Creeting St Peter: hail to the Chief?

In recent times, the period around the close of nominations for local elections has been slightly more fraught than for most people. As a serving councillor, the concerns come in two parts:

• can I successfully submit my nomination papers?
• am I actually going to have to fight an election?

The second question is, I admit, more of a Parish and Town Council thing - principal authority elections are seldom uncontested - as many contests… aren’t.

Having handed in my nomination papers in person on Tuesday morning and had them vetted by Mid Suffolk’s Head of Election Services, I was pretty confident that I had been validly nominated (and how embarrassing would it be if an “out” bureaucrat screwed that up?). All that was left was to await the formal publication of candidates.

Having clicked on the link on the Mid Suffolk website yesterday afternoon, I was somewhat surprised to find that the total number of Town and Parish Council contested elections was… one. And it wasn’t Creeting St Peter.

And so, I am gloriously re-elected. Four years ago, I noted that it wasn’t so much an endorsement of my ability and hard work as a sitting councillor as a sense that I wasn’t annoying anyone enough to provoke a challenge. I suspect that this is less the case now after more than four years as Chair, including over the pandemic. People appear to know who I am and what I do, which is nice, and events of the past year have demonstrated that the role isn’t as easy as my colleagues think I make it look.

I even delivered upon the goals I set four years ago. The street lights have been replaced at far lower cost than I had feared (thanks must go to the County Council for offering us an exceptionally good deal) and the emergence of village Facebook and WhatsApp groups has allowed me to convey useful and/or important information to most village residents quickly and efficiently.

So, what are my aims for the next four years? It would be nice to support our Parochial Church Council in raising additional funds to refurbish the Church Room, and the recent discovery that they could apply for Section 106 funding is very encouraging. We also would like to improve our playground, especially given that we have a surprising number of small children in the village.

I’d also like to finish off the job of dragging Council into the twenty-first century in terms of how it operates. The appointment of a new Clerk and Responsible Finance Officer was a big leap in that project, but the work is still ongoing. As Chair, if they’ll continue to have me, that does put an onus upon me to actively engage rather than just acquiesce but that might not be a bad thing.

So, another four glorious years are launched. Maybe I ought to crack open a bottle of champagne?…

County Council elections - what's happening in Mid Suffolk? (part 2)

Yesterday, I looked at Bosmere, Gipping Valley, Hartismere, Hoxne and Eye and Stowmarket North and Stowupland. Today, it's time to look at the rest of Mid Suffolk's ten County divisions...

Stowmarket South... where to begin? Once Liberal Democrat (1993-2001), lost to Labour in 2001, it became a Conservative/Labour marginal in 2005 when a new Liberal Democrat candidate, Keith Scarff, came third with a respectable 22.4% of the vote. It's probably the most consistently hard fought of all the Mid Suffolk divisions - in 2005, the Conservative candidate won by 130 votes or 2.8%.

Keith was back in 2009, losing to Conservative Ann Whybrow by just 73 votes. In 2013, he got within forty votes of winning, and came third, with the UKIP candidate, Stephen Searle beating Ann Whybrow by just one vote. 2017 saw the Conservatives win the seat back through Nick Gowrley, with Keith in second place again, this time 132 votes adrift as the UKIP vote unravelled.

Since then, Nick Gowrley, who was the Conservative Leader on Mid Suffolk, lost his seat in 2019 to... Keith Scarff, and they face off again this time. We can probably discount the Labour candidate, but the wildcard is the Independent candidate, David Card. David was the Conservative District Councillor in Barking and Somersham for a year or so, resigning within a year to cause a by-election which was lost to the Greens by two votes - I was the slightly unexpected Liberal Democrat candidate who lost by 58 votes (was it really that close?) - over the Conservatives decision to borrow £100 million to dabble in commercial property.

I'd expect David to base his campaign on attacking Nick Gowrley, which might on the face of it benefit the man who's been working the Division for sixteen years. And Keith's a lovely guy, so I'd love to see him win.

One of the weird things about Suffolk, if you're an outsider, is the names of some of the County divisions. Where, for example, is Hartismere, or Thingoe? The answer is Saxon Hundreds, which were the administrative divisions of Suffolk from Saxon times up until the end of the nineteenth century. And, because we're not used to getting rid of anything useful, some of the names have carried on, which brings me to Thedwastre North and Thedwastre South...

