Electoral reform means change for our local associations

Boundary reforms don’t normally make for gripping political news: they’re the stuff of the Conservative Association stalwart or eagle-eyed agent, and definitely not for people with healthy social lives. But whether we like it or not, the Boundary Commission’s regular redrawing of the electoral landscape from 2018 onwards will revolutionise the culture of our local associations.

Many constituencies have retained the same basic shape for decades. Tooting – my patch – has been essentially been the same since it replaced Wandsworth Central in 1974. Yet the reforms likely to be in place for 2020 will require the number of electors in constituencies to adhere to a much tighter variation from the national average, and for this to be reviewed every five years. The difference in the two proposals for Tooting during the 2013 Sixth Periodic Review shows the level of change that is likely to be in store for constituencies across the country under the new rules.

First proposal for the Tooting area
in the Sixth Periodic Review (2013)

Second proposal for the Tooting area
in the Sixth Periodic Review (2013)

Throw in the renaissance of our cities, and you can see how the electoral map will need to be drawn from scratch with each review. London’s expected growth of 100,000 people a year up to 2030 is the equivalent of seven new constituencies between each general election. Manchester will expand by an extra 100,000 people by 2025 – considerably faster than projections for the surrounding urban area, which are also expected to grow. On the other hand, Birmingham’s forecast growth of 12.2 per cent by 2032 is forecast to be below the national average of 13.5 per cent.

Our electoral boundaries will behave like an electoral isobar map, with areas of high population growth seeing constituencies created at the expense of places where the population increase is slower, or in decline – and Individual Electoral Registration will finally give the Boundary Commissions accurate data, cleansed of ghost voters who have moved elsewhere years previously.

The post-2018 landscape will see constituency associations with five year lifespans, thrown together across municipal boundaries, with the aim of winning the next general election. And after the returning officer’s declaration the focus will be on preparing the ground for the following election – although no-one will have any idea what cards the Boundary Commission for England will deal!

As a result, our traditional constituency identities will be much more fluid. Indeed, referring to constituency associations as ‘Tooting’ and so on will soon be archaic. Geographic identities are less easily accommodated by the new reforms (remember the outcry over the proposed Devonwall constituency when the Prime Minister pointed out that “It’s the Tamar, not the Amazon, for Heaven’s sake,”?), and our local leadership will be shaken up between every election, with association officers, star volunteers and local party bores suddenly finding themselves in different patches, with new relationships to forge.

Stable geographic identities are important for building teams of activists. The need to organise campaigns for county, borough and PCC elections on well-established boundaries will remain, and bringing associations together is sensible, since constituencies will change radically with every boundary review. Andrew Kennedy is a tireless advocate for groupings such as West Kent, which has demonstrated many of the benefits of campaigning as a larger unit.

We in Wandsworth have operated as a group for many years, and consequently the Wandsworth Conservatives brand is very strong in our community. Our office supports local associations in five constituencies across Wandsworth and Merton, and it is perhaps time for us to bring neighbouring Lambeth into the fold, since ‘Tooting’ is highly likely to include parts of Lambeth in the coming years.

Some association officers will take the view that forming groupings is a long term objective. I believe that this is misguided. The Boundary Commission’s consultation timelines will see the 2020 electoral map finalised in late 2018, leaving a year and a half to select candidates for all 600 seats and build campaign momentum – a sprint compared to the two-and-a-half years that many of our 40/40 candidates enjoyed (or suffered). This shorter campaign period will also help reduce the costs of standing for parliament – an unintentional positive – but the creation of new boundaries from scratch will make reselection of sitting MPs more competitive, as many of Labour’s Blairite wing are all too aware.

The combination of major changes to a constituency and relatively little time to execute a campaign will put a huge emphasis on best practice in both modern campaign techniques and old-fashioned organisation. Working together as a larger group of Conservatives means having the resources to deploy up-to-date campaign tools: professionally designed literature for council campaigns, digital campaigning (such as the Crossrail 2 campaign we’ve run in Tooting this autumn) and modern membership engagement. And active ward teams will be even more important, as a safe ward in a safe seat might become a safe ward in a battleground seat within the space of five years.

