The dust is settling after what were pretty spectacular local elections some two weeks ago. The party has reason to be pleased with what were, beyond doubt, a very good set of results. Indeed, they were probably better than we could dared have hoped for in terms of the number of seats gained, and where in the country we gained them. It is a sign that the modernisation project that many of us have long argued for, is not only the right strategy, but it is the winning strategy too.
But now that we are winning doesn’t mean we should slow down or stop the modernisation of our party. Far from it. Yet again, we must go further – both in order to achieve real and lasting success, but also to ensure that we are properly prepared to govern our country, given that this is now an increasing probability.
You see, once you look at the local election results in detail, there are still some warning notes for those who think we’ve done a bit of modernistation, we’re popular again now, and we can get on with our ’normal’ agenda.
In my area at the elections, it was very noticeable that Conservative candidates did well, indeed better than expected, when in a two-horse race against a Labour incumbent; did less well than a credible Independent candidate in a 3 horse race with a Labour incumbent; and didn’t really do well at all against an Independent incumbent. Moreover, when you look at the results against Labour, we won some seats with a lower number of votes than we got in 2004 – it was just that the Labour vote had totally collapsed. Of course, every ward is different, and each local campaign has its own quirks – but if there is a trend to be observed here, it is not necessarily as good as the headlines. It suggests we are not attracting as much positive support as we would like – there wasn’t a groundswell of support that catapulted our number of votes massively upwards, and we haven’t got to the point where the electorate is prepared to exchange a decent independent councillor for a new Conservative one, because they prefer our agenda and believe we can deliver on it. Without positive support, we will always be at the mercy of a Labour government that just might get back on track and re-motivate its supporters. Those supporters haven’t totally deserted Labour yet, they just haven’t voted for them this time. Until they have voted for us however, the modernisation process cannot even begin to slow down…it must speed up!
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