The Elephant Roars!

It's time to tell all about April's political pre-occupation.  I'll begin my account at the start of the year, when it was agreed that our communications officer, who had stood unsuccessfully in the county council election last year, would fight the ward that we felt there was a chance of winning, and the winter months saw some early canvassing to lay the groundwork for his campaign.

When a call went out for party members to volunteer as candidates in the other wards or agents, I read the background information and briefly considered the role of an agent, but decided that, with an experienced agent among our number, I didn't need to entertain that responsibility.  There the matter rested until a second appeal prompted a discussion with the branch chairman.  So far as candidacy was concerned, I have no real time to serve as a councillor; and little inclination to go knocking on doors, which is why the only part I had taken in the campaign thus far was to deliver a few leaflets.

The thought of being what was described as a 'paper candidate', i.e. to stand for an office that one has neither chance nor ambition to hold, seemed hypocritical.  It was then explained to me that, if we entered no candidate in a ward (as had been the case in two wards in 2014), voters of our persuasion in those wards were faced with a 'Hobson's choice' of voting for their least-disliked candidate, or not voting at all.  By offering a Lib Dem candidate, we would be doing those people a service, and also get an idea of the level of support existing in those wards, upon which we might build in the future.  On this basis I agreed to stand, and was assigned the smallest of the five wards in our town.

Church members and a bell-ringer living in that ward were gently persuaded to sign my nomination, supported by our branch secretary and another party member and the 'campaign' was under way.  I was given a supply of leaflets and told to exercise my judgement as to their distribution and, "if you want to knock on a few doors, do so, but you're on your own."  The other paper candidates were told the same, and all the main effort was concentrated on the target ward.  I looked at the map, decided which roads would be addressed and which ignored, allocated my free time accordingly and the fortnight was thus filled.

Pitted against a well-established and well-liked Labour councillor of some twenty years standing, I felt somewhat overawed by the situation.  I did as I had been bid and knocked on a few doors the first night; there were some interesting responses, including one jovial life-long trade-unionist who politely told me he wouldn't be voting for me, but offered the consolation that I would be his second choice!  It was further consolation to be told by one young man that he had already sent off his postal vote in my favour.  The second night's effort destroyed my enthusiasm.  Eleven doors were knocked, seven without reply; at one I was told to go away, and the other three were clearly not going to offer me any support.

On the day, I secured just 73 votes, the second lowest in the town's five wards, and better than only five candidates in the whole district.  It wasn't until the following evening that I realised that to achieve 5% of the vote, in a ward where I was told we haven't fielded a candidate for about 20 years, is a reasonable result ... especially considering the effort (or lack thereof) that I had expended.  Our candidate in the target ward achieved a decent second place with almost 27% and, town-wide, the Lib Dems increased their share of the vote by 8%.  It was a privilege to be part of this degree of success.

The most interesting part for me was to be present at the count and follow the mechanisms that translate all those 'Xs' to the announcement of results in the prescribed form that we have seen so often on television.  I confess to be fascinated by elections and it was revealing and satisfying to see it all in action.

So, where does my political 'career' go from here?  The honest answer is that I don't know.  Of one thing I'm certain: my leg has not responded well.  It still hasn't recovered from delivering nearly 500 leaflets in a week.  The physical demands are different from normal walking, with so many changes of direction up to doors and away again, as well as diverting into and out of gateways.  I'm not sure I would entertain that 'exercise' on another occasion.  Maybe something more administrative will give expression to my enthusiasm.  Only time will tell.