The winning team in Surbiton Hill – From left: Cllr Liz Green (Deputy Leader of the Council), Edward Davey MP, Cllr John Ayles, Cllr Derek Osbourne (Leader of the Council).
What better start could we have had to Federal Conference than our first gain from Labour in a principal council by-election since the formation of the coalition.
The Borough of Gedling covers a number of towns and villages around the edge of Nottingham, and was the scene of a massive swing to Labour in May when they gained 23 seats and took control. One of those 23 gains was Phoenix ward where sitting Lib Dem councillor Andrew Ellwood lost his seat by just four votes. However, just three months later one of the ward’s Labour councillors resigned after deciding to go off and teach in Mexico.
The by-election was an incredibly hard fought campaign on both sides. Labour swamped the ward with huge numbers of helpers and ran a campaign that focused solely on heavily attacking us on national issues. Instead, we ran a very local campaign emphasising the credentials of Andrew Ellwood. This consisted of regular canvassing along with weekly leaflets using lots of photos and articles about how good a councillor he was for the area. This message contrasted sharply with the lack of commitment from the outgoing Labour councillor after quitting so soon. We managed to get lots of help from surrounding areas, but were still vastly outnumbered by Labour on polling day. However, in the end our message was much more effective and it saw Andrew elected back on to the council.
The other significant by-election for the Lib Dems was our defence of the Surbiton Hill ward in the London Borough of Kingston upon Thames. Surbiton Hill had traditionally been safely Conservative but we gained it by just 103 votes in 2010. The circumstances of the by-election were unfortunate when hugely promising Lib Dem councillor Umesh Parekh had to resign when his new employers decided his job should be politically restricted. The Conservatives put up their former councillor who had expected to be council leader until his defeat, but they were no match for a very effective campaign that saw excellent candidate John Ayles win. The big lesson was to keep knocking on doors. Not only did this gather huge amounts of canvass data, but it also helped to reconnect us with those supporters who had become less enthusiastic about voting for us.