We are about to enter a dynamic electoral landscape where incumbency counts for less, and finally rid of the bias towards Labour and the Liberal Democrats that made majority government seem impossible before May 7th. Our party has pushed for these reforms – now we need to make sure we’re ready for the challenge in 2020, and beyond.

First published by Conservative Home on January 3rd, 2016

Nicola Young 2015 Spring newsletter

I'm back in New Zealand giving my mum a hand with her campaign to win the Wellington mayoral election next year. It's a fascinating change in political culture – I think the country's proportional representation for national parliament has made politics far more charged. Municipal politics is less party political, with the Greens and Labour the only parties to stand candidates in recent elections. Mum is an independent, so doesn't have a party machine behind her.

I much prefer the community focus of electorate voting, but also the way Britain's two dominant parties are coalitions themselves and debate is far more civil. I do realise Corbyn's Labour movement might not feel like that much of a coalition at the moment!

So here's the newsletter we've just sent out to 16,000 households in mum's ward. She's worked bloody hard since she was first elected in 2013, and I think that's reflected in her report to voters. A4 folded to DL, and printed on decent paper!

'Thank you' literature

I haven't posted anything about general election literature in the last year because I've had relatively little to do with the design, and if you want to see some of the photos I've done you can just look here. But this is something I've knocked up for Dan Watkins which will be appearing through letterboxes in Tooting in the next week or so (with an address on the postage side).

I'm happy to share the InDesign template (and it can easily be adapted for ward use). Just email me and let me know which Association you're from, etc.

2015 General Election image dump

I've spent the past two years running around London and the South East helping friends standing in the General Election on May 7th. Lots of fun as I've been able to see campaigns outside my home patch (Wandsworth) – and meet some lovely people too. Ministerial visits are always a bit of a pain, because you're aware that the photography part really mustn't take more than a minute. Other things are much more laid back – I've had enormous fun biking around Tooting with Dan Watkins, and jumping on the train to help Caroline Ansell down in Eastbourne.

So fingers crossed for Caroline, Paul, Jane, Tom, Maria, Dan, Kim and Anna. All are decent, conscientious people who believe in a just, more equal Britain where people can be their best – and I'm proud to have played a very small part in helping their campaigns. Roll on polling day!

Caveat – I've tried to remember what the photos were for in the captions, but I could well be wrong – any error in this regard is mine and mine alone.

File (Eastbourne)

Boris visits Sutton (Sutton & Cheam)

Endorsement literature (Battersea)

File (Eastbourne)

Open Primary (Tonbridge & Malling)

Open Primary (Tonbridge & Malling)

Newsletter header (Lewes)

A27 campaign (Hastings & Rye, Eastbourne and Bexhill & Battle)

A27 campaign (Eastbourne)

File (Lewes)

Save The Wheatsheaf (Tooting)

PM visits Asda (Battersea)

PM visits Asda (Battersea)

File (Tonbridge & Malling)

Save The Romany (Tooting)

Save Eastbourne DGH (Eastbourne)

Chancellor visits Nu-Flame (Sutton & Cheam)

The Orangery open day (Streatham)

File (Streatham)

File (Tooting)

Northern Line upgrade (Tooting)

File (Erith & Thamesmead)

Southeastern trains campaign (Erith & Thamesmead)

Love Your Local (Tooting and Battersea)

Love Your Local (Tooting and Battersea)

File (Tooting)

Endorsement literature (Battersea)

Save The Wheatsheaf (Tooting)

(Only) three reasons to vote Conservative in May

The polls say the election’s outcome is up in the air, but one thing is clear – the Tories are close to passing the 36.1% share of the vote won in 2010. No mean feat given the perils and challenges of five years in office. Of course there have been a few facepalm moments (ask me after May and I’ll give you my list) but overall David Cameron’s government has been one of innovation and reform – not a bad record when the books left by Labour offered little room to breathe.

