Con 2, and with 37 seats decided Con19,AI 9, LD 5, Lab 4. Only 6 places remaining in Tenterden division and 3 Conservative wins from those would be enough to give the Tories outright control. But those 6 Tenterden division seats had no AI involvement, so that was virtually certain to happen,
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Post by yellowperil on Jun 5, 2018 7:29:41 GMT
Ashford Borough Council wards by County division - Tenterden
( but note this excludes Woodchurch parish, included for this purpose with Rural South because part of Weald South ward)
We are used to Tenterden providing a big boost to the Tories at the end , and in the past that was 10 wards of which 8,9 or or 10 were guaranteed Tory holds- now there were only six wards wholly in the Tenterden division, but in the present climate they looked more solidly Conservative than ever. There was no challenge from the AI, maybe because the development pressures were less acute in Tenterden - anyway the Ashford Independents would have had less appeal in Tenterden who would I am sure have wanted their own Tenterden Independents. A TI party (correctly pronounced) might have done quite well here- pity nobody thought of it.
The Lib Dems were doing their bit with lively and effective candidates in all six wards but they all had mountains to climb.Two were quite elderly and physically disabled but still very sharp- Pat Rickwood in Tenterden South and Barry Wright on Oxney. Barry by this time had retired to Appledore within the ward, and had previously lived at Wittersham, so actually on the Isle of Oxney, so would have been a good fit for the ward (he was also now an Appledore churchwarden). Trying to dislodge Mick Burgess , fast becoming an Oxney institution, would be difficult, but neverthless the Lib Dem's best hope. Stuart Dove now retired from general practice was taking on the Clokie challenge in Tenterden North and could be relied on to give it his best shot. He still liked, though, to stand in areas where he was unlikely to meet his former patients, and standing in Tenterden from his home in Brabourne some 20 miles away pretty well guaranteed that but didn't improve his chances of success against the Council leader. His family were doing their bit though. His student son Ollie was standing in St Michaels and bringing the average age of our candidates down somewhat- Ollie was to become the next Lib Dem constituency agent and brought huge enthusiasm to the role. Then Paddy Platt was standing again in Biddenden, and Ann Murray, another Pluckley export, was standing in Rolvenden &TW. It does strike me that Tenterden branch themselves were only supplying three of the six candidates.
The Tories had 5 of the 6 wards covered by incumbents (Bell, Hutchinson,Link, Clokie, Burgess) and they would each take a lot of shifting even in a bad year for the Conservatives, which this wasn't particularly. The only newcomer (Goddard) must have been pretty anonymous- I know I was no longer there to meet the new intake of councillors, but. he's the one I can't place at all!
Labour only had 3 candidates, in Tenterden South, Rolvenden &TW, and Oxney, but none much more than paper candidates it seemed.
Biddenden
N Bell (Con) 607 (77.5%)
WP Platt (LD) 147 (22.5%)
Rolvenden & Tenterden West
J Hutchinson (Con) 645 (77.0%)
A Murray (LD) 111 (13.2%)
J Knight (Lab) 82 (9.8%)
Tenterden St Michaels
J Link (Con) 534 (80.4%)
O Dove (LD) 130 (19.6%)
Tenterden North
P Clokie (Con) 466 (66.9%)
S Dove (LD) 231 (33.1%)
Tenterden South
P Goddard (Con) 417 (66.1%)
P Rickwood (LD) 124 (19.9%)
M Kirk (Lab) 87 (14.0%)
Isle of Oxney
M Burgess (Con) 596 (66.7%)
B Wright (LD) 189 (21.1%)
K Manning (Lab) 109 (12.2%)
A pretty emphatic 6-0 result for the Tories there, so comfortably over the final hurdle to take control of the council- final tally Con 25 out of 43 with a pretty disunited opposition at AI 9, LD 5 and Lab 4, so a majority of 7 even if the 3 opposition parties could get their act together and all oppose the administration at the same time , which was to be a pretty rare happening. But Peter Davison was the new opposition leader, so he at least was happy. I have to say I admired the way Ashford Independents had reinvented themselves as a disciplined, organised political force, and I recognised that enthusiasm and sense of purpose we had once enjoyed in the Lib Dems but were struggling to find again. Didn't agree with much of what AI stood for, or particularly admire many of their leading players, but they clearly had something to offer. We would just have to wait and see what happened when it all started to unravel....
