Monday, May 05, 2008

What Does 'Local' Mean & Does it Matter?

Yesterday the LibDems' Head of Innovations wrote a post on LibDem Voice attacking the Tory candidate in Crewe & Nantwich for claiming to be local when he wasn't. The fact of the matter is that he has lived in the area all his life and currently lives just a stone's throw from the constituency. Apparently Mark had taken exception to a Tory leaflet which claimed the LibDem candidate (who replaced the previous one who they dumped) wasn't local. She lives twenty miles away. The Labour candidate lives 175 miles away.

This rather boring and tedious argument is played out in every election campaign, especially by-elections as each of the candidates seeks to prove, in the words of the Harry Enfield character that "I'm considerably more local than you".

Mark Pack's evidence for Edward Timpson not being local included these astonishing shock horror facts...
  • He was born in Knutsford (20 miles from Crewe)
  • Went to Durham university
  • Er, he lives in Cheshire
  • Ran the New York Marathon (!)
And so it goes on. Laughable, eh? Indeed, to their credit, several LibDem commenters think so too...

Sal says:
This is a truely desperately embarrassing small minded dim witted attack. Do we really have nothing better to do? Nothing better to discuss? I despair.
Elaine Woodard says:

Why do all Parties seem to want to get into a debate about how local a candidate is, particularly in by-elections? What is more important is what a candidate stands for and how good an MP they’d make. This sort of sniping just turns me off.
Hywel Morgan says:

If the election is going to be conducted on this level I won’t bother getting in my car! We referred to both Michael Carr (Ribble Valley) and David Chidgey (Eastleigh) as the local candidate and neither of them lived in the Constituency. Both had strong links with the area which meant that it was firstly credible to make such a claim but also that any attacks on them for not being local would backfire.He may not live in the constituency - but lets not try to make him out to be Tim Palmer mark 2.

Joe Taylor agrees:

Hywel has a point - This Sort Of Thing doesn't really make me want to go out and deliver loads of leaflets, even in sunny Crewe. More positive stuff about our candidate, please!

RMC has decided that he's had enough of the LibDems if this puerile attack is the best they can do...

Mark, this is pathetic stuff. You are the Head of Innovations for the party. I effectively pay your salary out of donations, whilst small I admit, I make to the party so how about some innovative thinking. This constant desire for "local" candidates is a real hindrance on LibDem progress and getting good quality candidates. It is an ethos, which results seemingly in the lead local councillor/activist getting selected. I am quite keen to become a PPC, however, I grew up on the south coast, have worked in London, and now work in the South West and discover my local party chair needs to sponsor my application. I am not really local to anywhere so I have decided not to bother whilst the party has this "local is best" mindset.


But the piece de resistance is provided by Ruth Bright, former LibDem, Candidate for East Hampshire.

Mark - whilst I was Lib Dem Parliamentary Candidate for East Hants (claiming to be a local) I had the temerity to give birth to a baby outside the constituency. I am really sorry about that - sort of feel I let the side down there.

Let me hold my hands up and admit that I was as guilty as anyone in playing the local card. In North Norfolk I actually lived in the constituency whereas the LibDem MP lived 15 miles away in Norwich. I constantly reminded people of this, but a fat lot of good it did me.

In the Bromley by-election, the LibDem Candidate Ben Abbotts lived a mile outside the constiutuency in Beckenham, and the Tory Bob Neill lived three or four miles away in Tower Hamlets, yet if you believed LibDem literature, their man was a complete local and Bob was from outer Mars. Indeed, Ben Abbotts' situation is eactly akin to that of Edward Timpson.

So, does it matter where someone lives, do voters actually give a damn? In truth, the answer is that some do, some don't. But far more important is the quality of the candidate and what they stand for. The truth of the matter is that Edward Timpson, from what I have seen so far, seems to be an outstanding candidate and that's why he is going to attract this kind of attack.

I'm going to be very circumspect in future about what I write about this by-election. Ealing taught me a big lesson, and while I will readily point out facile posts like Mark Pack's you're not going to get a daily running commentary on what's going on there. I think I will leave that to my esteemed colleagues on ConservativeHome.

