Michael Howard loses Folkestone & Hythe in 1997

[greenhert]

The Liberal Democrats really should have defeated Michael Howard in Folkestone & Hythe in 1997; selecting a more suitable candidate would have likely achieved this. It was clear Labour could not win that seat but that the Liberal Democrats had the potential to do so. If this had happened, it is very unlikely Michael Howard would have returned to Parliament in 2001, meaning he would not have become Conservative leader in 2004.

Would this scenario have made a significant difference to the 2005 and 2010 general election outcomes?

[Arthur Figgis]

He won by over 6,000 votes.
As for Laws being not a suitable candidate, that falls into the same category as all the ‘analysis’ you write about elections- you’re conflating your views with reality.

[greenhert]

Jan 14, 2019 21:40:04 GMT Arthur Figgis said:

He won by over 6,000 votes.
As for Laws being not a suitable candidate, that falls into the same category as all the ‘analysis’ you write about elections- you’re conflating your views with reality.

Also look at the falls in both the Conservative and Liberal Democrat vote share in Folkestone & Hythe in 1997. There were other seats which were strictly Con-LD contests where the tactical vote unwound as well, though e.g. Salisbury.

[carlton43]

Jan 14, 2019 21:28:15 GMT greenhert said:

The Liberal Democrats really should have defeated Michael Howard in Folkestone & Hythe in 1997; selecting a more suitable candidate would have likely achieved this. It was clear Labour could not win that seat but that the Liberal Democrats had the potential to do so. If this had happened, it is very unlikely Michael Howard would have returned to Parliament in 2001, meaning he would not have become Conservative leader in 2004.

Would this scenario have made a significant difference to the 2005 and 2010 general election outcomes?

No difference at all.

[Deleted]

Howard won quite comfortably by 12%. The fact that the Lib Dems lost vote share in 2005 despite throwing the kitchen sink at the seat and enjoying a good result overall perhaps says a lot about their ability to campaign in the area.

[yellowperil]

Perhaps I should intervene in this as one of the foot soldiers in innumerable general elections in this constituency- as a leading activist in Ashford I was always being sent down to fight in what was for many years a target seat in the next door constituency (in more recent years the target would have switched to Maidstone with no greater effect). So I think I am talking about all general elections between 1983 and 2010, and 1997 comes bang in the middle of that series.

First of all, a comment on the nature of the constituency, which was far from uniform, so quite difficult to pitch a campaign that appealed to all parts of the Constituency. Folkestone itself was/is very different from the rest of the constituency, but for the middle years of this period it was overwhelmingly Liberal, apart from the posh Tory bits around the Leas etc, though even those were turning in the best years and I have personal canvass knowledge to attest that. That Liberal control in those parts came from the hard work done by the local government campaigners like Paul Marsh and Linda Cuffley, important perhaps to say that given what subsequently happened to them, and local Lib Dems will find it hard to give them credit. But Hythe was much more solidly Tory then (much more volatile more recently with a greenish tinge, but not then), the Marsh was weird and unpredictable (well that's Romney Marsh for you), but the remaining rural areas basically in the Downs, were immovably Tory for the most part. so the strategy, mostly , was to maximise the Lib vote in Folkestone and pick up as many votes as possible elsewhere to remain in contention and as it turned out that was never enough, though if you viewed the constituency from the party HQ in Sandgate, with a great sea of posters around you all of the right colour, it seemed impossible to think you could lose.

Now, as to the candidates. I worked with 5 different candidates (I knew of Bernard Budd but never really was involved with him,)so John Macdonald, Linda Cuffley, David Laws,Peter Carroll, and Lynne Beaumont.Of those Peter was absolutely outstanding, head and shoulders above the rest, and John Macdonald was also very good, experienced, very bright, maybe just a little bit too laid back, and the two females were okay in a way without ever really lighting the world up at that level, but I have to say Laws was as bad in every way as Carroll was good. Obviously very bright but very poor on social and organisational skills. I was pretty horrified when he was later given Yeovil to mess up. None of these criticisms are of Laws the political thinker, even though I am a long way from his orangebookery, but his point of view needs to be heard within the parliamentary party. These criticisms were very much about his qualities as a candidate, qualities you need regardless of your position on the political spectrum. Maybe though, his political position didn't help in the context of Folkestone & Hythe, too right wing for Folkestone, too liberal for the rest. So I do rather endorse  greenhert   and his comment about candidate suitability. Yet if John Macdonald and,especially, Peter Carroll couldn't crack it, maybe nobody could.