I'm hoping that Thedwastre North will be the more interesting one, with another former blue on blue contest. Jane Storey was a bit of a highflier in local Conservative circles but, in 2019, lost her District Council seat on revised boundaries to the Greens. Last year, she was de-selected as the County candidate, appealed and lost. And so, she's fighting the seat against her successor, Harry Richardson, who is the District Councillor in Thurston, the other main settlement in the Division. The Green candidate, Andy Mellen, won a District Council seat in Bacton, having painted his sheep with "Vote Andy", and is the potential interloper in this contest. There's also a Labour candidate, Ursula Ajimal.

Thedwastre South has been Liberal Democrat held since the 2007 by-election, and has been closely fought ever since - Penny Otton won the by-election by 94 votes, and hasn't bettered that in three attempts since (33 votes in 2009, 38 in 2013 and 83 in 2017). The Conservatives have picked someone from Bury St Edmunds, as opposed to a local resident, although that doesn't necessarily signify much. Penny will be fighting just as hard as ever though, which gives her every chance of retaining the seat.

Thredling is the seat of Matthew Hicks, the Conservative leader of Suffolk. He'll cruise home, I suspect, despite opposition from the Greens, Labour and the Liberal Democrats.

And finally, Andrew Stringer won Upper Gipping in 2009 for the Greens from a stopgap Conservative candidate (our former District councillor here in Creeting St Peter) and, amongst others, me. He won by 500 last time, and the Greens have only strengthened their position across the Division since. The Conservatives are running a candidate, as are Labour, but I suspect that Andrew will be the only one actually campaigning.

So, that's how Mid Suffolk looks from the perspective of an interested observer. There could be a number of upsets across the District, which currently looks like this; Conservatives 7, Liberal Democrats 2, Greens 1. I wouldn't be surprised to see it end rather differently when the votes are counted on 7 May...

And, in Creeting St Peter election news...

Nominations closed on 3 April, and I was somewhat relaxed about my likely fate. After all, my colleagues were all thoroughly capable so, were the worst to happen (a contested election and defeat), Creeting St Peter Parish Council would be in good hands. I did at least know that my nomination papers had been successfully filed which, as it turned out, put me at a distinct advantage.

For, when dawn broke the next day (or at least not that long afterwards), it turned out that I had delivered two of the three nomination forms. From a personal perspective, not having to fight an election was probably preferable, as I would have had to campaign properly - at least one leaflet and some door knocking - but from the perspective of local democracy, it’s a bit disappointing.

I could try to convince myself that the lack of competition is due to my winning personality and glorious leadership, but you can really go too far in assuming that. It is more likely that nobody cares enough to run against you. Perhaps somewhere between the two poles is more accurate, who knows?

And so, I have (up to) another four years in office. Admittedly, I can’t currently see the circumstances whereby I fail to see out the term, but I’m a statistician, and in my world, there is no such thing as certainty. I also have a validly constituted Council, as we need a minimum of three councillors to function, and we have three.

Will I continue as Chair? Well, that isn’t entirely up to me, although I’d be happy to do so if that suits my colleagues. My current Vice Chair is thoroughly capable of stepping up, although there is a slight complication in that he didn’t submit a nomination paper. So, on that point, we’ll see.

I do have some ambitions for the next four years though. I’d like to improve the way we communicate - we’re a bit “earthbound” in terms of how we reach out to residents - and we could do more to engage them in our work on their behalf.

I’d also like to do something about the street lights. They are elderly, increasingly unreliable and expensive to run. Yes, there are only ten of them, but they are one of the few bits of infrastructure that we have control over, and they don’t go unnoticed. I’ve had some thoughts on how we might achieve something, but really need to focus on that now.

Other than that, I just want us to run our Parish well, maintaining a strong relationship with the Parochial Church Council and doing what we can to improve the fabric of our community. It’s not big, or particularly clever, but in a world where people have seemingly little faith in politicians, even Parish Councils can be a force for good, reminding people that they can make a difference.

Wish me luck!…

The newly-elected Vice-President of the @ALDEParty is... Baroness Ros Scott!

At the end of three days of intensive campaigning, it came down to a rather nerve-wracking final hour of the thirty-sixth Annual Congress of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats in Europe (ALDE). Hands had been shaken, delegations lobbied and speeches made, and all that was left was the minor matter of the actual voting.