22 comments:

Alex said...

Does it matter? - yes

What does it mean? - whatever you wnt it to mean; the voters can figure out for themselves how local you are. If you are really local, they will have seen your face in local politics. If they haven't seen you before, then your claims probably ring a little hollow.

Alex Folkes said...

(A different Alex)
In the great scheme of things I don't think it matters at all. Neither is actually from the constituency but both have good local links. Score draw. The reason that Mark's post is entirely justified, in my opinion, is that the Tories had started the ball rolling by slating the Lib Dem candidate for not being local, despite the fact that their's fails exactly the same test. To my mind, they are both local to the same degree and it was wrong for the Tories to have a go at Elizabeth Shenton.

Mulligan said...

When Labour voters can elect the likes of Sean Woodward (I believe the correct analogy for such voting is donkey with a red/blue rosette) then it pretty much proves that all this nonsense is way beyond the attention span, or interest, of the vast majority of voters.

Anonymous said...

At the risk of boring your readers, and indeed ourselves :-), to death - the point I was making is that it's rather ironic to be claiming a candidate is local when at the same time their biography of them on their party website is peppered with references to all sorts of other places.

The point is not about any one individual reference, but rather the collection of so many references to other places - whilst references to the constituency itself are thin on the ground.

Manfarang said...

Local?How many Tory candidates speak with a regional accent?

Anonymous said...

I stood for my local council once and got a phone call from one old nutter because my leaflets were not printed in the borough. I got an earful about how he had been in the navy in the war; I pointed out that at least the leaflets had not been printed in Germany, but I do not think I got his vote. Another call I got was from some broad who wanted to know my views on fox hunting. I was all in favour of it, though it was nothing to do with the local council. I think that was another vote I missed. After that I lost faith with democracy and decided mass murder was a more viable political method.

Anonymous said...

The most notorious abuse of the "local" point was when John Taylor stood as Conservative candidate for Cheltenham in 1992. The Liberals hammered on that he was not a local man. Ostensibly this was because he was from Manchester/London, but really it drew attention (with plausible deniability of course) to the fact that his ancestors were from the West Indies, and oh so helpfully provided an excuse for electors who didn't want to vote for a black man.

(The successful Liberal candidate was, I believe, from Swindon.)

Vienna Woods said...

As a former Councilor of the district council that separate Crewe and Knutsford districts I would certainly take the expression "local" to be reasonable. Having been the target of LibDem misinformation in this area more than 20 years since, it seems as if they haven't changed much!

Anonymous said...

Could Crewe and Nantwich possibly be a poisoned chalice for both Labour and Conservative candidates?

If Tamsin Dunwoody loses, as a result of the surge of opinion against Gordon Brown, she will never get another chance to stand again. If she wins, she will always have people saying that she only won the seat because of her mother.

If Edward Timpson wins (for the reason given above) he will have two years at most to turn a Labour safe seat into a potential Conservative hold.

This is pretty unlikely and he would lose the seat at the next General Election - probably leaving him without a seat for the following 4-5 years and, having lost, would not be the most attractive candidate for many constituency associations.

I don't often have sympathy for politicians, but I can't help thinking that this is not the most attractive seat in the country in which to advance your political career.

John M Ward said...

As an MP isn't really "local" as such, it is only one criterion in the mix. It still should count for something, but not be a make-or-break issue.

For a councillor the situation is different. For example, one of my own policies was being able to walk to any part of my 'patch', and indeed to do precisely that ona fairly regular basis.

I could (and did) get to know my area of responsibility very well indeed, but that cannot reasonably be expected to apply to an MP. There is no need anyway, as it is the councillors' job to deal with genuinely 'local' issues.

An MP needs to know the area broadly, and to be known to the area to a similar extent. As MPs employ staff, those should have a good working knowledge of the constituency, allowing the MP to concentrate on his/her real job, which is contributing to national (and international) policy.

John M Ward said...

For Manfarang's benefit, I don't know the answer, but I have noticed just how many Labour MPs speak with an accent from a long way outside the area they represent -- far more than any of the other parties in the House of Commons.

