Political Activities - Archive Page
4 May 2000
All out elections to Exeter City Council following boundary changes; 40 seats up for election. The Lib Dems campaigned at their deceitful worst: claiming the credit for things Labour had done on the City Council, blaming Labour for things they had done on the County Council and in a pre-election press advert publishing a typically dodgy graph – this time they added the seats held by the Liberal Party to their own total! Comparison with previous elections is not possible because of boundary changes and the increased number of seats but the Lib Dems claimed that “the City Council’s second party are set to make gains” (they had mixed themselves up with the Tories again!). Labour won 22 seats (no change) and came within 7 votes of taking Polsloe from the Tories. The Lib Dems took 8 seats, the Tories 6 (up from 3) and the Liberals 4 (up from 3).
1999
November: Chester Long announces he is standing down as Leader of Exeter City Council, a position he had held since 1984. Roy Slack is elected as the new leader. Chester’s contribution was recognised in a Parliamentary Early Day motion: “under his stewardship Exeter became a model Labour council, keeping council tax low while expanding services.”
10 June: European Parliament elections. The Seven South West region seats were contested under a new proportional representation system. Labour achieved the second highest share of the vote after the Tories and gained one seat for Glyn Ford. The Tories took four seats and the Lib Dems and UKIP one each.
6 May: Twelve seats on Exeter City Council were contested with all being held by the incumbent party – eight by Labour. Only Labour and the Tories contested all thirteen seats with Labour taking over 44% of the vote to the Tories and Lib Dems each on slightly over 21% each.
7 May: Twelve seats on Exeter City Council were contested with only Labour and the Tories contested all seats. Labour held six seats but lost Polsloe to the Tories by 37 votes and St David’s to the Lib Dems by just 33 votes. Labour took just over 41% of the vote to the Tories 29%, Lib Dems 20%, Liberals 7% and the Greens 3%.
10 December: Devon County Council By-election in Exwick & Cowick division following the untimely death of Labour councillor Peter Butler. During the election campaign local schoolgirl Kate Bushell was murdered in Exwick. Recognising the fears and concerns of local residents and to avoid any possibility of impeding the police investigation, all parties agreed a protocol on how the campaign, although the Lib Dems subsequently declined to sign up to it. Despite Labour suspending almost all campaigning, and a very low turnout, Labour won with a massive majority.
1 May: General Election. Following the controversial deselection of John Lloyd as Labour’s candidate for Exeter by the Party’s National Executive Committee, Ben Bradshaw was selected by Exeter Labour Party members are their general election candidate. Exeter’s Tories had selected the controversial figure of Dr Adrian Rogers as their candidate. Their campaign was in the gutter. One of their leaflets claimed “Schoolchildren would be in danger” if Ben Bradshaw was elected, another headlined “stop the pink flag over Exeter”. The Lib Dems were only marginally better with snide and inaccurate comments in their literature and statements that Ben Bradshaw was Labour’s “second-choice candidate” (while failing to mention that their original choice of candidate had abandoned Exeter to try his luck in a more winnable seat). The Lib Dems made their usual outrageous claims: “Support for Adrian Rogers…has collapsed. Your choice in Exeter is now Labour or Liberal Democrat”. Bizarrely their candidate also wrote: “realistically, it’s only the Liberal Democrat candidate….who can be elected in Exeter”. Exeter’s voters didn’t agree. Ben Bradshaw won with a majority over the Tories of 11,705 and on a swing to Labour of nearly 12%. The Lib Dem candidate came third.
1 May: Devon County Council (minus Plymouth and Torbay) which will soon become Unitary Athorities) had elections which saw the Tories take Countess Wear and Topsham back from the Lib Dems. Labour retained four Exeter seats, the Lib Dems two and the Liberals two.
2 May: Thirteen Exeter City Council seats contested. Abject humiliation for the Tories who lost all the seats they were defending: five to Labour and one each to the Liberals and Liberal Democrats. Labour took almost 46% of the vote, to the Tories 24% and the Lib Dems 21%. The Tories were left with just two seats on the City Council (both in Topsham) and became the smallest political group, with fewer seats than the Liberals. Having failed to convince Labour voters to switch to them to beat the Tories in Countess Wear last year, the unprincipled Lib Dems appealed to Tory voters instead with: “this time the contest is between Lib Dem and Socialist”. The came third again!