As I have previously noted, ALDE has a quirky voting system - first past the post with a twist - the twist being that voters must vote for as many candidates as there are vacancies. This can potentially lead to a situation whereby you are obliged to vote for a candidate you don't like much, simply to make up your slate. Failure to cast the right number of votes leads to the rejection of all of your choices - an unwelcome problem to have.

The first vote was for the Presidency, with voters given the choice of voting for Siim Kallas or Hans van Baalen. I had thought that it might be close, with both sides throwing caution to the wind in their attempts to persuade voters, but in the end, van Baalen won by a very clear margin indeed.

What did that mean for the Vice-Presidential race? Firstly, it meant an extra vacancy to be filled, meaning that there would be six winners, not five, as van Baalen was already a serving Vice-President himself. However, it meant that voters were faced with having to pick an extra candidate to support, although more prescient delegations had probably given the matter some thought anyway.

The next complication was the means of voting, an electronic voting pad which required each of the six votes to be cast separately, which offered boundless opportunities for confusion. However, eventually, the voting procedure was complete, and I took my place in a small room away from the congress hall with my fellow observers, one for each campaign.

It quickly became clear that there had been significant numbers of spoiled ballots - seventy-one out of four hundred and twenty-nine. Voters choosing the same candidate more than once, or not casting all six votes, meant that I was wondering, "Have our voters got it right?". The numbers were announced for each candidate, each observer confirmed their acceptance, and I took the opportunity to offer our thanks to the Returning Officers and to Didrik de Schaetzen, who had co-ordinated the election on behalf of the ALDE Party secretariat, for their efforts, before we returned to our candidates.

Then, the announcement, with the results simultaneously screened for the Congress to see. Ros had won fairly handily, getting 73% of the valid votes cast, and coming third overall. Elected with her were Marcus Löning from the FDP, Germany, Ilhan Kyuchuyk from the MRF, Bulgaria, (probably the first Muslim Bureau member ever), Timmy Dooley from Fianna Fáil, Ireland, Marta Pascal from Convergencia, Catalonia, and Fredrick Federley, from Centerpartiet, Sweden.

The campaign was over, a victory had been gained, and a future unlocked. We took the International Office team off for a glass of champagne to mark the result, but mostly as a small thank you for the work that they had done to make it possible.

I am very proud of Ros. She ran a campaign which was true to her values, stuck to the issues and was about doing things rather than being things. I have every confidence that she will do the Liberal Democrats proud during her term of office, and that she will, eventually, leave the ALDE Party stronger than it was when she arrived. And that, when all is said and done, is what politics is all about.

As for me, it seems that I am a (Vice-)Presidential consort again, at least for two years. For Saffron Walden, read Vilnius, presumably... it could be a lot of fun...

It's not looking promising in the Bolivarian Republic

ALL EYES ARE ON #VENEZUELA https://t.co/FkiyLBZ64W @liberalinternat pic.twitter.com/7wpnNQdhzz

— ALDE Group (@ALDEgroup) November 15, 2015

Inflation officially at 68.5% (that is, what it was when the Central Bank stopped publishing the data last December - it may be as high as 700% now), a chicken costing $219 at the official exchange rate, the gold reserves being sold off to pay maturing debt and national GDP thought to have fallen by about 10% this year - not perhaps the ideal circumstances to be fighting an election in if you're the governing party.

And it gets worse. The First Lady's nephews have been arrested in Haiti and extradited to the United States on charges of conspiring to smuggle cocaine, the economy is almost entirely dependent on oil exports, and the Organization of American States has signaled concerns about the legitimacy of the election arrangements, calling for international observers to be invited. 

But yes, Venezuela goes to the polls on 6 December, with President Maduro declaring that he will “not hand over the revolution.” That outcome, he warned, would force him to govern “with the people in a civil-military union.”. In other words, the opposition might win the vote, but they might not gain power.

And they'll have to go some, despite being as much as 20% ahead in the opinion polls. Constituencies have been gerrymandered, the press censored, opposition leaders jailed, voters bribed and there are fears that polling stations will be arranged to maximize the pro-government vote.

ALDE has called for democratic elections and a peaceful transition, something that I think most of us could support. Watch this space...

@ALDEParty Congress - the Vice-Presidential Race

I was going to write this for Liberal Democrat Voice but, to be honest, given what's going on over there, it hardly seems worth bothering. At least here, anyone who is interested can pick it up...

