Winning in Ipswich

The initial euphoria of victory has worn off, and the hard work of running Ipswich has begun. Election expenses have been submitted and “Thank you” newsletters printed and now being delivered. In Ipswich we won 12 seats out of the 16 being contested (we have elections by thirds) including all five of our target seats. Sadly the results achieved here were not repeated throughout southern England. So what did we do in Ipswich and did we do it differently?

A little background: Labour lost control of Ipswich in 2004 after 25 years as a Labour borough; Last year we lost the Parliamentary seat by 2079 votes. On a more positive note we managed to regain some Borough Council seats even in 2008 and 2009. Ipswich Labour Party is also unusual in having a full-time Labour organiser. We also campaign hard all year round.

Target seats: We needed to hold on to the seven seats we were defending and gain two seats to take control of the Council – which sounded achievable. The first seat seemed easy – Westgate ward, which we have only lost once, in 2007, and have since built up a good majority. The second seat would be more difficult: Either Alexandra ward which we had not won since 2002 and Rushmere, won once since 2002, in 2008, with a local candidate who had stood on three separate occasions leading to him building a strong personal vote. We decided to give both equal priority. Believing our Labour-held seats to be safe, (even Whitehouse ward – majority of 2 last year) we added in Stoke Park and Whitton, the only other seats we have won on current ward boundaries.

The politics: Perhaps we are fortunate with our opponents. The Tories running Suffolk County Council grasped the opportunity to “divest” itself of all Council services, setting out plans to scrap school crossing patrols and closure (unless teams of volunteers could be found) of three Ipswich libraries. We latched on to these two services, and turned them into Borough election issues. The cash saved by scrapping them was peanuts; We campaigned strongly against these cuts – petitions at school gates, leaflets and the like over the winter and moved an amendment to the Borough Council budget to enable us to take over responsibility for both services, without any increase to council tax. The Tories and Liberals were foolish enough to vote down our proposal.

Now the hard work: Having spent Autumn and Winter, campaigning mainly through petitions and newsletters, from early February we took to the phones, hitting the 5% targets set by Head Office in their eight Ipswich target wards, which happily included our five targets. In March we stepped up this campaigning, with the Party Office open 4pm to 8pm every weekday and doorstep sessions every weekend. We concentrated our phone work on the four seats we considered our key targets: Alexandra, Rushmere, Stoke Park and Whitton hitting the 10% Head Office targets in each. We also delivered 50,000 newspapers across the Borough – the bulk of them free of charge as our reward for hitting February’s targets.

The Short Campaign: From 25th March we had daily doorstep campaign sessions, with “mass campaign” sessions from Friday through to Monday each week, where all campaigning would be focused on our target wards. In total we made over 22,000 voter id contacts across the borough, 60% of which were in our four key target wards. We gathered intelligence on opposition activity, and when it became clear they were putting no effort into Labour-held wards, it became easier to convince our own activists to move. Our leaflet delivery effort was supplemented by new members, new supporters and angry library users. By polling day, we knew that the Liberals wouldn’t be working much anywhere and that the Tories would be throwing everything at Rushmere ward. We ran a more balanced campaign, and having delivered “Vote on Thursday” leaflets in our “safe” wards; “Vote Todays” in only seven wards – the four priority wards plus St John’s (Tory councillor to beat there in 2012), Westgate and Whitehouse – we then concentrated our GOTV effort on the four target seats.

The result: We made five gains, two from the Liberals and three from the Tories – We won the seat of the former Lib Dem leader and the Mayor. We almost beat the Tory Council Leader in the non-target ward of Holywells, just 93 votes short. Labour now has 28 seats; Tories 16 and Lib Dems 4. And next year we have another four seats to be won in wards we won this year. We’re already back on the doorstep and we aim to keep on winning.

Conclusion: We got the politics right; We got the strategy right; We worked hard and we had good organisation. Having a professional Labour Organiser makes a big difference – it ensures activity happens, the leaflets are printed, provides organisational leadership and helps deliver results like this. I would say that, wouldn’t I, but so does the Labour Group and the Party membership.

John Cook is Election Agent for Ipswich Labour Party