Meanwhile, I can speak with just about any accent :-)

Anonymous said...

"I am a local man, my family has been here for generations"
"I am a father of young children who relies on the NHS"
"I feel your pain"
"Can I rely on your vote?"

these are the lies that politicians speak in order to generate false empathy with voters.

bollocks to the lot of them. Only my family and friends "feel my pain" and if I am part of a minority "understand my community".

Lies, lies, lies for their own self-aggrandizing careers in Westminster. From Eton to Oxford to Westminster via Nottinghill. Where exactly did our lives intersect? Oh, thats right, the bit where you suddenly wanted my vote.

(this is not an anti-Dave rant, it applies to politicians of all stripes, but he is on the up at the moment so using him as an example)

Anonymous said...

Iain;

Please cut the bullshit.
You were never local.You bought a house at Swanton Abbot to try & cash in,but your Norfolk roots were as shallow as watercress on cotton wool.You sold it as soon as you could after you lost in North Norfolk.

Locality of domicile does not matter to constituents,it's how hard the MP works for them & you've acknowldged yourself that NOrman Lamb was a very hard working MP.

Who knows,if you'd stuck with North Norfolk,made yourself known,done some REAL work there, you may have been the MP there at the next election.

An MP or prospective MP needs to put the work in,regardless of where he lives.

Anonymous said...

I would be totally put off by any campaign that degenerated into a pissing contest over "who's the most local". It's petty and stupid.

So, Ed Timpson should probably not have made his press release about Tamsin Dunwoody being bussed in from Wales.

That said, we know she was selected to woo the sentimental votes and distract the voters from Broon's record. So he was right to publish his letter and should focus on (1) Tamsin's views on 10p, ID cards, etc, (2) her previous views and voting record (is she really as independent minded as her mother was?), and (3) how much she and the other candidates really know about the issues in Crewe & Nantwich.

And on policies and issues (both national and local) he should not treat Tamsin with kid gloves. She chose to get into the kitchen and so she can't complain if her rivals turn up the heat.

Iain Dale said...

I sold my house because I had to. If you had been a candidate you would know how expensive it is. By the time of the election I had had no income for 9 months, credit cards maxed out. Seling was the only option I had. It's one of my biggest regrets having to sell that house, as we absolutely loved it.

Of course an MP has to work hard, and as you say I have acknolwedged that Norman did. I can assure you I did too!

Astro-Turf Lawnmower said...

Can someone please post a list of all election candidates who have ever run a marathon which did not take place in the constituency for which they are standing?

Expose these frauds!

Newmania said...

You had done pretty well to have the money at that time to spend and then a house to sell.

Did I notice that Mark Pack-rat is head of innovation for the Labour -lite? I have often wondered if people became Liberals because the competition in the Conservative Party was to fierce and this is surely the proof.

Anonymous said...

Here we go with that word "local" again. Fortunately, nobody has mentioned "local-ism" yet. Probably the most overused word in the current political dictionary; and, nobody knows what it means. Is it my polling district; my ward, my super-output area; my parliamentary constituency; my district; my county or my region?

Which one of the above is your "local"? Wouldn't it be nice if we had one coterminous "local" that was small enough for the citizens to identify with and have pride in belonging to it. Big enough to be viable as socio-economic unit.

For instance, why does the London assembly have 14 constituencies when it has 32 boroughs plus city already, with there own elected Leaders, should they not be the Assembly?

Anonymous said...

Mark Pack said...

"The point is not about any one individual reference, but rather the collection of so many references to other places"

Clearly, everyone who read your profound article should now apologise to you for having been too stupid to understand it.

Anonymous said...

If you're standing for a Cheshire constituency, I challenge anyone to claim Knutsford isn't local!

Anonymous said...

Iain - your knowledge of the geography of Britain is pretty poor if you think that Tower Hamlets is only "3 or 4" miles from Bromley.

Anonymous said...

I have never liked the "local" issue. I would find it very depressing if people voted because somebody was local rather than any good. I would want somebody who has experienced other cultures, understood alternative ways of approaching issues, to represent me. Not somebody who has never lived away from their own home town.