A Personal View on the Recent Elections
The recent elections have thrown up a paradox. We are told that
people are alienated from politics and political parties. Global
economic and social forces are reshaping the world in which we all
live and induce a feeling of helplessness. People feel hostile to
politicians and their aim in voting, if they vote at all, is to register
their personal protest, or even a cry for help. The lightning rod issue
for those subject to change is thought to be immigration. The result is
that increasingly we are said to be in a four or five party electoral
system, where voters feel less and less enthusiasm for established
political parties.
Yet, by any measure, the city most subject to global forces, which has
seen and continues to see the highest levels of immigration, which
experiences the starkest contrasts of wealth and inequality, has also
seen relatively high voter turnout, a reassertion of two party voting
and the triumph of Labour candidates. In London, Labour gained
Croydon, Hammersmith and Fulham, Redbridge and Merton. As a
successful Labour candidate in the key Merton swing ward of Abbey
in South Wimbledon, I believe I have an understanding of why this
occurred.
Politicians are thought to be distant from voters and their concerns.
In my experience in London, this is not usually true. Elections are
closely contested and who runs the Council really does make a
difference. The Boroughs deliver a full range of services and
determine local planning policy and street management. They are
also ‘all out’ with all councillors being elected together rather than by
thirds, and election nights over the last thirty years have given rise to
many fresh administrations with a mandate for change. This history
of strong electoral competition has resulted in active local parties
with relatively high memberships. Whatever suggestions are made of
London’s local politicians it is not often that that they are irrelevant
or distant from residents. This is not to suggest that councillors
elsewhere do not do a good job: of course they do. My own favourite
council is Manchester, which has been outstanding in recent decades.
But doing a good job on and through the Council is not in itself
sufficient to win in tough electoral circumstances.
In 2006, I had led Merton Council for five years from a position of
weakness to one of strength, transforming services and the way the
Council is run. We had turned round our performance and reputation
and pioneered innovative approaches like our planning policy, the
‘Merton Rule’, requiring on-site renewables in new development,
which was eventually adopted by 140 other councils and the UK
Government. On the day before the election, Tony Blair visited the
Borough and suggested kindly that if we lost the election it was his
Government’s fault and not ours. And the next day we did lose.
However, it was only partly true that our loss was due to the
Government’s waning popularity. There was also a very local cause.
We lost a critical ward in South Wimbledon because simply we had
maintained insufficient contact with residents. People lead busy lives
and cannot be expected to keep in touch with the detail of what
happens on the Council. Most would not have been aware of how
good a job we had done.
I resigned the local Labour leadership and determined to win Merton
back for Labour. This meant developing a relationship with large
numbers of Wimbledon residents. As the parliamentary candidate for
Wimbledon, I was also in a position to focus local campaigning. I gave
up a safe Labour council seat in Mitcham and resolved to win election
in the vital Abbey ward. It was to be a double challenge with the
parliamentary and local elections falling on the same day. Through
hundreds of conversations, my team was able to understand what
mattered to residents. We devised policies to meet those concerns
and campaigned assiduously on our promises. In 2010, I took a seat
from the Conservatives by less than 100 votes. This may not sound
much, but it changed the whole arithmetic of the borough, with 28
Labour councillors to 27 Conservative, and although in ‘no overall
control’, we held the executive and took all the decisions.
We used that decision-making power to deliver on promises we had
made to the electors: rapid demographic change had led to a shortage
of local primary school places, so in the last four years we used the
Council’s resources to expand local primary schools to create twice
as many; concerns about a scruffy and run down high street were
addressed by comprehensive neighbourhood renewal; and pressure
on household budgets was relieved by freezing the council tax and
the cost of resident’s parking permits. By 2014, we had a record of
real achievement and had been recognized by the Municipal Journal
as the ‘Best Achieving’ council in the country.
In Abbey, in these recent elections, we focused relentlessly on what
mattered to residents, whatever their circumstances. One polling
district of mainly social housing is subject to proposals for a complete
rebuild. As Labour candidates we have acted as champions of the
interests of existing tenants and leaseholders in discussions with the
housing association developer. We are committed to achieving a
good deal for residents. The other three polling districts consist
largely of privately owned terraced houses with an average asking
price of £750k. In the week before polling the BBC even identified
Wimbledon as the spiritual home of the Yuppie!
We spent hours each week talking to residents on the doorstep to
discover their concerns and understand their aspirations. We held a
series of public meetings and ‘drop ins’ and wrote to residents on
locally important matters.
In the event, overall we took 8 seats from the Conservatives and have
a majority Labour Council. In Abbey ward, we took all 3 seats with an
average majority of 400 over the Conservatives. I now have two
superb, capable and committed young women as colleagues.
It is essential to have a close understanding of people’s concerns and
ultimately you can only do that by talking to them. Once politicians
understand the issues, they need to find answers. This often means
brokering a solution by working with council officers as well as
community groups, businesses and public bodies. It means being
imaginative as well as practical. Creative problem solving on behalf of
residents is ultimately far more important than sitting on council
committees and other formal political business, necessary as that
might be. At one time the caricature of the local council was of taking
a ‘jobs worth’ approach. Now you are more likely to find a ‘can do’
attitude. But local politicians have to equip themselves to make good
use of it.
In Merton we are building a responsive politics where what we do
locally is determined by what residents themselves want to achieve.
We aim to represent residents: individually, in groups, in every street
and every neighbourhood. This does not mean we champion every
view right or wrong: we keep a grip on our principles and strive to
achieve the common good. But overall we want residents to prosper,
to enjoy living where they do with a good quality of life. These goals
are common across the country and across parties, but they can only
be given reality by constant application.
Andrew Judge, June 2014