Counsels of Perfection, lessons learned, etc.
Thanks to Alex Mays, Carla Gregory, Jackson Caines, George Smith, Neil Harding, Ed Poole, Abdullah Chikh, Jane Haybroek, Stephen Moorby, Joe Skeeping, Kevin Walsh, Deborah Wilbee (Debs), Jay Motti, and James Mulvihill for your contributions towards this report.
This “Counsels of Perfection” document is for us to learn from. I want to stress that I am pleased with all that we did, working from scratch.
We had never worked together before. Most of us had very little or no election experience. We all contributed. We all did well. Our first election was always going to be a learning experience.
Could we have done better?
We could, but most of the issues occurred because we simply did not have enough time.
Some of the other issues occurred through inexperience.
It was common knowledge in political circles that Cheryl Gillan was very ill. The LibDems decided to go for the seat, putting I suspect exceptional effort into the council elections in order to have an up to date canvass. They also planned and printed at least 10 different leaflets.
Cheryl Gillan died on 5 April this year.
We did not actually decide to run a candidate until 15 May. We lost five weeks in a ten weeks campaigning window.
Seeing what we did in five weeks, in nine weeks we would have done even better. That is an opportunity lost.
Organisational need. Do we need someone “in the know” who can tell of us other poorly MPs in good time?
Organisational need. A process to make an early decision next time.
The Breakthrough Party is new, and financially we are on a shoestring. We did not have the confidence to incur bills that we might not be able to meet. It was great to raise our £2500 target a week early. The full cost of the campaign was £2818.13. We also forfeited the £500 deposit, increasing our spend to £3318.13. Had we been financially confident, we could have spent more.
Although Carla was personally popular, Carla did not have a gang of local helpers. We may make that an “Essential” when preparing a “person spec” for future council or Parliamentary candidates.
Debs came forward after reading on local social media that Carla was standing for Breakthrough. Guy Press also came forward, but his wife is very ill and Guy could not help in this election.
Our problems were compounded at the beginning because Alex was moving house in Manchester, and decorating. Charles was in Portugal. Debs was on holiday. Carla has a job and two children. No-one was really in charge, and everyone was anxious not to be seen to be “controlling”. We worked on consensus – but that created delay.
I am proud of Carla and Debs that the nomination papers were lodged and accepted a day before the deadline. Training need: how to complete nomination forms, how to complete expenses forms.
The combination of late start and lack of funds and lack of boots on the ground had some negative impact.
Our messaging was good, but should have been sharper. Had we spent more time researching the hot concerns on local social media, we might have just concentrated on HS2, local poverty, and Housing.
We were pushing Carla the person, Breakthrough the new party, a wage increase for NHS staff, wage levels generally, UBI, insecure work, HS2, free childcare, reduced class sizes, publicly owned water and buses, affordable housing and rent controls, free social care, and investment in mental health and the NHS generally – all on one little leaflet!
The campaign interview was really well produced, but suffered from the same problem as the election address and the leaflet.
Our organisation was weak. We managed to leaflet at least three streets twice!
I did not see any of the social media or other media info at all. Carla was working with Jay on all the media and social media contacts. These issues are significantly time consuming, and added to the stress on Carla.
Jay lodged numerous complaints about nasty social media posts.
Carla loved it when people whom Carla did not know piled in to attack nasty posts.
Had we been preparing for this election before Cheryl´s death, we could have put up paper candidates at the council elections to spread our name and message. Debs´ result in Chess ward, where Debs with 460 votes beat both the Labour candidates (371 and 391) would have been a footing for our byelection campaign. Had Debs been a Breakthrough Party member when we were choosing a candidate, Debs might have been the candidate.
All this activity would have attracted boots on the ground from early on.
We could also have dreamed up a campaign issue to be our unique selling point. I suggested “reopen A & E at Amersham Hospital”, but we simply did not have the time or the bodies to run such a campaign.
A bonus in the election was the Rally for Palestine in Lowndes Park, Chesham, where Carla Gregory was the only candidate to declare an interest in speaking, and then spoke well. Carla has the track record on local social media to be credible on the Palestine issue, not just running after a bandwagon.