That I’ll be voting for the Tories on May 7th is hardly a revelation given that I stood for council on the blue ticket last May, enjoyed (rather than endured) my first party conference a couple of years ago and have traipsed off to all sorts of by-elections around the country. But forget the slightly tame election promises and #LongTermEconomicPlan – here are three concrete reasons why I’ll be out pounding the pavements for the Tories in the run-up to May 7th – and why you should consider voting for Conservative too.


Apprenticeships

It is the Conservatives who are the party of opportunity – not Labour – and if you want proof of that just look at the how we’ve revitalised apprenticeships. I’m not sure whether it’s healthy to have a favourite graph, but here’s mine. Note how women have been doing better under the Conservatives then under Labour.

In 2010 the Conservatives committed to creating 400,000 apprenticeships. Here we are five years on and we’ve created 2,000,000 apprentices. In comparison Labour’s idea of opportunity was telling everyone to go to university: ‘why do an apprenticeship when you can have a degree?’ This was a betrayal of the idea that some people might actually be able to enter the workforce and secure skilled, well-paid employment by in-work training, paid for by the employer.

Apprenticeships were a massive part of Britain when we made things and exported to the world, but cruelly Blair and Brown saw them simply in the context of their inept class war. Besides, who needs skilled British workers when you’re one of three EU countries not to put in place freedom-of-labour controls when the EU expanded eastwards? Much easier to bring over the cream of the Accession States’ workforce.

And note how quickly Labour have forgotten their disgraceful record on apprenticeships:

Guaranteed with a Labour govt → 80,000 more high quality apprenticeships so every school leaver with the grades has the chance to get on.
— The Labour Party (@UKLabour) February 17, 2015

Wow, 80,000 apprentices. That’s 80% fewer than the Tories promised in 2010, and 4% of the apprentices created during the five years of this Tory government. It is David Cameron’s government that has done the hard work of rebuilding apprenticeships, which are so important in the fight to upskill our workforce, improve productivity – and transform people’s lives.

RT to let friends know we've delivered 2 million apprenticeships since 2010 - helping young people get on in life. https://t.co/n6PdgpNsd5
— Conservatives (@Conservatives) December 22, 2014

Public Transport

Crossrail tunnels (John Zammit)

Like most people in the South East travelling on the railways and underground is a big part of my life, and the good news is that this government has poured enormous amounts of money into future-proofing the transport network.

Labour electrified 13 miles of railway under Blair and Brown. One poxy mile per year in government. In comparison we’ve just about finished electrifying the entire railway from London to Wales in five years. Work on Crossrail (London’s new East-West underground line) is on target for completion in 2018, by which point Crossrail 2 will be well underway – much to the relief of Northern Line commuters. George Osborne was under pressure to cancel these projects, but he recognised how vital it was to have transport that was worthy of London’s position as one of the world’s great cities. Likewise hundreds of railway platforms across the country have been lengthened to accommodate longer trains that are being brought into service – why we’re not shouting about this I have no idea.

And an enormous overhaul of railways in the North-West is being delivered – new electric trains through Manchester on the new Ordsall viaduct, with big service improvements – like Chester to Manchester in under 40 minutes (over an hour at present). Labour likes to think the North is its home turf, but what did they do for commuters in Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, Preston, and so on? The Conservatives have made the investment that is helping increase the reliability and capacity of the railways, and helping more people get a seat in the morning.


Leadership

Perhaps the most contentious of the three points, but I really do think David Cameron has shown genuine leadership as Prime Minister in the past five years. He has held together a government with the Liberal Democrats, our most despised opponents. I was on the officer team of a rock solid Tory Association outside the M25 for much of this parliament, and vividly recall our Chairman announcing his defection to UKIP as the first item on our AGM – so I have some insight into how difficult his position must have been.

