A Beeston garden and voting in the 2017 General Election or what has happened to my generation?

The first of a two part weekend post, which I will add to during the day. First, last Sunday's visit to a garden on Marlborough Road, which was open as part of the Beeston and Chilwell Open Gardens Weekend. What made the garden memorable and a pleasure was its attainability — I left with the feeling that our garden, good as it, could also be given a managable vegetable patch and a slightly larger pond and I so loved the arbour. I will let the pictures speak for themselves:

A couple of days ago I went in search of statistics about the 2017 General Election turnout, not believing reports that voters aged 70 and over like myself had voted for the Conservatives in large numbers. I found the YouGov report on the web which made me ashamed on my generation, that we may well be deserving of all the ire we attract from younger voters. I lifted a few of the many tables in the report which I reproduce below:

I am staggered by the fact that less than one in five over 70s like myself voted Labour. I clearly keep the wrong company, being surrounded by fellow oldies like myself who are, for most part, Party members or Labour voters.

It would be interesting to see these statistics for each General Election from 1945 onwards. Again, I may well have lived in a different world, wanting my vote and using it at the first opportunity and ever since.

At someone who has been retired since the age of 62, I find it difficult to grasp the fact that less than a quarter of retirees vote Labour. What has made my generation so collectively stupid?

And finally how we voted based on our education. I have no qualifications to my name, attending a secondary modern school, leaving at 15, not knowing what a GCE or a university was, but I thought I had a good education, I could read, write, add up in the days before job application forms. You saw an advert, sent off a letter, then had your interview. By the time I had the opportunity to go onto further education (Ruskin College via my union), I had a family, a mortgage and a good job. Somehow I got by and did alright by my own expectations. How most of my educational group comes to be voting Conservative is, truly, beyond my comprehension!

Us oldies need to be reminded of what life was like and how Labour was instrumental in making our lives better. Perhaps we need a Beeston/Broxtowe 'Oldies for Greg Marshall Group'?

The bad news: Soubry hangs on with a little help from Labour. The good news: Labour now has a government in waiting if it chooses not to be an opposition.

As I feared, softly softly did it for Anna Soubry and for that she is to be admired and congratulated. She was keeping her powder dry, just in case it led to a call today from Theresa May.

On BBC-TV's election coverage in the early hours of this morning she looked tired and shell shocked, not, I suspect by the fact that she survived Labour's onslaught in Broxtowe, but by what had happened across the UK. Seeing the game was up for Theresa May, she emerged from the shell she had made for herself and said '(Theresa May) should consider her position'. When asked by Dimbleby about her reduced majority she pointed out that she had got elected in 2010 on a smaller majority.

Anna Soubry in her eve of poll email listed '10 pledges', 9 and 10 being:

I will continue to campaign in Broxtowe and in Parliament for a fairer society based on tolerance, openness, free speech and democracy.

I accept and will continue to honour the EU Referendum result. We are leaving the EU and must now get a good deal. I will continue to make the case for the positive benefits of immigration and the single market.

Personally, I don't doubt her commitment to these things and I suspect her decision to stay away from public debates was to protect herself from saying things she might later regret, since the general thinking at the beginning of the campaign was that the result was going to be a landslide for Theresa May. In the event the election I described as 'madness' for Jeremy Corbyn and Labour turned out to be madness for May. The result nationally is as a good as a victory, if not better, given the fact that I cannot imagine another general election now until after Brexit in 2019. But I digress, I want to stay with Broxtowe for the moment. Here is an updated version of my Broxtowe constituency general election results summary 2001–2017 (click on table to enlarge):

Last night Greg Marshall got more votes than any Labour Broxtowe constituency candidate from 2001 to date and only the 2001 percentage turnout for Labour (48.6%) beat Greg's 45.3%. He was just 864 votes from victory. Put another way, had 431 fewer voters pit their cross next to Soubry and 432 more had chosen Greg, he would have won — a margin of less than 2%. Labour's mistake in Broxtowe was as I feared and said in a couple of my posts — it made too much noise and in the process pulled out Conservative voters as well as Labour voters. I hope this lesson will be learned and learned well so that come the next general election Greg can win handsomely. The awful truth is that, as I have also pointed out in recent posts, high turnouts work against Labour and my summary table demonstrates this point.

Nationally, I claimed that the very best Labour could hope for was a hung parliament. I didn't expect Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party to achieve this, but I am joyous and proud that they did. The media this morning in all its talk of Theresa May and the Conservatives hanging onto power makes no mention of parliamentary 'pairing', which allows MPs to be absence from Parliament because a Labour MP 'pairs' with a Conservative MP so both can be absent from Parliament at the same time. I hope Corby will tell May there will be no pairing during the course of this parliament with Conservatives and that Labour will only pair with the SNP, Liberals and Caroline Lucas.

I also hope Labour behaves like a government in waiting and not an opposition. Oppose May on nothing, put forward an alternative policy instead and dare the other parties to vote the policy down. 

I heard Corbyn say that if he became PM he would ensure the rights of EU citizens in the UK today. He still can and Anna Soubry will have to support him or break her 10th pledge (see above). Voters will see Labour being positive all the time and the Conservatives as being anti everything. 