Early on, we took a decision not to canvass. Canvassing is enormously time consuming. At best, given the numbers of people we had, we could have canvassed a few streets in one polling district.
Even leafletting, we were pushed to leaflet the areas selected.
Our High Street activities were highly visible.
CHESHAM HIGH STREET 12 June 2021. George Smith, Alex Mays, Jackson Caines, Ed Poole, Charles James, Jo Skeeping, Neil Harding.
Photo; Carla Gregory.
We were in Chesham High Street mainly. We had a small presence in Amersham on The Hill on 5 June, but the Amersham response was poor.
The most important leaflet was the Election Address. This document is delivered for free by Royal Mail either to every household. If individually addressed to every individual voter, different leaflets can be sent to voters at the same address.
To have 43,000 leaflets delivered to every household in the constituency was well worth the £500 deposit. The delivery cost worked out at just over a penny for each leaflet.
Royal Mail lay down strict deadlines for content, and have pretty tight time constraints.
I wrote the first draft, based upon a couple of long interviews with Carla.
Jackson and a designer friend took up the baton. With time being critical, Carla, Debs as agent, Alex, and I were happy to agree their document as drafted.
Had the process been more leisurely, we might have made a few changes. Carla’s quote “I am running in this by-election because ordinary working people need someone who will work for them.” might have been better using “us” rather than “them”.
“A REAL LIVING WAGE & AN END TO INSECURE WORK” might have been better with a full stop instead of an ampersand. There were too many ampersands generally.
The election address should have been printed on recycled paper, and stated as being printed on recycled paper. A recycling logo would have been good.
These are trivial improvements on a pretty good leaflet. I praised it at the time and I praise it now.
The biggest mistake on the Election Address was actually made by me. I told Jackson to reserve one half of one side, or a whole side, to be a poster that people could put in their windows to show support.
Jackson did what I told him.
With hindsight, we should have foregone the poster and given more message.
We had decided to use a local printer. He used a subcontractor, adding delay to the production process. We had told him that Royal Mail required all 43,000 leaflets to be bundled in hundreds.
On Wednesday the printer said that his subcontractor could not do the bundling. Under time pressure to deliver to Royal Mail on Friday morning, Alex authorised for printing to go ahead. Debs and I and two of Debs´ friends had to bundle the 43,000 leaflets by hand. (Tip: we used kitchen scales rather than counting.)
Stephen Moorby has a printer who is fully mechanised, reliable, reasonably priced, and very quick. Absolute Print, 50 Junction Road, London N19 5RD 0207 2722224. Ask for Hak Husseyn and mention Stephen Moorby.
We may ask Stephen to negotiate a good price when we start printing large numbers of leaflets.
The banner was good.
The T shirts were a great idea. We used a local supplier. Unfortunately, his printing machine broke down, so half the t shirts arrived very late. He was also expensive. We need a good supplier for next time
The two sets of “Breakthrough” masks were user unfriendly and expensive.
The rosettes Alex bought were fine.
Our logo was approved by the Electoral Commission, but too late to be used on the ballot paper.
Our web site was far too thin and not up to date. As I write this, I know that changes and improvements are getting made.
Our promises and policies were clear on our leaflets – unlike the bland stuff from most of the parties. One piece of feedback was the suggestion that our promises were dishonest because we can’t win a majority in Parliament with one seat so we can’t deliver. We should phrase things more as what we will campaign for rather than what we will do.
Our Labour opponent was a gift. She boasted of her endorsement by Tony Blair, which drove some LP members towards us. Her leaflets were bland.
My recommendations for future byelections:
- An early decision to contest.
- Put someone strong in charge at the outset. This organiser should not be the party leader.
- Everyone works to the organiser.
- We need someone strong locally other than the candidate to be the official agent. It can be the organiser if s/he is local.
- Immediate research on local FB sites about the key issues in the relevant constituency.
- No more than 3 key issues. Link to our web site for anyone interested.
- Set a realistic financial limit. I suggest £500 limit plus £4500. Crowd fund for £5,000 election expenses.
- The Election address is the key document. See point 6 above.
Charles James 30 June 2021
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