Yet look at the alternatives. Wind up the government half way though? We’d have been slaughtered in the polls. Avoid addressing gay marriage? Labour would have introduced it from the opposition benches and caused all sorts of havoc. Cameron didn’t bow to UKIP’s agenda, the wisdom of which can be seen as the latter’s credibility disintegrates in the run-up to May 7th. It’s easy to bag Ed Miliband, but has he demonstrated the qualities needed to lead a government as Leader of the Opposition? I – and seemingly many others – think not. And Clegg’s lot has found coalition politics to be as comfortable as snuggling up to a boa constrictor, with single figure poll ratings since 2011. This May will see seats turning blue that have been yellow for decades.

There’s also the issue of the European Union referendum. I’ve always felt our EU membership is like an unhappy marriage: we need to try counselling before we divorce, and that’s what Cameron’s renegotiation is all about. Let’s see how serious Brussels is about changing. The EU is a political construction for wealth redistribution and regulation generation completely at odds with European project’s founding aim of building peace through economic activity, and I’d almost certainly vote to leave. But I want a proper national debate before any decision, and my gut instinct says that rushing a referendum makes a vote to stay in more likely – and then where will we be? Confirmed members of an EU that has little incentive to reform. So the Prime Minister is spot on: 2017 is the right date to hold the referendum.

Perhaps David Cameron will never be held in the same affection as our party’s great leaders, but I can’t imagine he’s particularly bothered. What I imagine he does worry about is getting Britain heading in the right direction after the precarious position that Labour left us in 2010 – and he’s done a pretty good job of that.

—

Which brings me back to my starting point. Back in the depths of 2013 I bet a particularly recalcitrant district councillor £20 that we’d be ahead in the polls in the run-up to the general election – and here we are, ahead in the polls and ready for the heat of the final weeks before polling day. Apprenticeships, transport and leadership are small fry in the bigger picture of rescuing the nation’s economy. But they’re indicative of a government that has taken tough decisions, improved people’s lives, and put us on the right course for the years ahead. That’s a record I’m proud to campaign on – and one that appeals to the heart as much as the head.

First published by Platform 10 on March 25th, 2015

Four months of campaigning in Latchmere, AKA Operation 'Snatch the Latch'

I've had a few days to digest Wandsworth's 2014 borough elections – and my first time standing as a candidate. That in itself was hugely exciting as being able to tell someone that I will do my best is infinitely better than saying that I'm calling on behalf of John / Joanna Bloggs, who is / will be a great champion for their community, etc. It was a fun campaign, and I managed to get a few things done for people who were of the 'I'm not voting because you're all as bad as each other' persuasion - and hopefully changed their minds. But with a 35% turnout the reality is a lot of people just don't care about having their say in how the local council is run, which is a pity, as most of the services they use on a daily basis stem from the Town Hall rather than Westminster.

I was selected back in... February, I think? It seems like an age ago, but actually wasn't that long – and certainly not long enough to loosen the grip that Labour has on Latchmere, a ward that has never elected a Tory councillor – not even back in the days of 0% Poll Tax, when my friend Tim Loughton took Labour's majority down from 1500 to 300. Operation 'Snatch the Latch' was always a bit of a long shot. My result saw us hold our share of the vote at 2010 levels* (despite our government now sitting just behind Labour in the national polls), but I came fourth, just under 700 votes behind the last of Labour's three candidates. I campaigned hard, but it wasn't enough, and the sole consolation is knowing that we managed to tie down some of Labour's resources that would have otherwise gone to the neighbouring battleground ward where we squeaked in two councillors in a very tight contest.