My overwhelming wish is that Labour will work with the SNP, Liberal and Green parties to ensure the next UK Parliament is elected by the same PR system as the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly. Abolishing the House of Lords is taken as a given. Personally, I see no need for a second chamber.

Every vote should count and that is still not the case. This is an injustice we should not lose sight of in the heady days ahead as Labour Party members come to terms with what, by any measure, is a stunning victory for Labour.

I will return to the national result in a weekend post, having watched the rest of Nottinghamshire, Stoke South (which we lost), Hastings (which Amber Rudd held by a whisker), Greenwich, Birmingham and the Black Country closely, all places in which I have some kind of interest.

What I would like to see on eve of poll this coming Wednesday

All the candidates in Broxtowe will be trying to reach their supporters with eve of poll leaflets. I am of the mind that it is not too late for all the candidates to work with Broxtowe Borough Council to produce a shared eve of poll card encouraging all registered electors to vote on Thursday. Below is my stab at a simple A6 card printed both sides. If all the parties work together they could reach every home in the Brtoxtowe constituency on Wednesday.

No doubt someone could design something better, but, somehow, all the political parties, have to come together to ensure that despair and cynicism do not result in a low turnout on Thursday. It behoves all politicians and would-be MPs to show leadership. Right now they can unite in Broxtowe in encouraging every elector to vote on Thursday.

I know it's not going to happened, but it doesn't stop me imagining the possibility — just like leaflets containing 500 word election statements from all candidates published by the Election Commission via local councils and sent to every voter. This is what is done for many elections, such as trade unions, pension funds etc. 

Labour Party manifesto on local government and democracy

From the Labour Party manifesto for the 2017 General Election two sections which matter to me:

Local communities

Councils deliver vital local services to our communities, but their budgets have been slashed by Conservative cuts. This has led to a deterioration of local services, from bin collection to road repair, and the loss of important community assets such as libraries, youth centres and women’s refuges.

Labour believes in devolving power to local communities but that requires the necessary funding follows. You cannot empower local government if you impoverish it.

A Labour government will give local government extra funding next year. We will initiate a review into reforming council tax and business rates and consider new options such as a land value tax, to ensure local government has sustainable funding for the long term.

Labour is the party of devolution and we believe in handing back power to communities. We will devolve powers over economic development, complete with the necessary funding.

Extending Democracy

A Labour government will establish a Constitutional Convention to examine and advise on reforming of the way Britain works at a fundamental level.

We will consult on its form and terms of reference and invite recommendations on extending democracy.

This is about where power and sovereignty lies – in politics, the economy, the justice system, and in our communities.

The Convention will look at extending democracy locally, regionally and nationally, considering the option of a more federalised country.

Our fundamental belief is that the Second Chamber should be democratically elected. In the interim period, we will seek to end the hereditary principle and reduce the size of the current House of Lords as part of a wider package of constitutional reform to address the growing democratic deficit across Britain.

We will extend the Freedom of Information Act to private companies that run public services.

We will reduce the voting age to 16. At 16, you are eligible to pay tax, get married or even join the army. You deserve a vote.

I hope a Labour government gives the job of chairing the proposed Constitutional Convention to Graham Allen. He has the credentials and commitment. I am assuming the Convention will be free to recommend extending the proportional voting system used in Scotland and Wales to England and the UK Parliament as well.

Graham Allen has argued the local government needs its 'a Magna Carta' to protect it from central government and I agree with him.

I am in no doubt that the quality of all our daily lives has been improved more by local councils than Westminster. The Labour Party has seen the aim of its structure as being to primarily elect MPs. I believe it should be to elect councillors and from this will come electing MPs.

Last week in two consecutive posts we received four 'Vote Labour' posters. We have yet to see a poster saying 'Vote Greg Marshall'. I rest my case. If Labour wants to win Broxtowe it has to do more to promote its greatest asset — a truly local candidate. 

The erosion of the Labour vote in Broxtowe does not look good for 8th June

The tables below are quite telling and suggest that for Labour to win they need a low poll.

Click on a table to enlarge.

In the four general elections from 2001 to 2015 the percentage turnout increased from 68.5% to 74.4%, which is good news. The bad news is that the Labour Party's vote fell from 23,636 in 2001 to 19,676 in 2015.

The Green Party and UKIP did not contest the 2001 General Election in Broxtowe (hence the zero). The Conservative vote went up in every election, as did the Liberal for three elections until the party's vote collapsed 2015.

I heard Nick Palmer say more than once that he lost because electors voted for the Green Party. The truth is a little different. He lost because more people voted.

Perhaps what surprises me most is that the no. of electors fell from c73,690 in 2001 to c71,828 in 2015. It will be interesting to see the size of the 2017 electorate, given the number of students now living Beeston. Based on my own experience, which I have blogged about, Broxtowe Borough Council does not make it easy to register as a voter, nor is it ever keen to share electoral information (eg. the no. of voters living in each ward and polling districts).