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Post by yellowperil on Jun 5, 2018 13:24:47 GMT
I have more or less reached the point where originally I thought that this thread would judder to a conclusion. I have reached the point where I have ceased to be a councillor and am in semi-retirement, but that did mean that my semi-detached status was coming to an end, and I was fully re-integrated into the Lib Dem set-up , not having to keep myself separate from the group any more- what was left of them. Indeed I was particularly busy over the next few years delivering leaflets for George Koowaree, so no hard feelings. And of course now I have remembered that I actually stood one last election in 2005, for the new and substantially altered/reduced Ashford Rural West division for Kent CC , I am now committed to telling the story of that. Before I get there, and that really will be my swansong, I want to look back over my career both as a campaign manager for these elections and as a councillor and ask myself what it achieved and whether it was all worth it. What did it all do to add to the sum of human happiness? I also have a few gaps in the story where I am still chasing a few by-election details, but it should be possible to add those in as amendments at appropriate points in the thread. if and when I get hold of them. I also have promised to look at the Euro-elections over this era and my part in those, and relations with the Euro-candidates from Anthony Kinch to Catherine Bearder , taking in the odd gaolbird along the way! So that is probably where I will need to go next.
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Post by matureleft on Jun 5, 2018 14:21:01 GMT
It's been a great story. Perhaps you'll also consider some wider lessons drawn from your experience? One familiar one is how the personal is political - in voluntary groups the individual agenda and aspiration is really central and any leadership grasping those and integrating them into the wider context will make much faster progress. I've seen plenty of examples of supposed "strong" (but tin-eared) leadership failing as a direct result of not understanding (or failing to empathise with) the "small" things that some activists want. Most local parties are quite frail and can easily fracture as a result. And planning succession is critical - making sure that people stand down feeling good and that there's a quality successor. The first is often forgotten. The second is really difficult in most parties and hard-won ground can readily be lost in handover.
Ward scale is clearly a critical factor in building success. In small single-member rural wards picking a good, local and known candidate can have dramatic results (for any party) which are far harder to achieve in either sprawling rural multi-member seats (I hate those) or big urban seats.
I always found that courtesy toward and communication with opponents paid dividends (and was my preference anyway). You learn, you smooth unnecessary discord (and focus on the issues that matter) and you gain opportunities to reduce the motivation of your opponents.
Anyway, from your experience you'll have other, better lessons.
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Jun 5, 2018 16:07:44 GMT
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Post by yellowperil on Jun 5, 2018 19:47:01 GMT
Thanks Pete good to have these maps with the new boundaries to show up the contrasts.
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Post by yellowperil on Jun 5, 2018 21:57:36 GMT
I have said that I would go next to the Euro-elections and I have a few fragments in my own records which I intend to incorporate into a general look at all the Euro-Elections Ashford was involved with, which should therefore be those of 1984,1989,1994,1999 and 2004, with perhaps passing reference to the two subsequent ones. I have as I say some scattered records , plus a few vivid memories which I need to tie down to time and place, but I need detailed records of those election results at Euro-Constituency level at least , whether that is the old East Kent or the South-East England monstrosity, just to anchor my thoughts. At the moment I am finding these results incredibly difficult to lay my hands on- eg, the Wikipedia pages for the earlier Euro-elections constituency results are mostly blank with an invitation for anyone with the results data to please insert them against the appropriate constituency! This has been done for a few constituencies but not I fear for the Kent ones , but even those constituencies that have the numbers lack other basic details like the names of the candidates! I had thought we had problems chasing a few obscure local government by-elections in this era, I did not expect problems with elections to the European Parliament.And I am cursing the fact that the comprehensive records pre 1997 that I had to then kept, perished in my house fire.Even so the best records I have retained happen to refer to 1994, when the Lib Dem candidate happened to be one of my constituents, John Macdonald.
Has anybody a good idea as to a reliable source for constituency results for Euro-elections over this era?
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Post by Andrew_S on Jun 5, 2018 22:00:01 GMT
I have said that I would go next to the Euro-elections and I have a few fragments in my own records which I intend to incorporate into a general look at all the Euro-Elections Ashford was involved with, which should therefore be those of 1984,1989,1994,1999 and 2004, with perhaps passing reference to the two subsequent ones. I have as I say some scattered records , plus a few vivid memories which I need to tie down to time and place, but I need detailed records of those election results at Euro-Constituency level at least , whether that is the old East Kent or the South-East England monstrosity, just to anchor my thoughts. At the moment I am finding these results incredibly difficult to lay my hands on- eg, the Wikipedia pages for the earlier Euro-elections constituency results are mostly blank with an invitation for anyone with the results data to please insert them against the appropriate constituency! This has been done for a few constituencies but not I fear for the Kent ones , but even those constituencies that have the numbers lack other basic details like the names of the candidates! I had thought we had problems chasing a few obscure local government by-elections in this era, I did not expect problems with elections to the European Parliament.And I am cursing the fact that the comprehensive records pre 1997 that I had to then kept, perished in my house fire.Even so the best records I have retained happen to refer to 1994, when the Lib Dem candidate happened to be one of my constituents, John Macdonald. Has anybody a good idea as to a reliable source for constituency results for Euro-elections over this era? This one is quite good: www.election.demon.co.uk/ |
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Post by yellowperil on Jun 5, 2018 22:10:36 GMT
Andrew_S -Thanks,that saves me a lot of scratching around. Oddly,I thought I'd tried that one and failed to find the Euros there- maybe simply not having scrolled down far enough!
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