There were some wonderful moments during the campaign. I made new friends, met people with fascinating stories and was occasionally distracted from canvassing long enough to make the process feel more like an exercise in getting to know a community than simply compiling a database on how people would vote. A woman told me about growing up in the slums that were cleared where the Winstanley Estate is now, and about how her grandfather remembered Battersea before it was heavily developed. Latchmere Road back then was simply a dirt track known as 'Pig Hill' and used as a route for taking livestock from Clapham Common to the market. One guy told me he'd be voting Tory because 'you don't solve a cost of living crisis by fixing prices – you do it by taking less money from us in the first place' – I should have passed his details on to Lynton Crosby. Another woman – previously canvassed as 'strong Labour' (but married to a 'strong Conservative') told me that 'Maggie Thatcher abolished me, but you seem lovely and so you can have a hug'. Apparently riding a fixie makes me 'far too cool to be a councillor'. And then there was the time I was biking down Sheepcote Lane on my way home from some canvassing, when a large A4 Pacific steam locomotive rushed past – an amazing sight, and almost up there with the view from the 20th floor of Dresden House.

Blue vs Red at Battersea Labour's HQ

Election day was madness – albeit carefully planned madness. I was humbled at how many of my friends came to help, and the memory of them 'knocking-up' our supporters in Battersea Fields and on the Winstanley will stay with me for a long time. I'm normally a fairly sedate cyclist, but I'm still a little amazed that I didn't have some horrific smack on May 22nd as I hared between polling stations, campaign teams and our committee room. Note to self: if standing for election again take extra shirts for polling day, as one of the Labour candidates told me afterwards that she'd thought I was a well turned out bloke in a tweed jacket, and was surprised when I showed up at the count looking like I'd run a marathon in my shirt, jeans and converses. We started at 5am, and by the time I got to the count I was – suffice to say – exhausted, but not so tired that I couldn't keep up the family rule of having a drink with the opposition once the results were announced. I'm sure this raised some eyebrows on our side, but it's a good tradition as it means you need to fight a hard – but fair – campaign, and ultimately we're still all residents of Wandsworth once the elections are done and dusted. And this is how I came to find myself playing fußball with Battersea Labour's parliamentary candidate Will Martindale and their organiser Sean Lawless as dawn broke on Friday, with one of their activists (clearly a Blairite) lumped together with me as 'Team Tory'. They are decent people who just happen to be profoundly wrong about how we build a better community and improve people's living standards. Labour beat us on the night, but we'll bounce back stronger – after all (as I pointed out to the comrades at 6am) that's what the markets are all about: good, healthy competition driving us on to better things.

* Apparently our result in Latchmere was the best of any opposition held seat in Wandsworth.

First published by Bright Blue on June 2nd, 2014

2014 Wandsworth borough elections (2)

One of the things I most enjoy about 'politics' is the whole business of knocking on doors and talking to people. The general media discourse seems to be that people feel alienated from politics, but this rarely correlates with my experience on the doorstep. I've found people are engaged and do have a degree of faith in the whole concept of local representation, helped in large part because Wandsworth Conservatives have a reputation for running the borough well, keeping council tax down and representing the interests of all of society across the Borough.

Alas... it isn't all lovely conversations on people's doorsteps - there's the whole business of delivering our literature, and the office called last week to tell me that the Spring newsletters (see below) were ready for collection - so if you see someone with a large bag walking around Latchmere at high speed stop me and say hello!

2014 Wandsworth borough elections (1)

Back in February I was selected to be one of the Tory candidates in Latchmere, a ward in Wandsworth that encompasses the area just to the north of Clapham Junction station. It'll be a tough campaign as the seat has – to my knowledge – been Labour heartland since time immemorial.

That said, we're in with a fighting chance, as the Conservatives in Wandsworth have a fantastic track record, with outstanding local services and the UK's lowest average council tax. Crucially we have very little debt – something achieved on the back of prudent management since we took control of the council back in 1978 (when I was born!). If the rest of the country could see how we ran the council then Labour wouldn't even have the faintest sniff of a chance in the national elections. Our low council tax is a huge help to the most disadvantaged in the Borough, as the council tax reduction that central government gives the disabled means they effectively don't pay a penny.

For those of you who are interested (there will be some, I know!) here's the freshly designed calling card we're going out campaigning with tonight.