No canvassing

12 places up for the taking and 15 candidates on the ballot paper for the first Area Committee of this region. Co-operative Members have until Saturday 14th February to make their choices. Under the rules no canvassing for or by any candidate is allowed. Don't know what would happen if such a dastardly act took place. Obviously the online voting process is the quickest and easiest. The old school pencil, envelope and walk to the post box method is still available. You know you've been involved in this Co-op stuff a while when you've met most of the people standing for office. But I can't say who to vote for. Photo of election poster taken in my local store next to the adverts for unwanted electric guitars, buggies and other bric-a-brac...

Local Elections Record

It was never going to be good night nationally. Locally Sheila Newman fought off a strong Lib-Dem challenge to retain the seat with a 259 majority. This was against an unbelievable amount of Lib-Dem leaflets. I received two on polling day itself, and five in the last week, despite having two Labour posters on display. You can't out leaflet the Lib-Dems, well not unless election expenses are scrutinised. Spotted the ineffective John Leech MP on numerous occasions directions operations on the street. Must have been another quiet week in Parliament then.

Cllr. Andrew Fender (Lab/Co-op - Old Moat ward) - LABOUR HOLD
John Hacking (Lab/ Co-op - Chorlton Park ward) - LIB/DEM HOLD
Jennie Lennox (Labour - Didsbury West ward) - LIB/DEM HOLD
Tom Murphy (Lab/Co-op - Burnage ward) - LIB/DEM HOLD
Cllr. Sheila Newman (Labour - Chorlton ward) - LABOUR HOLD

Political Party Accounts

Political parties and their accounting units are required to submit their accounts to the Electoral Commission each year. Those with a gross annual income or total expenditure of over £250,000 have six months to do so. The Co-operative Party sent their accounts in six days late and might have to pay a fine of £500. Final accounts have yet to be received from the British National Party and Scottish Liberal Democrats.

13 political parties reported income or expenditure of over £250,000 - the big ones, plus Respect, Sinn Fein, UKIP, Co-op Party...Seven accounting units are over the £250k figure of which four are rich Conservative Associations (Kensington, Aylesbury, Surrey Heath, and London & Westminster)

Further reading. Electoral Commission Press Release...The accounts of the parties and some interesting names in that list, like The Southport Party, Space Navies, Norwich Over Water Party (what?). All in PDF format - looks like they have been quickly scanned from paper copies. Co-op Party Accounts here (PDF)

Answers on a postcard only

Thought I'd weigh into the local elections by pointing out the half-lies, economical truths that the opposition peddle. It says "Lib Dems Paul Ankers and John Leech MP with a local resident outside Unicorn, distributing postcards highlighting the dangers of climate change." In reality it's a brief photo opportunity. They are on a public pavement with Unicorn Co-operative in the background, they never handed out postcards and would have been told to clear off if they tried. The local resident is the son of Lib-Dem activists, he might even distribute leaflets for them. These are the same Lib-Dems who oppose any proposals that will encourage people to reduce car use or household waste. Let's tackle environmental problems with fine words but don't take local action.
You can read more about more fibs at Chris Paul's Labour of Love, including this one. Also at Chorltonparklabour including the remarkable cow story.

Chorlton Park Campaign

We've been following the local election campaigns (earlier post 4th April) in the Manchester blogosphere and it's woolly hats off to John Hacking standing as Labour & Co-operative candidate in Chorlton Park. He organises his time well - meeting people, canvassing, helping out elsewhere and still has time to post a regular weblog entry at the end of the day. Latest picture shows John with Lucy Powell the Labour Party prospective Parliamentary candidate for Manchester Withington before they go "knocking on doors". You can keep up to date at chorltonparklabour.

Local Election Campaigns

This is the month when most of our members are involved in the local election campaigns. Have a meeting in April then expect no one to turn up and a few irate phone calls - don't you know there is an election on. This year there is only one Labour/Co-operative candidate in our area - John Hacking in Chorlton Park. However other members are standing in Didsbury East (Geoff Bridson), Crumpsall (Con Keegan) as Labour candidates. Errr, there might be some more.... How will the phenomena of "Blogging For Labour" fare during an election period - when there are distractions of leaflets, canvassing and going to the pub afterwards. There are some good examples out there of MP's, Councillors and activists making good use of push button publishing. However there are a lot of static sites that should be deleted.

Will there be further use of internet technology - videos, photo slideshows, online debates, netcasting, even making your leaflet available online. Possibly, but maybe not this year. However a good start has been made. The Labour Party is featuring the local elections on its opening page. Our local Labour bloggers published the story of lower Council taxes in Labour authorities than Conservative or Lib-Dem. If you have any examples of good use of technology for political propaganda (not afraid to use that word) then email or comment. Some of the blogs we'll be following in between another bundle of leaflets will be :-
Chorlton Park Labour (Manchester)
Crumpsall Labour (Manchester)
Fallowfield Labour (Manchester)
Louise Baldock (Liverpool)
Northenden Labour (Manchester)
On The Knocker (Manchester)