Broxtowe Borough Council elections. 1973–2019 What do they tell us?

Click on table to enlarge. 

Labour has only only won outright control of Broxtowe Borough Council twice (in 1995 and 1999). The Conservatives have won outright control 7 times and there have been 3 elections where no party has won outright control.

The Liberals did not have any councillors prior to 1987 but if their aim was to achieve a balance of power rather than outright control then they have been more successful than Labour.

The 1983 elections were muddied by the presence of SDP candidates who split the left vote to the advantage of the conservatives (their most councillors ever — 38).

The 2019 election on 2 May may see the intervention of candidates standing as 'Independents' supporting Anna Soubry and the breakaway 'Tiggies' (The Independent Group) and it would be foolhardy to try and predict the outcome of such a intervention.

Logic says Anna Soubry needs to create a grassroots organisation across the constituency if she wants to hold onto her seat for more than one general election. When better to road test it than in May’s borough elections.

We can all play around with statistics, but something special will have to happen in the next six weeks for Labour to take control of Broxtowe Borough Council. Perhaps, just perhaps, Anna Soubry fielding candidates might just split the Conservative vote enough for Labour to win — but this is assuming no Labour voters are tempted to vote Tiggy if they get the opportunity.

In the meantime all Labour can do is to motivate its supporters to vote whilst not making a lot of noise in the process. Ideally, Labour wants Conservative and Liberal supporters to fall asleep on 1st May and not wake up until 3rd May!

A Liberal take and N2 goes unmentioned in borough elections

A few posts ago I mentioned the lack of local political party manifestos and I have just found a thirty-three page local election manifesto by the Liberals, which the image below comes from:

You can find the manifesto on the Broxtowe Liberal-Democrat website with a link clearly marked on their homepage. It makes no mention of N2, but enthuses about HS2. My take on life and the world is a little different, but it would churlish not to acknowledge their manifesto, into which they have obviously put a great deal of effort. Given the page above, I wonder what the Liberals make of N2 and its potential impact on Broxtowe? It isn't mentioned in their manifesto.

It will be interesting to see how the Liberals get on this Thursday in the borough elections. I admit that I want to see a Labour controlled council, but I also believe in proportional representation and lowering the voting age to 16 (and have done so since I was sixteen, after attending my first Labour Party ward selection meeting in Wembley), but this is something for another day.

N2 combined authority latest...

The following press release appeared on the Broxtowe Borough Council website last week. It is worth reading. It is something I blogged about on 5 January 2015 when I described the proposed N2CA as 'a nonsense', insomuch as I believe any super 'combined' authority should be based on the Derby and Nottingham conurbation (click here to read my 5 January post).

I am sure it is a topic I will return to, but N2 is expected to be a reality by the beginning of 2016 and there are still a good few questions which need asking (and answering). It will be interesting to see how quickly the new borough council initiates a wider public discussion about N2 and its local implications.

The press release reads:

Nottingham And Nottinghamshire Take Next Step Towards Devolution
28/04/2015 - Leaders of local councils are at the front of the queue for the devolution of more key powers from central Government after ground-breaking plans have been submitted.

The nine Nottinghamshire councils, including the city, have worked closer than ever before to come up with plans for a new  Combined Authority, called N2, that would be able to take key decisions around transport, growth and jobs.

Along with the plans for the neighbouring Derbyshire Combined Authority, D2, these will be the first Combined Authority plans in the country outside of the metropolitan authorities.

A Combined Authority would be able to take more strategic decisions on areas such as transport, economic development and regeneration. Most other Core Cities already have Combined Authorities or are working towards them.  In Nottinghamshire, the Combined Authority will cover the 'N2' area and involves the City, County and all seven district Borough Councils.

The nine existing N2 local authorities may choose to grant the Combined Authority some of their own powers and central Government may choose to devolve powers through the recently announced Devolution Deal process.

Any costs will be met from existing budgets. The Combined Authority means the nine existing N2 Local Authorities will be making decisions together rather than separately - improving the effectiveness and efficiency of decision making.

