Richmond Park: We should remember that the Lib Dems turned this into a referendum on Brexit and they polled under 50% of the vote on a 56% turnout in one of the UKs strongest Remain constituencies. This is a good result for them, but it is far from a mandate to change the terms of Brexit.
They say "failure is an orphan but success has many fathers". This is no exception.
1. Zac's badly fought Mayoral campaign and the bitter taste that must have left in with many socially moderate voters.
2. Irritation at a costly and unnecessary election, remember the last "vanity by election" in Haltemprice resulted in a massively reduced turnout, too.
3. The consequence of a candidate who thinks he is bigger and more popular than the party brand he was elected to represent. The same thing has happened locally in West Kent; deselected councillors have stood as independents and ended-up finishing third or fourth.
4. A piss-poor ground operation which delivered only half the number of leaflets delivered by the LibDems and secured voting intentions from 10,000 voters compared with 50,000 by the Lib Dems.
I have said it before and I will say it again and again and again. "Winning elections isn't difficult, it's just hard work. More leaflets = more votes."
It would be interesting to know just how much of the local organisation and wider party machine Zac had at his disposal. Clearly it didn't look like a full-fat, Tory-in-all-but-name campaign, but neither was he operating entirely on his own.
ReplyDeleteI do wonder if the commitment from the party was intended to be 'just enough to get him over the line' and in the event they misjudged the level of support required?