[The Bishop]

Jan 15, 2019 0:47:55 GMT Sandy said:

Howard won quite comfortably by 12%

Yes, because the LibDems performed notably poorly and were almost caught by "no hope" Labour. Which differed from many other LibDem target seats in that election.

Thanks to yellowperil for suggesting some possible reasons for this being the case.

[finsobruce]

Jan 15, 2019 11:54:58 GMT The Bishop said:

Jan 15, 2019 0:47:55 GMT Sandy said:

Howard won quite comfortably by 12%

Yes, because the LibDems performed notably poorly and were almost caught by "no hope" Labour. Which differed from many other LibDem target seats in that election.

Thanks to yellowperil for suggesting some possible reasons for this being the case.

I seem to remember (and it being recorded on here) that the Lib Dem group on Shepway collapsed in a welter of personal feuds and went from controlling the council to having no members at all in quite a short space of time. 

Interested to hear what yellowperil had to say about Mr Laws. Can't say I'm unduly surprised. 

[carlton43]

Jan 15, 2019 12:02:17 GMT finsobruce said:

Jan 15, 2019 11:54:58 GMT The Bishop said:

Yes, because the LibDems performed notably poorly and were almost caught by "no hope" Labour. Which differed from many other LibDem target seats in that election.

Thanks to yellowperil for suggesting some possible reasons for this being the case.

I seem to remember (and it being recorded on here) that the Lib Dem group on Shepway collapsed in a welter of personal feuds and went from controlling the council to having no members at all in quite a short space of time. 

Interested to hear what yellowperil had to say about Mr Laws. Can't say I'm unduly surprised. 

In fact just like Ashford itself.

There is no hunger at all in Kent for LDs as LDs but just for assiduous, attentive, competent councillors. When they field a raft of those with sensible policy they win seats but NOT because they are LDs. That is their enduring problem. Conservatives and Labour can win on the brand name alone in many places. That must be irritating to them but it is a plain fact.

[yellowperil]

Jan 15, 2019 12:02:17 GMT finsobruce said:

Jan 15, 2019 11:54:58 GMT The Bishop said:

Yes, because the LibDems performed notably poorly and were almost caught by "no hope" Labour. Which differed from many other LibDem target seats in that election.

Thanks to yellowperil for suggesting some possible reasons for this being the case.

I seem to remember (and it being recorded on here) that the Lib Dem group on Shepway collapsed in a welter of personal feuds and went from controlling the council to having no members at all in quite a short space of time. 

Interested to hear what yellowperil had to say about Mr Laws. Can't say I'm unduly surprised. 

On the first point , yes you are quite right and I referred to that rather obliquely when I mentioned Linda Cuffley and Paul Marsh, who started the rot by having a big row with nearly everybody else on the vexed question of closing public toilets, and then left the Lib Dems to start a People First party ( I never did understand why closing public toilets was putting people first). Further rows followed and it all gets a bit Byzantine. But in fact no Lib Dem candidate improved on the vote of John Macdonald as a Liberal Alliance candidate in 1987 - 18,789 votes or  37.3%. John was quite an influence on me and was actually one of my helpers and constituents  when I was a councillor, but I still rate Peter Carroll above him as a campaigner, not least for his national work on behalf of the Gurkha people, which may or maybe not have been a vote -winner. Getting Joanne Lumley involved  was quite a coup, anyway. All of that after Laws had moved on.

[yellowperil]

Jan 15, 2019 12:07:34 GMT carlton43 said:

Jan 15, 2019 12:02:17 GMT finsobruce said:

I seem to remember (and it being recorded on here) that the Lib Dem group on Shepway collapsed in a welter of personal feuds and went from controlling the council to having no members at all in quite a short space of time. 

Interested to hear what yellowperil had to say about Mr Laws. Can't say I'm unduly surprised. 

In fact just like Ashford itself.

There is no hunger at all in Kent for LDs as LDs but just for assiduous, attentive, competent councillors. When they field a raft of those with sensible policy they win seats but NOT because they are LDs. That is their enduring problem. Conservatives and Labour can win on the brand name alone in many places. That must be irritating to them but it is a plain fact.