All nine Leaders of the existing local authorities will make decisions jointly, with each Leader having one vote. Once established, the Combined Authority may choose to invite other non-voting members to sit on its Board and these may include representatives of the business and third sectors. D2N2 Local Enterprise Partnership have supported and encouraged N2's proposals.

Work on N2 will continue during 2015 and progress depends in part on the Parliamentary process. N2 could be formally established as early as December 2015.

Issued by Nottingham City Council.

The last sentence and line appears at the end of the press release, which I assume the City Council issued on behalf of all the member local authorities.

Local elections — the message is in the medium

Over the past couple of months there has been a steady stream of election material through our letter boxes and I have to admit to the fact that I did some delivering for the Labour Party in Beeston North and West wards until my left knee gave out (x-ray next Friday and physio a week later).

You may have noticed that most of the stuff coming through your doors has related to the general election and, somehow, all the parliamentary candidates have given local issues a lot of attention and when that happens, you know the political parties standing do not believe they can win on national issues alone.

It is the same with the European elections. The focus is always on national issues and I believe the parties use it as a kind of test bed for ideas relating to parliamentary elections.

Normally, local elections are not hi-jacked because general elections and local elections do not happen at the same time, but when the dates are the same, local elections get relegated to a distant second place and this tells you, quite clearly, that the main purpose of all political parties is to elect MPs.

In these circumstance I think the local council has a responsibility to step in and actively remind voters that there is a local election taking place and in this respect Nottingham City Council has issued this poster. I received this copy by e-mail, as I have not removed my name from the City Council's mailing list.

By way of contrast, Broxtowe Borough Council's website says little about the borough elections on 7 May and does nothing graphically on its home page to draw attention to the fact.

In my ward, Beeston North, only the Greens has so far failed to push a specifically local leaflet through my door and the Conservative's one leaflet has been one for Beeston as a whole. UKIP has managed one and it has been the most punchy to date. The Liberals have managed two, as have Labour.

I hope the Greens do manage to push a leaflet through my letterbox before Thursday. I would like to have their take on Beeston North, Beeston and Broxtowe Borough Council.

If Parliament sticks with fixed five year Parliaments, the local and general elections will not occur on the same day again until 2025 (also Nottinghamshire County Council elections, assuming it still exists) and then in 2035 when local elections and a general election will again happen on the same day.

One thing is sure and that that is the world of local politics and government is going to change. Nick Palmer is of the view that local government voting reform  may lead to some kind of proportional representation and, if he is right (and I hope he is), then the next Broxtowe Borough Council elections in 2019 will very different to what is happening now.

We shall have to wait and hope, and in the meantime try to keep local democracy alive and well in Broxtowe.

Broxtowe Borough Council elections: what not putting up candidates tells us

I have compiled the table below from information you can find on the Broxtowe Borough Council elections webpage, where there is a notice for each ward listing all the candidates properly nominated (all of them).

This year there will be a Broxtowe* Parliamentary election on the same day (*Ashfield if you live in the north of Broxtowe), so the ability of political parties to field candidates in the ward elections  tells us about their chances of electing our next MP.

Straight away it becomes clear that the Liberals, Greens, UKIP and the other candidate are, at best, spoilers. If they had any real commitment to the communities which make up Broxtowe, they would be fielding Borough Council election candidates in every ward. Even the Conservatives have no candidates in one ward (Eastwood St. Mary) and are one candidate short in Kimberley. Only the Labour Party has a full slate of candidates.

At the end of the day local elections are little better in the minds of many Westminster MPs (and national party HQs) than dress rehersals for the main event - a General Election. If you doubt my assertion, how do you justify or explain the erosion of local power and democracy in the years since 1974? It is no accident that constituency parties organise and oversee branches and not the other way round.

Because I am a liberation socialist I am also a localist and fall into the camp that every election should be contested with a full slate of candidates and that local power matters. The failure in Broxtowe of the Liberals, Greens and UKIP to field candidates in a good few wards tell you that they are organisationally weak, either unable to find candidates or find just twelve people in the ward who will support the nomination of a candidate in the ward. What other explanation can there be which is not even more damning (and one I have already referred to)?

When local and Parliamentary elections occur on the same day, local council results often favour the party which wins the local constituency Parliamentary election - which should mean the Labour Party in Broxtowe. I hope so.

