It's All Over!

That's it. The last door has been knocked on. The final leaflet folded and posted. The campaign is over. Between 0700 and 2200 hours tomorrow, in one small corner of Stoke-on-Trent, approximately a quarter to a third of the electorate in Burslem South ward will find their way to a polling booth and mark a cross against one of six names on their ballot paper.

For once I'm at a loss. I have no idea how the Socialist Party will poll in this ward. We could get anything between seven votes and 700. There's just no way of knowing. We were unable to canvass the whole ward even once - I would estimate we covered approximately one quarter of total households. I will say the response on the doorstep seemed more favourable than the last election campaign I seriously worked on (good old Abbey Green). But you can't extrapolate on the basis of the limited returns from this time round.

Andy on Socialist Unity has ventured that results below 4% are poor, and those above 10% are good. I would concur, but counsels wiser and more experienced than I have said they'd regard anything above 100 votes a decent outcome!

In this ward, we're not the only ones likely to benefit from the local disaffection toward the three party coalition who rubber stamps the mayor's decisions. Ted Owen is the sitting councillor for the Potteries Alliance group, a small scale split from the local Labour party. It is very localist and its leaflets are almost a politics-free zone. Owen's campaign strategy has been to trade heavily on his reputation as a "community councillor".

Then there is the independent, David Giltrap. Again no politics are to be seen in his leaflet, unless you count the rant he launches against the PA (who he brands as loony lefts). Very strange for an independent not to have a go at the mainstream parties too. Is something going on behind the scenes? However, despite a rubbish leaflet and nothing of a campaign to speak of he will probably get a respectable vote. In Stoke there are large numbers of voters prepared to give self-described independents a punt because of their perceived distance from party politics.

Stoke SP has had two advantages over these "alternatives". First is activists on the ground. We have managed to out out three different leaflets. There is no house in the ward to have gone without at least one. And second is their content: our material articulates a clear political alternative to mainstream business-as-usual politics and the localism of our other opponents.

Whether this translates into a decent vote remains to be seen. Sadly, to avoid paying workers over time, the city council will be holding the count on Friday morning so the party has to wait until lunch time to find out. I'll put them up as soon as I have them. Watch this space!