A week ago, I wrote for Liberal Democrat Voice about the contest to replace Sir Graham Watson as President of the ALDE (Alliance of Liberal and Democrats in Europe) Party. I had meant to follow that up with a piece about the race to fill five, possible six, Vice-Presidential slots, but you know how things go, you get distracted, or busy, or both. However, time now permits, so here goes...

It has, in past years, been unusual to have big fields for ALDE elections, but this year is different, with ten candidates for the five places currently available, and they're an intriguing collection.

Raoul Boucke is the D'66 (Netherlands) candidate, as Lousewies van der Laan is term-limited (ALDE Vice Presidents are permitted three consecutive terms). He's the Chair of his Party's Belgium & Luxembourg branch, and was fifth on the Party's list for the 2014 European Parliamentary election.

Timmy Dooley, from Fianna Fail (Ireland), ran for a Vice-Presidential vacancy in 2014, losing out to Angelika Mlinar (NEOS, Austria) and Hans van Baalen (VVD, Netherlands) in an unexpectedly tight three-cornered contest. He sat in the Irish Senate from 2002 to 2007, and has represented Clare in the Irish Parliament since then. He is currently his party's spokesperson on European Affairs.

Fredrick Federley is one of the Centerpartiet (Sweden) MEPs, taking up his seat last year. He had, previously, served eight years as a member of the Swedish Parliament, and is now Second Vice Chairman of his Party. He may be the only candidate to have an acknowledged drag persona, and is closely linked to Siim Kallas's candidacy for President.

Antanas Guoga is possibly the most intriguing candidate ever to run for the ALDE Bureau. A Lithuanian-Australian businessman, he played the World Poker Tour with much success for a number of years, before getting involved in the Liberal Movement of Lithuania, for whom he now sits in the European Parliament. He is known as Tony G, and had a reputation as being a 'bad boy of poker'.

Mitja Horvat is the Chair of the International Committee of the Modern Centre Party of Slovenia, one of ALDE's newest member parties, and one of its MPs. An academic previously, he lectured in Administrative Law at the University of Ljubljana.

The first Bulgarian to run for the Bureau (to the best of my knowledge), Ilhan Kyuchyuk is a member of the European Parliament, representing the Movement for Rights and Freedoms. He's the youngest of the candidates, just thirty years old (which makes me feel rather elderly). If elected, he may well be the first Muslim Bureau member too.

With Alexander Graf Lambsdorff standing down after two terms, the FDP (Germany) are fielding a known quantity in Markus Löning. A Vice President of ALDE from 2005 to 2011 and the safest of pairs of hands, Markus is Chair of Liberal International's Human Rights Committee and was Germany's Commissioner for Human Rights between 2010 and 2014.

Marta Pascal Capdevila has been nominated by Convergencia (Catalonia). A member of the Catalan Parliament since 2013, she is her Party's spokesperson on the Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee.

The only member of the Bureau seeking re-election, Karin Riis-Jorgensen, from Venstre (Denmark), served three terms in the European Parliament from 1994 to 2009. Her husband is currently the Danish Ambassador in Rome, having formerly held the same position in London.

And finally, the Liberal Democrat, Ros Scott. Ros has served in the United Kingdom's House of Lords since 2000, holding a number of portfolios before, in 2008, she was elected by a vote of all Party members to become Party President, chairing the Federal Executive during the two year period when the Liberal Democrats entered the governing administration for the first time in peace time since 1929. Subsequently, she became a member of the European Union Select Committee in the Lords, and currently chairs its Energy and Environment sub-committee, which also includes agriculture and fisheries. She is also married to a member of ALDE's Financial Advisory Committee (that would be me...)

The voting system is a slightly unusual one, with voters having to cast as many votes as there are vacancies, with a first past the post basis determining the outcome. And, with the drama of a paper count now replaced by the (hopefully) quiet efficiency of a computerised voting system, the result should be known by 12.30 p.m., London time, on Saturday.

Mid Suffolk: so much for Rural Labour then...

You can tell that I live in the country, as my Twitter feed is filled with candidates telling me about their campaigning in small villages across Suffolk (well, except here in Creeting St Peter, of course). Labour candidates have been particularly active - after all, they aren't going to win in places like South Suffolk or Suffolk Coastal. At least, were they to do so, we'd be looking at a landslide that would make 1906 look close.