You are so right about this and at the very same time, so utterly wrong. Yes there is a sense that Lib Dems only win here locally  by being well above the general level of competence, and that isn't just true of this corner of Kent , it's true just about everywhere. And conversely if that level of competence drops for any reason, retribution falls much more quickly and completely than it would for say a Tory or a Labour Party representative. We all know the old donkey with a blue/ red rosette saying, which is another way of putting "brand name alone".  It is relatively quite difficult for a new LD candidate  to hold a council seat vacated by an incumbent LD (though I managed it, it can be done).  And yes I can assure you it is indeed very irritating. Making the transition from district or county council candidate to MP anywhere in the south-east is very difficult, and though we have had  examples in Surrey and Sussex (Guildford, Lewes, Eastbourne)  we have not managed it in Kent in spite of strenuous efforts in F& H, and more recently in Maidstone.  At constituency level there is so much more variety of outlook to take on board and my comments about F&H above could be repeated for most Kent constituencies.

Where I think you are wrong is assuming that those  "assiduous, attentive competent councillors "  are people who just happen by some quirk of fate to wear a Lib Dem label. Rather they are what they are because they live and breathe the Lib Dem way of looking at things and is that which gives them these exceptional qualities. And if I did not believe that this can sooner or later be translated into success at parliamentary level, I would probably never have started on what I might like to think of as a lifetime's work. 

[sirbenjamin]

I don't agree that the LDs should've deposed Howard in 97.

I do, however, believe that a Cameron-style leader would've made bigger gains in 2005. I also think Hague would've done better. Likewise Portillo.

In fact, I struggle to think of any plausible leader who would've done numerically worse than Howard. Yes, the dice were loaded; the electoral arithmetic was as stacked against more than any time before or since, but with a couple of % points, that inbuilt disadvantage itself would've dissipated somewhat.

It's not a coincidence that the LDs tend to do better when the other main party leaders are of an Authoritarian bent.

[Foggy]

Jan 15, 2019 12:02:17 GMT finsobruce said:

Jan 15, 2019 11:54:58 GMT The Bishop said:

Interested to hear what yellowperil had to say about Mr Laws. Can't say I'm unduly surprised. 

I had the misfortune to meet Laws just 5 months after he was first elected and was distinctly unimpressed. 

Then again, the recent tributes around this part of the country to his predecessor demonstrate what a tough act he had to follow.

[iain]

It seems fair to point out here that, despite his dreadful result in 2015, Laws’s performance in 2010 exceeded (on all possible measures) anything Paddy Ashdown managed in the constituency.

[Deleted]

Michael Portillo ends up becoming Tory leader?

[yellowperil]

Jan 15, 2019 23:57:47 GMT iain said:

It seems fair to point out here that, despite his dreadful result in 2015, Laws’s performance in 2010 exceeded (on all possible measures) anything Paddy Ashdown managed in the constituency.

I think that was a combination of the state of the nation in 2010, the residual Paddy halo effect once he had actually gone, and maybe a relative right- winger pinching a few potential Tory votes first time out, until the Tories realise they can vote for themselves.

[yellowperil]

Jan 19, 2019 13:31:44 GMT @conservativeestimate said:

Michael Portillo ends up becoming Tory leader?

and now what effect does that have on the railways?

[heslingtonian]

In my view Howard did a remarkably good job in his short time as Leader. He largely united the Party, promoted new talent such as Cameron and Osborne, massively improved the Party’s campaigning machine under Lynton Crosby and oversaw the Party actually making a decent number of General Election gains. Do not underestimate the importance of morale to a Party that had gone 22 years without making net gains at a General Election.

In addition, we should not forget that many commentators in 2003 were seriously suggesting the Conservatives could be relegated to third party status under the dreadful IDS. Without those gains in 2005, a return to Government in 2010 would not have been possible.

[gwynthegriff]

Jan 19, 2019 16:23:16 GMT yellowperil said:

Jan 19, 2019 13:31:44 GMT @conservativeestimate said:

Michael Portillo ends up becoming Tory leader?

and now what effect does that have on the railways?

Fewer tedious programmes about them?

[Devil Wincarnate]

Jan 19, 2019 17:40:24 GMT heslingtonian said:

In my view Howard did a remarkably good job in his short time as Leader. He largely united the Party, promoted new talent such as Cameron and Osborne, massively improved the Party’s campaigning machine under Lynton Crosby and oversaw the Party actually making a decent number of General Election gains. Do not underestimate the importance of morale to a Party that had gone 22 years without making net gains at a General Election.

In addition, we should not forget that many commentators in 2003 were seriously suggesting the Conservatives could be relegated to third party status under the dreadful IDS. Without those gains in 2005, a return to Government in 2010 would not have been possible.

My recollection at the time was that most party members I knew was that Howard was a positive choice, and was spoken of very highly.  He was very visible across constituencies and gave off an air of reassurance that he actually had a command of the organisation compared to IDS.