Organising the Liberal Democrats for the District Council Polling Day and winning two more seats in a heat wave and narrowly missing a third! Then taking the radio and newspaper journalists, pasting results slips on poster boards and hosting the volunteers and celebrating the result.
With 5198 seats being contested in 201 local authorities, the Labour Party won about 300 local government seats and control of 11 councils including Bradford, but the Tories held on to Westminster and Wandsworth and Labour did less well in the left-wing London Boroughs. The Liberal Democrats held on to most of their 1986 seats, winning 144 more and losing 192 to give the clear message that we are back as the third force in British politics. UK government at last considering direct talks on the fate of the UK hostages, Nato has backed a US proposal to abolish the remaining land-based US missiles in Europe despite Thatcher being unhappy about it and her privatization of the electricity industry is encountering difficulties
Yet another hot and dry day, but this time the weather is suiting us by helping to get our supporters out. They are traditionally more easily put off by bad weather compared with the Tories. Up quite early to do my chores and get my papers and other things together. I was to perform the role of roaming election co-ordinator today which meant that I had to drive around the District, keep in touch with all three target wards with my mobile telephone and move resources about if necessary, to secure results. I started my day at the Great Paxton Polling Booth where we were expecting trouble from the other side over our plan to collect questionnaires for the Survey. It had been the lead story in the Hunts Post today, as the Tory agents had objected to our conducting the campaign in this way. In the event, we did not get too much trouble and I was able to leave them within half an hour or so.
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I visited both the Paxton and Offord Polling Stations in turn and then our Committee Room, where Peter While was in place organising the day. I urged them on to get cracking with the lifts whilst it was quiet, and I provided them with some more photocopied stationery that they needed from my mobile copying machine. Once I felt that they were in control, I took off for Bury to see how that campaign was being organised. I checked both the Wistow and Bury Polling Stations which became the start of a day-long process as the Tory opposition were continually trying to put us off by challenging our tellers and runners in several regards. Then I arrived at our Committee Room in mid-morning and my heart sank! The multi-part Shuttleworth’s were arranged in numerical rather than street order which was easy to cross off but impossible to use for knocking up. I halted proceedings and got them to re-write all of them back in street order which took us about an hour and a half until mid-day. Then we crossed off the numbers to date from our tellers and started knocking up. I got Jack to use my mobile telephone (there was none in the committee room!) to get out more "knocking-up" helpers and we started working very hard to get the vote out. I took over Wistow myself as we had not re-written the Shuttleworths. I collected the Telling Slips, laid out the Shuttleworths in my car, crossed off the numbers and then drew up a list of who to knock up.
During the day, I concentrated on the older retired voters and offered them lifts to get them out. All the time, I was going backwards and forwards to the Committee Room, checking on how they were coping and using my telephone to do the same with Priory and the Offords. Each time I asked for the number of "Ours" and "Theirs" from the identified voters and the number of "knockers-up". I was becoming apparent that Priory was not only coming out very favourably, but the number of workers was exceptional and so I moved Michael Pope across to help Percy Meyer in the Offords Ward and exhorted them to get other mobile workers to get the vote out. With this again under control, I stayed to help Bury and got Jack to get out even more helpers until we were managing quite a show.
By 7.30pm, I left them to go back to Wistow and took a knocker-up with me. We crossed off the afternoon's numbers and then did some frantic last-minute knocking up until 8.30pm when I packed up and raced back home to get shaved and changed and then on to Longsands School where the count was being made for Priory and The Offords. The Tories felt that Priory was even and they were confident about The Offords which was rather daunting. We felt that Priory was safely ours and that we could just win Offords. As the count went on, Sally was seen to be high and dry with a fair majority and we crowded around the Offords counting table but it seemed very close indeed. In the end, Percy won by a mere 39 votes which was a real cliff-hanger! The final results were: Sally Guinee 1378; Peter Norman 444:Percy Meyer 639 Roland Smith 590; Carole Crompton 451 John Rignell 537:
Having stayed for the official announcement of the first two, I then rushed home to get the last one from my answering machine. I had asked Jack Taylor to telephone it through as soon as he could and this he had done. I was pleased that it was that close as I did not think that we had won it, but it was disappointing to lose by only 86 out of 989 votes. Everybody came back to The Hayling View whilst I first telephoned the local radio stations to try and get the gains reported and then printed out the result slips for each team to paste on the sign-boards. I then went into the lounge with the mobile telephone to await the return calls of journalists and to watch the televised results service. With 5198 seats being contested in 201 local authorities, the Labour Party won about 300 local government seats and control of 11 councils including Bradford, but the Tories held on to Westminster and Wandsworth and Labour did less well in the left-wing London Boroughs. The Liberal Democrats held on to most of their 1986 seats, winning 144 more and losing 192 to give the clear message that we are back as the third force in British politics. Locally, the Labour Group on Huntingdonshire District win two seats and hold another so that we are now: Conservative 42, Labour 6, LibDemocrats 3, Independents 2; but then one of the Tories is the independently-minded Ross McKay.
The other news today is of the UK government at last considering direct talks on the fate of the UK hostages, although not having any diplomatic relations with Iran or Syria. Nato has backed a US proposal to abolish the remaining land-based US missiles in Europe and the US has also announced that it may continue to deploy less than the 195,000 troops permitted by its agreement with the USSR. Thatcher is understandably unhappy about it but there is little that can be done. The UK is going to table some sort of alternative to the economic and monetary union favoured by our continental partners. The latest from the government on privatization is that now only half of the electricity industry is to be sold off due to organisational problems in creating competition and the softness of the Stock Exchange.