It is also very short-sighted of a party not to field candidates in every ward. They will be unable to measure their support accurately or to use what scant resources they have in terms of money and volunteers to best advantage.

The outcome of both the local and Parliamentary elections in Broxtow could be determined by what ballot paper a voter chooses to mark first. It is going to be that kind of election. Very different to any other I have known in my fifty years as a voter.

I want Nick Palmer to win and for Labour to have a clear majority on the Borough Council.

We shall have to wait until the early hours of 8 May to see if it happens.

And so it begins… the general election

The coming local and general elections on Thursday 7 May will be my first in Broxtowe and Beeston. I am not new to voting, having voted for the first time in 1966. In every general election I have voted Labour and will do so again. The same goes for local elections, except for one occasion in Harrow when, in the absence of a Labour candidate in a Greater London Council by-election, I joined some 5,000 others and voted Communist.

I have heard enough already to know that cynicism is rife and if this persists until election day, then UKIP, the cynics party, could garner enough votes to muddle the outcome both in Broxtowe and nationally. The Greens might even have a part to play as well, especially if ex-Liberal voters by-pass Labour. One thing is sure, at the end of it all there are going to be millions of dissatisfied voters, who will see their preferred party gain a decent percentage of the vote without the elected MPs they deserve.

This scenario could be turned on its head by a single event during the election campaign. I have no idea what, but just as Gordon Brown lost 2010 for Labour with a few choice words about one voter, it could happen again, or some last minute 'scandal' could toss millions of votes into the air.

Once general elections were much more clear cut, just two or three names on the ballot paper with no political description attached. Then you voted for the person, not the party (occasionally the former was true), and there were no official polling cards, just those delivered by the parties to their own supporters and collected in as voters left the polling stations. Now, the whole experience is marred. It is not just voters not trusting politicians, now many don't trust the system.

I will go on delivering for the Labour Party and helping on election day until the polling stations close at 10pm because I want Nick Palmer to win. My only other wish is that the Green Party candidate does not lose his deposit.

This is the first election in which I will be a deliberate tactical voter. Why? Simply, I want to see the Tory Party defeated and Nick Palmer promises not to be a party hack once he gets to Westminster and I want to believe him.

I suspect Nick will vote for continued austerity and yet more cuts, but I have never expected everything from any candidate I have voted for. I want Nick to be his own person first, as willing to confront voters in Broxtowe as well as Party whips in London.

I know one thing for sure, if enough non-Labour/Tory voters hold their nerve and vote for their first choice candidate, then they could distort a hundred outcomes across England in ways not even the cleverest pollsters will be able to predict.

My one message to Labour is hammer on about the damage two years of waiting for a European Union 'in-out' referendum in 2017 could do jobs across the country. Europe and immigration per se are not the enemy. It is the political elite and their corporate capitalist masters who seek to accrue as much power and wealth as they can at our expense, and we collude with them by voting for their political candidates and parties (which includes UKIP).

Without doubt this is toughest election to call since I first voted in 1966 and I suspect the result will change political attitudes forever. Mine included. England post-7 May will be a different country. The future is too important to be left to a bankrupt political class. The Greeks, the Spanish and the Scots understand this. So can the English.

Today's 'Guardian' has a article about the Spanish movement 'Podemos' (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/31/podemos-revolution-radical-academics-changed-european-politics). Read it. I have long held the view that scratch a Tory and a fascist bleeds; that Liberals are amoral and opportunists and that Labour has been betrayed by its leadership time and again and this has fed the cynicism which fuels UKIP. The Left badly needs a populist movement able to challenge the political elite and their corporate capitalist allies. Maybe the Green Party will become the catalyst for change we so badly need.

For now I wish Nick Palmer well and look forward to Labour getting an outright majority on Broxtowe Borough Council. Perhaps they will become part of the revolution we so badly need. I hope so.

I don't intend to say any more about the general election until it is over. I will come home at 10pm on 7 May and collapse in front of the television, where I am likely to stay until breakfast. This time it may be all day, as even the last two or three seats declaring on the Friday afternoon could decide which party gets to lead the next government.