Thursday 23 February 2017

Stoke Central Polling Day

Admittedly, I've never liked polling day much. Probably because my experiences of them are never the greatest. 2011 in Bentilee found me soaked and dispirited by the small numbers we turned out which, thankfully, were enough to see off the BNP. 2012, Springfields and Trent Vale: over a thousand Labour pledges and we still lost to the City Independents and their manifesto promising a ban on cervical smears(!). 2013 in Baddeley, Milton, and Norton - bloody miserable and another loss to the same crew. 2014 Newcastle-under-Lyme, alright I guess. So too was Stafford 2015, until I got home and saw that exit poll. Silverdale last year was uncharacteristically good as we took one off UKIP. And today?

Let me just say that this was the worst weather I've ever campaigned in. Storm Doris lured me in and gave us a good going over. Despite the multiple warnings from Carol on BBC Breakfast, it didn't look too bad out. Sure, trotting up to Hanley from Chateau BC was a touch windy, it was manageable. It was pleasant enough to pause briefly to admire the kippers going in and out of their HQ. I was asked by a plonker wearing a garish Union Jack-covered suit who I'd be voting for. "Not for your lot, mate." "Why?" "Hillsborough ... for starters." The deflated look was worth holding back the real explanation. Anyway, it was 9am and met up with brothers Tom and Lloyd at campaign HQ, and joined by sister N we hit the first doors around Hanley Park and Shelton.

This ward is predominantly populated by students with a large number of second generation Asian residents and an outer rim of white English locals. It was also the only ward in the whole city to have voted Remain in the EU referendum. A juicy morsel for our Liberal Democrat friends perhaps? Except, going door-to-door, they hadn't bothered going out early to drop off their polling day rounds. It was also quickly apparent that Doris had chosen this moment to do its worse. We were flung from house to house, my kipper-coloured brolly mutilated by the storm's gusty tendrils. As Tom put it, it felt like our hands were bloody stumps. Absolutely sodding soaked, Gareth Snell and Ruth Smeeth joined us just as we were beginning the second round. Thankfully this was a stone's throw from home, so I made my excuses and pegged it to change and put on more appropriate wear. Alas, the umbrella was beyond redemption. We'd had some good times ...

Back at base camp after a quick bite to eat, I went out with sister T and a couple of comrades who'd travelled up from Exeter. This was just down the road from the office and so made short work of a couple of rounds. Then back to recharge (bring me coffee or bring me death) and a chat to the poor bugger charged with hair drying all our soaked WARP sheets. By chance I bumped into me ode muckers Chris Williamson and Cllr Sarah Russell from Derby North CLP. Funnily enough, when I last went out with these motley comrades the weather was almost as appalling (snow storms in Mickleover don't come recommended). Off we headed with sister T and other Derby folks to Birches Head. This is a 1980s estate with plenty of detached housing and can be quite tricky for Labour. Here the big coat proved its worth as pulses of rain and beams of sun were cast down upon us, some times simultaneously. And for the finale, we had a double round back in Shelton with an expanded Stoke/Derby/Newcastle/Manchester/Matlock alliance. On this round especially we hit quite a lot of people who'd been and were about to head off to the polling booth. Interestingly, down one driveway I found a Rolls Royce. Not something you'd expect to see in those parts.

I'm sure you didn't want the diarising, but still. What this campaign has reminded me is that going out and doing the kind of slog others avoid like the plague can be and is a good laugh. Invariably, canvassing is not quite fun, but is always interesting and occasionally uplifting. And I've been heartened not just by the hundreds, if not thousands of comrades who've poured in from all over the country (and some times, from beyond) but also a good chunk of new members who signed up because of Jeremy Corbyn. A lot of old hands like to moan about the inactivity of these recently-activated folks, but they're no lazier than people who've been round the block a bit. Dozens upon dozens got their first taste of party campaign on the doorsteps of The Potteries, and I hope our shining pearl of North Staffordshire hasn't put them off future activity.

Back to business. The real reason why I don't like polling day is you're only left with an idea of how your vote turned out, whereas the normal go-find-your-voters canvassing gives you an overall glance of how the result might fall. That said, as the day went on turn out improved. Even the horrendous morning session wasn't a total loss. I am cheered by what comrades told me. Knowing someone who worked on the Heywood and Middleton by-election, which the kippers missed out on by a whisker, he said there was a palpable shift in their direction as the campaign wore on. No such shift was seen on the doors this time. Indeed, a few Tory-Labour switches (to keep UKIP out) were turned up - the job is to make them permanent rather than tactical voters. Overall then, the data points to a Labour win. But I don't do predictions any more - if that turns out to be wrong, and it might be, there are either a lot of shy kippers or we're not asking the right questions to flush them out.

