In an interview with e-politix, Andrew Stunnell, the Lib Dems’ local government spokesman, claims: ‘We've got a demographic penetration which neither of the other parties can achieve. Labour are being squeezed out of the south and particularly out of rural areas, and the Tories still have no councillors in Liverpool, no councillors in Newcastle, they're completely squeezed out of many of the urban centres’.
As usual, this is utter nonsense from the Lib Dems. In fact, Conservatives control more than twice as many councils in the North of England as the Lib Dems (17 versus 7), and have well over 200 more councillors (1357 versus 1119). As for being squeezed out of urban centres in the North, by way of example, Conservatives control Trafford council and jointly run Bradford, Leeds and Warrington councils.
In this Thursday’s elections, Conservatives will be fielding over 550 more candidates than the Lib Dems in the North of England as a whole (2,092 versus 1,528). In, for example, the North West, Conservative candidates are contesting 1,031, or 89.9 per cent, of the 1,147 seats up for election, while the Lib Dems are contesting just 645, or 56.2 per cent, of seats.
Obviously, the Conservatives we have a much stronger showing than the Lib Dems in the South of England too. For example, in the South East, Conservative candidates are contesting 98.4 per cent of the seats up for election, whereas the Lib Dems are contesting just 77.2 per cent.
So let's hear less of the pious stuff from the LibDems on this. It's time Conservatives fought back on this. We're far more of a national party than the other two so we should remind people of it more often.
10 comments:
You tell 'em, Iain. It always pisses me off how self-righteous most LibDems are and how they get away with it because the big parties find it more profitable to turn their guns on each other rather than on a party with no real prospect of power. It's good to see someone fighting back and let's hope we claim back all those "borrowed" seats in the SW next time.
It's not all about quantity. Simply fielding candidates in the North without mounting any form of campaign will achieve little... in fact it may serve to damage the vote in a General Election.
Conservatives control Trafford council and jointly run Bradford, Leeds
with LibDems.....but in 2006 Labour and LibDems gained seats from Conservatives in Bradford and the Conservatives were on 31% with BNP on 13%....BNP cost the Conservatives a couple of seats
Well the LDs are certainly one down in Darlington; one sitting councillor signed nomination papers for the BNP (in his own ward) and now his comrades are telling the natives to vote against him, while swearing blind they're doing no such thing.
http://townliar.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=568
"Only LibDems can really screw up here..."
Iain, off-topic, possible problem with your site - sometimes starts to load OK, then Internet Explorer says "Could not open the internet site www.iaindale.blogspot.com" and crashes with "site not found" message. Don't think it's my PC, doesn't happen with any other website, pressing refresh (sometimes several times) will eventually bring up the site. Just mentioning in case anyone else has a similar problem.
sorry, mistake in previous comment @8.13, should have read "page could not be displayed" not "site not found".
A very selective analysis Iain. In Northern urban areas the Tories are squeezed, and have no presence on York, Newcastle, Manchester, Liverpool, Durham etc. etc.
They're very much the junior partners in Warrington.
In the North East the Tories are fielding fewer candidates than the Lib Dems.
If the analysis is of large Northern urban seats vs small Northern rural district seats, the Tory showing is far less impressive.
It's hardly a surprise Tories pick up rural district "village" seats with electorates of 1500 in places like North Yorks or Cumbria. Winning seats of 8000 or so in Northern cities is a different story.
should have read "page could not be displayed" not "site not found".
Change your DNS Server or re-boot your modem and clean out the cache
Iain,
It's actually Tony Travers of the London School of Economics who said this - it's not surprising the Lib Dems picked up on it though!
In Blackburn the story is that the Lib Dems have cut a deal with the BNP and possibly their sister party England First Party.
Planning to blog this leak from the heart and soul of Blackburn Libdemagogeury. The declarations and past results do tell part of the story.
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