More practically though, one might assume that if Labour were such credible contenders, there would be an upsurge in the number of Labour candidates in places like Mid Suffolk. Well, if Mid Suffolk is anything to go by, the Conservatives need not lose too much sleep.

There are forty seats up for grabs in Mid Suffolk, and nobody has a full slate, no, not even the Conservatives. Admittedly, they give a free ride to so-called Independents in some wards (yes, we know that they're Conservatives really in most cases), but even so, they are missing the odd candidate. By comparison, Labour are running just eight candidates. Yes, eight, which may corroborate suggestions that, outside London, the Labour Party is something of a hollow shell compared to earlier decades.

Surprisingly, UKIP haven't done much better, given their claimed membership surge, with just eleven candidates. Given their success in the 2013 County Council elections and the 2014 European elections, I had expected better. Perhaps their surge is over...

The Greens, on the other hand, have managed twenty-seven candidates, which is a very good effort indeed. I'm not expecting them to make much in the way of progress, given the higher turnout generated by the General Election, which should favour the larger parties, but it might be a stepping stone to a decent showing in 2017 if they do it well. Admittedly, I don't see much evidence of much work across the District, but they are at least trying.

The Liberal Democrats have managed eighteen candidates. It isn't easy persuading people to be even paper candidates when the Party is as unpopular (in relative terms) as it is, although the response on the doorsteps is not hostile if and when you get there, I'm told. That is, perhaps, one of the prices of being in government...

There are also three independents, two candidates from Suffolk Together (which appears to be melting away) and one candidate who appears not to have a description.

Finally, there are two lucky people who can sit out polling day, as Rachel Eburne has been re-elected unopposed in Haughley and Wetherden for the Greens and Matthew Hicks likewise for the Conservatives in Worlingworth.

Unlock Democracy: applying napalm to my very own burning bridge

I have already touched upon the issue of the declared rules for the internal elections to the Council of Unlock Democracy. At the time, Ros did suggest that I might regret addressing the issue in such a blunt manner and, as usual, she was right.

However, constancy to a set of principles is important too, and my friends will know that I've banged on about internal democracy for many years. To me, it is critical to an informed and participatory society. But I have agreed to disagree with most of my fellow Council members, if only to acknowledge the fact that we all have our own reasons for taking the stances we do.

What I do object to is some of the reactions of individuals. It appears that, to at least one of them, the idea of blogging is cause for ridicule, and that the notion that I might wish to express an opinion other than that of the group is somehow strange. Another has expressed the view that use of social media will discriminate against some candidates and, whilst I entirely see where the view stems from, it does appear to represent an equally valid argument against the use of social media in public elections, surely not a notion most would endorse.

But the final blow to morale was the comments placed on both of my recent blog entries, which were clearly a 'cut and paste' job.

So, to save them the trouble...

Unlock Democracy's internal election regulations are decided by our members. The rules are designed to provide a level playing field and to prevent wealthier candidates from having too great an advantage. The current rules were set before Facebook and Twitter were in widespread use.

Any member concerned about these rules could have submitted a standing order amendment to our AGM.  No-one did so. We are keen to encourage as many members as possible to stand for election. For more details see our website: http://www.unlockdemocracy.org.uk/elections

There are times for irony, times for sarcasm, and times for despair. And once you've dealt with those, it's time to move on...

The day of the two imposters

So, the campaign is over and the voters have spoken. Well, at least, quite a few of them have spoken... and what were the results?

In East Dulwich, our gallant crew swept all before them, especially our Labour opponents. The Conservatives made no impression and the squeeze message seems to have resonated amongst the electorate. Result - a 600+ vote majority for Richard Thomas, Jonathan Mitchell and James Barber...

http://www.southwark.gov.uk/Uploads/File_20969.pdf

Unfortunately, we weren't as fortunate in Peckham Rye and, despite their best efforts, Annie Bingham fell short by just 50 votes...

http://www.southwark.gov.uk/Uploads/File_20978.pdf

And in Knights Hill, our three candidates fell victim to the Labour surge...

http://www.lambeth.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/D0E72067-F98F-40DB-9798-E52330ADFAAA/0/LambethElectionResults2006.pdf

You might be wondering what happened to me and the answer was that I came 10th out of 11, achieving 484 votes which, I believe, is my best ever tally. I'll write more soon...