The ballots are now in, and the result is beyond anyone's power. The tense night of counting now begins.

14 comments:

Phil said...

Good result, but a bad good result. But at least the seat's still Labour.

asquith said...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=v1EyFKmI7to

Jim Denham said...

Hearty congratulations to the electors of Stoke and to everyone who worked to get the Labour vote out. Let's hope this is the beginning of the end for Ukip.

And thanks for your fascinating coverage, Phil.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, Phil, kudos and congratulations from this side of the atlantic! Your victory has really got me stoked, as we like to say here in the states. Let's hope that 2017 marks the start of a major push back against all the forces of reaction in both our countries.

Les

Robert said...

If you put the UKIP and Tory vote together Labour would have lost. As it is we've lost Copeland; a seat that Labour has held since 1934.

Jeremy Corbyn is a good man but he's not Prime Minister material and the country knows it. If things continue like this the Tories will get a landslide in 2020 and they will have until 2025 to part privatise the NHS.

As the late great Denis Healey said in 1959:

"Hugh Gaitskell was absolutely right when he said yesterday that what gets cheers at this conference does not necessarily get votes at elections If it did we would have won Devonport [the seat which Michael Foot had just lost] There are far too many people who...want to luxuriate complacently in moral righteousness in Opposition. But who is going to pay the price for their complacency?

You can take the view that it is better to give up half a loaf if you cannot get the whole loaf but the point is that it is not we who are giving up the whole loaf. In Britain it is the unemployed and old age pensioners and outside Britain there are millions of people in Africa and Asia who desperately need a Labour Government in this country to help them. If you take the view that it is all right to stay in Opposition as long as your Socialist heart is pure then you will be "all right Jack" You will have your TV set, your motor car and your summer holidays on the Continent and still keep your Socialist soul intact. The people who pay the price for your sense of moral satisfaction are the Africans, millions of them, being slowly forced into racial slavery, the Indians and the Indonesians dying of starvation.

We are not just a debating society. We are not just a Socialist Sunday School. We are a great movement that wants to help real people living on this earth at the present time. We shall never be able to help them unless we get power. We shall never get power unless we close the gap between our active workers and the average voter in the country."

IainF said...

Superb Stoke election coverage on this blog. Really had it's finger on the pulse and was proven correct. A benchmark for this kind of political reporting.

asquith said...

http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2017/02/labour-deserves-crushing-defeat-stoke/

Brendan O'Neill tho

Anonymous said...

Robert

Labour would also have lost with Tristram Hunt last time under those "rules".

Corbyn is not the answer, that was obvious even before yesterday.

But he is only leader because of the total and absolute failure of Labour's traditional "ruling class". They have still shown no sign of even wanting to learn the necessary lessons.

David Parry said...

Robert

Yawn, heard it all before.

David Parry said...

What Robert is spouting is the same old Blairite nonsense about how Labour should save the poor by pledging to shaft them in a slightly less mean-spirited manner. It was horseshit the first time round, and remains so the 1*10^13465859037th time.

Anonymous said...

Pledge to shaft them in a slightly less mean-spirited manner - AND THEN EXPECT THEM TO BE GRATEFUL FOREVER!

Robert said...

Ah yes those evil Blairites.

When it comes to His Blairness I don't forgive Tony Blair for Iraq. I was on the demonstration against it. But put that aside and Blair's governments did a lot of good things and he did win three elections for Labour. Perhaps those who lose elections could learn something from those who win them?

David Parry said...

Robert

'But put that aside and Blair's governments did a lot of good things'

They also did a lot of seriously reprehensible things, like privatising education and healthcare, continuing the policy of sacrificing industry on the dual alters of globalisation and high finance, and thereby destroying whole communities as well as paving the way for the biggest financial crisis since the Depression, refusing to allow the building of council houses and causing the problem of shortages of homes to exacerbate, making what was already one of the most economically unequal societies in the 'developed' world even more so. Not to attenuate the devastation wrought upon Iraq by Blair in collaboration with Bush, but even leaving aside the Iraq war (or the wars that Blair led us into more generally), there is no shortage of things about New Labour's track record that are worthy of no small degree of disapprobation.

'he did win three elections for Labour.'

...largely because of the ineptitude of the opposition.

Anonymous said...

The 2005 "win" was almost WHOLLY down to that.

By then actual enthusiasm for Labour was close to zero.