The Hemingford Abbots & Hilton Count at The St Ivo Centre, where I organised the sampling by our counting agents and found that we had won 53% of Hemingford Abbots and 58% of Hilton to give a very satisfying overall result of Mark Rainer 486, Linda Horner 378, and a winning majority for us of 108! publicity and recovery.
I had already composed and faxed a press release to papers and radio stations first thing, pre-warning them of an evolving news story and now we drove back to The Hayling View to compose and fax another with the result.
We got radio interviews for Mark on Radio Cambridgeshire and Chiltern Radio and then coverage on the day from the Cambridge Evening News with the theme of the Tories losing one of their safest seats in John Major's own back yard and the story ran on news bulletins all day.
Only after that would I engage with Derek and Sandy Giles about Ross McKay’s behaviour
**"Read More" BELOW for the complete story**
Another very early start to the day, this time getting Sam out before breakfast for his exercise as I had to get over to St Ives for the count at 9.00am. I had the sampling slips and instructions ready but lacked enough petrol in the tank to make the journey so I telephoned Percy and arranged to drive over with him.
We had trouble finding the St. Ivo Centre and arrived some ten minutes late but we need not have worried as they were first counting the Huntingdon Town Council By-Election which took quite a long time. We had quite a few helpers there but nobody from that campaign (which would look bad as either the candidate or agent should have been) so I checked with Ron Heinrich and Jack Taylor and got Jack to stand in for us as the other side did not know who our agent was! I used that count to get our counting agents sampling the ballot slips and found them very wanting in technique.
The temptation to just sit and watch mesmerised is too much for some and they were not much use on the first box from Hemingford Abbots. By the time the Hilton box was counted, they were getting more used to the skills and concentration required and so I got quite a few samples from there. Given the numbers of votes cast in total, and being aware of the overall result, I was later able to work out that we had won 53% of Hemingford Abbots and 58% of Hilton to give a very satisfying overall result of Mark Rainer 486, Linda Horner 378, and a winning majority for us of 108!
This was a particularly satisfying result as it re-enforced all of the techniques that I had been preaching throughout the campaign and enabled the St Ives Branch to reap the benefits of working together and not falling out with each other. The counts allowed our EuroElection colleagues to do some sampling where the tallies were not very good. The Tories will probably hold the seat of Cambridgeshire with 50%, with Labour second with 30% and us third with 20% which estimate was a vindication of our stance in the by-election campaign.
To Chris Slee's credit, he suggested a lunch time rendezvous in the Hemingford Abbots pub and we had a good turnout for that as well! For Mark and Percy, I gave them no rest. I had already composed and faxed a press release to papers and radio stations first thing, pre-warning them of an evolving news story and now we drove back to The Hayling View to compose and fax another with the result. We got radio interviews for Mark on Radio Cambridgeshire and Chiltern Radio and then coverage on the day from the Cambridge Evening News with the theme of the Tories losing one of their safest seats in John Major's own back yard and the story ran on news bulletins all day.
The "News" photographer came and captured our victory celebration for tomorrow's paper as well. John Major was in Huntingdonshire for the day and must have been listening to local radio and will have had an ear-bending from his agent, Peter Brown, before the men in grey suits were due to come at the weekend. In the event, Peter was the agent in this by-election and, before the count was underway,
I had pumped him for information on how hard they had worked. He told me that they had canvassed every house and only missed 50 people and were knocking up until 10.00pm and he was satisfied that they could have done nothing more. I had then asked him if he would care to venture a prediction and he said that, in his view, they had won it and given the amount of work they had done, then they jolly-well ought to have done!
I was more cautious and responded that I thought that it was very close but I thought that we had just won it. Of course, I proved to be right and, not only did the Tories lose, but they had lost visibly and lost face as well! I would like to be a fly on the wall and here his words with John Major! After our drink, I left the assembled supporters celebrating their achievement and chased Mark to put up the results slips on the flag boards before making my way home. There to find my office in a mess and some time sorting things out before tackling the next issue.
Derek Giles, his wife Sandy and son David had all been pestering me during this time with an anonymous letter from a local shopkeeper about Ross McKay's contribution to the Priory Lane debate on Wednesday but I had refused to read the letter or talk to them until now on the grounds that the election publicity had to come first. Eventually, when I spoke to Derek, he had a go at me about being fed up with Ross and then I turned the tables on him and made the point that Percy and I had helped the Town Council Liberal Democrat Group form with its Standing Orders but they had not used them in these matters and even had not bothered to hold their AGM's etc.
A longer walk with the dog this afternoon and then the evening making telephone calls and getting other things back to normal whilst listening to all those news broadcasts. The weather had been showery and rainy on polling day, but today it was getting brighter and looked set fair for the weekend.