7 December: A by election for the Devon County Council Barton and St Loyes division in December saw the Liberals gain the seat from Labour. Although the Labour vote hardly changed from 1993 the Tory vote halved as Tories switched to the Liberals.
Home
Rule for Exeter
campaign. Labour supported
the campaign to take Exeter out of Devon
County
Council
control to become a Unitary
Authority. The campaign was supported by all parties in Exeter,
except the
Lib Dems. At the
end of the year Plymouth
and
6 May: Twelve Exeter City Council seats contested on 6th May and again the Tories could not field a full slate of candidates. Labour successfully defended six seats and gained two more – Barton and Countess Wear giving them outright control of the Council. Labour’s Granville Baldwin unseated the Tory Group leader in Countess Wear which had been regarded as a safe Tory seat. The Lib Dems had claimed “Labour cannot win in Countess Wear” and “It’s a two horse race”. They came third. Across Exeter Labour polled more votes than all the other parties put together.
13 April: Tory Deputy Mayor Barry McNamara defects to Labour, saying of his former Tory colleagues on Exeter City Council: “I have endured seven years within a regime which appears more concerned with who controls the group rather than how they would govern the City”.
June: European Elections. Exeter was in the Devon and Plymouth West seat which, then returned one MEP under the First Past the Post electoral system. “Saunders to win” proclaimed the headline in a Lib Dem newspaper (which was made up to look like it wasn’t a Lib Dem newspaper). As it turned out, their prediction was a bit too confident, and the Tories beat the Lib Dems by 74,953 to 74,253 votes – a majority of just 700. Labour were in third place with 47.596 votes. Ironically the Lib Dems lost out because of a maverick “Literal Democrat” candidate who took 10,203 votes. When the Lib Dems discovered the nomination of a Literal Democrat candidate, they unsuccessfully sought an injunction at the High Court to disallow his candidacy. After the election the defeated Lib Dem candidate lodged an election petition on the basis that the nomination should not have been accepted. The petition was dismissed. (Postscript: Following the 1997 general election victory, Labour introduced the Registration of Political Parties Act 1998 which, inter alia, prohibited the use of deliberately confusing party names)
5 May: Thirteen seats on Exeter City Council contested. Labour hold 8 and gain St David’s from the Tories but lose St Loyes to the Liberals. The Lib Dems also take one seat from the Tories in a campaigned marked by their usual tactical voting claims and “two horse race” nonsense:
- The Lib Dems said it was between them and the Tories in St David’s. Labour won.
- The Lib Dems said they would win in Topsham. The Tories won.
- The Lib Dems said that Labour was set to lose Polsloe. Labour won.
The Conservatives were unable to field a full slate of candidates and took only 21% of the vote to Labour’s 42%.
28 October: The death of the only Tory County Councillor in Exeter leads to a by-election in the Countess Wear & Topsham Division. The Lib Dems wage a thoroughly disgraceful campaign, even by their standards, implying that Labour was responsible for allowing the Tory government to introduce VAT on Domestic Fuel and their canvassers leaving many voters with the impression that Labour had actually supported the Tory plan! In contrast the Tories ran a lacklustre campaign. Labour’s attempt to run a clean campaign on real issues failed to pay off in the face of the Lib Dems negative campaigning and although the Labour vote went up, the Lib Dems took the seat.
6 May: Elections to Devon County Council. Lib Dems send personal letters to Labour voters asking them to vote tactically for the Lib Dems. Of the nine Exeter Divisions Labour won five, taking two from the Tories who also lost a seat to the Lib Dems. The tally of Exeter seats becomes: Labour: 5, Lib Dems; 2, Liberals: 1, Tories: 1. An Exeter City Council by-election in Stoke Hill ward is won by Labour.
9
April 1992:
General Election.
Labour had come third in Exeter behind the Liberal/SDP Alliance in 1987
but the
evidence of more recent local elections suggested that
Labour’s candidate,
popular city councillor John Lloyd, was in a strong
position to
challenge the incumbent Tory MP. Naturally the Lib Dems claimed
otherwise:
“only the Liberal Democrats can beat the Tories in
Labour 22,498 votes (36%)
Lib Dem 12,059 votes (19%)
Others 1,981 votes ( 3%)