Students attending Nottingham University, based on my experience of being actively involved in Dunkirk and Lenton ward in Nottingham, are more likely to vote Conservative than Labour. It has been their failure to vote in city council elections which has kept the ward Labour. In other words if students living in Beeston have managed to register as voters, the chances are they won't be voting for Greg Marshall.

Like it or not there has been a erosion of the Labour vote in Broxtowe since 2001 and I am working on tables using data from borough and county council elections to see if the trend in general elections has been mirrored in local elections. The above table is an attempt to match county council ward results with the Broxtowe constituency and not the Borough, so I have excluded Eastwood and the Beauvale/Greasley ward (which includes Brinsley). It shows Labour's low point in the five county council elections between 2001 and 2017 as being in 2009 — the year before the 2010 general election. The evidence suggests that the party which gets most votes in the county council elections wins the general election, so you understand why Labour entered the 2015 election on a high, not that I thought the optimism was well founded and said as much when I blogged in December 2014 about the Toton by-election result. I hope I'm wrong.

Broxtowe Borough Council is being its usual awkward self, not providing data from the county council election results it could compile for me in five minutes at most (ie. the actual number of electors in Broxtowe by county wards and by polling districts in Bramcote & Beeston North ward). I asked for it a week ago. It seems they are 'very busy' registering voters (I wonder how many will share my experience of being refused registration  by Broxtowe Borough Council and having to appeal?).

Perhaps Greg Marshall has to follow Theresa May's example and pretend to be a loser. That as good a candidate as he is, he needs every Broxtowe vote he can get and not just Labour die-hards. He needs to have different messages for different parts of the constituency. In the county council election just gone Steve Carr used this tactic to good effect and I admit to being full of admiration for him and what he achieved.

Theresa May knows that the worst thing that can happen as far as she and the Conservatives are concerned is a low turnout. Historic evidence suggests that the Labour Party should focus on identifying its core vote, working it and praying for a low turnout.

When I was younger and running elections I used to identify the core vote early, then work it. I was the view that I could win any local election with 10% of the vote as Labour by election day. As far those firmly against Labour were concerned there was no election taking place. I simply didn't contact them and as a strategy it worked. I am pretty sure the Conservatives in Broxtowe are doing this. 

In the county council election my wife and I had to pick a window poster for Ellie Winfield up from the Labour Party stall on Beeston High Road. For the 2015 borough council election we had to make our own. By now every Labour Party member in Broxtowe should have been taken a window poster. We're still waiting.

On county council election day only Steve Carr was outside the polling station in Bramcote & Beeston North ward where we went to vote. No one from Labour was there. If you can't distribute posters to your members or have tellers at every polling station then you get some inkling why things are as they are.

Finally, saying this in private doesn't seem to work or get any acknowledgement, and your enemies will delight in your shortcomings, saying nothing — hence this blog as a critical friend.

Anna Soubry heads straight for the gutter

Within hours of the General Election kicking off Anna Soubry's first e-mail shows that she intends to spend the next five weeks in the political gutter. To quote:

'Support from More United (for me) came shortly after Broxtowe Labour broke its long standing tradition of selecting moderates as their parliamentary candidate. Broxtowe Labour have selected a member of the hard left to stand in the June General Election. He is not just a full supporter of Jeremy Corbyn, but someone who has named John McDonnell as his political hero "the epitome of a progressive socialist". The Shadow Chancellor is one of the most divisive figures ever in the Labour movement. When I called him out on BBC Question Time for failing to stand up against vile sexist abuse from the hard left towards moderate Labour women MP's, many thanked me both publicly and privately.

McDonnell said of the IRA it was "about time we started honouring those involved in the armed struggle. It was the bombs and bullets and sacrifice made by the likes of Bobby Sands, that brought Britain to the negotiating table. The peace we have now is due to the action of the IRA".

John McDonnell has never apologised for the content of what he said - only (and only recently) for any offence he caused by his comments.

I very much hope Broxtowe Labour's parliamentary candidate disassociates himself unequivocally with McDonnells comments about the IRA and might consider some less unpleasant and extreme Labour figure as a fitting hero.'

Notice how she does not name Greg Marshall. If a named Labour Party candidate doesn't exist he cannot defeat her - this seems to be Anna's approach from day one.

The 55% Irish in my DNA is enough to ensure the 100% Englishman that I am understands that Conservative Unionists have, historically, more experience of state sponsored terrorism than any group of Irish nationalists and to draw attention to Ireland today of all days, well, that shows Anna Soubry has no intention of addressing the important issues facing Beeston residents both locally and nationally.

I had thought until today that Mrs May was going to box clever and that Anna was going to follow her example, but now I see hope. Both have chosen personal abuse instead of taking the imperious path.

I admit to still being fearful about the outcome of both the county council and general elections because of the way elections work. Yes, I would like the Liberals and Greens to give Labour a free run in Broxtowe and, in return, Labour should stand down in seats where a Liberal or Green candidate has a better chance of defeating the Conservative candidate. I know it won't happen, but today Anna Soubry and her sidekick Theresa May have given me hope that wasn't there this morning. I thank them both.