Labour confounds expectations in March West

North East Cambs Labour this evening defied gloomy expectations in a by-election in March West by smashing the Lib Dems and coming a respectable second. The Tory won 830 votes, Martin Field, the Labour candidate, won 460 votes, and the Lib Dem got a measly 250 votes.

Bearing in mind that in the County Elections earlier this year Labour received 177 votes in the same ward/division, and the Tory got 1175, this is a good result. The Lib Dem vote also went down 27 votes from 277. I'm no psephologist, but this is a big swing to Labour.

Previously, on Vote2007.co.uk all of the so-called 'experts' predicted that Labour would get less than 10% of the vote. We actually got 31%, almost double the Lib Dem percentage.

Why did Labour perform so unexpectedly well? Firstly, we fought a hugely energetic and enterprising campaign. Peter Roberts, Labour PPC for North East Cambs, and Chris Jones organised a focused and professional effort, which saw us knocking on 1500+ doors in a month, putting out 3 leaflets and a day of poll, and conducting a decent knocking-up operation on the day. All credit to them for throwing their energy into such a seemingly hopeless cause.

Perhaps the most important factor was the sheer quality of the candidate. Martin Field is a long-serving Geography teacher at the local Neale-Wade community college. He helped set up Young People March, a scheme designed to give youngsters in March something to occupy themselves. He has chaired Fenland Victim Support. He is Chair of Governors at a local primary school. The number of schemes and projects he has selflessly dedicated himself to for the good of the community is tremendous. He is the sort of bloke without whom local communities and civil society would wither on the vine. He's also a really nice man personally, feeding and watering us activists without complaint. Canvassing, it became a running joke that virtually everyone we talked to had either been taught by him, or had children who had done; the reaction to him in this capacity was overwhelmingly positive;he must be one hell of a teacher. If he had been an independent, he would have stormed home to victory.

Another noticeable factor was the quality of the literature we put out. I say without a shadow of a doubt that the leaflets put together by the Roberts/Jones duo were superior to anything the national party managed to put out in the whole Norwich North by-election - glossy, full colour, well-designed, with sharp, to the point copy. I'm not sure whether this says more about Peter and Chris - the Batman and Robin of Cambridgeshire politics - or the national party.

Anyway, the by-election was great fun and a real blow for the Lib Dems. Without the Lib Dems, Labour would have stood a chance of actually beating the Tory. It shows what a spent force the Libs are in North East Cambs, and gives impetus to the argument that only a Labour vote can beat the Tory in Fenland.

Times are Toff for Cambridge University Tories

Many Cambridge students may have noticed that Cambridge University Conservative Association (CUCA) has been distributing a university-wide ‘Fresher’s Guide’ in the past week or so. Glossy, full-colour and ten pages, it shows just how well-funded the Conservative Association, and indeed the Conservative Party in general, is. Interestingly, on the first page CUCA gives ‘special thanks’ to Jeffrey Archer, presumably for the production of the booklet. Whether the help given was financial or otherwise, it is obviously true that CUCA have been accepting aid from a convicted criminal, perjurer, liar and fantastist, possibly the most discredited and hated man in British politics.

This is nothing to the content of the booklet. It contains articles on the best options for buying champagne in Cambridge, an article giving (extremely pretentious) tips on formal wear, including tips on handkerchiefs as fashion accessories, cummerbunds and bowties, as well as advice on black and white tie, reviews of a range of restaurants including swanky ones most normal students could only dream of attending, and a guide to tying a bow tie. It projects a fantasy image of a gilded, privileged Cambridge that only ever existed, insofar as it did at all, for a small number of extremely wealthy people. It may appear to be tongue in cheek, but given how seriously CUCA members take these absurdities (as I hear from a source I have inside CUCA), it is not.

In the context of a global recession where ordinary working people are losing their jobs and homes, the Tories are clearly most interested in flaunting their wealth and privilege, and frankly it makes me sick. I’m most worried about my mum losing her livelihood and home if her public sector job gets the axe under the Tories. The Tories live in a cloud-cuckoo land where one can ‘save water’ by ‘drinking champagne’, where the colour of one’s cummerbund or silk handkerchief is more important than making a living, where mummy and daddy can pick up the tab for nights of orgiastic excess.

What kind of image does this project to working class freshers or potential applicants to Cambridge? It re-affirms every stereotype bandied about concerning Oxbridge snobbery, elitism and Brideshead-style excess. CUCA is single-handedly going about the task of setting back access by about 70 years. Cambridge, the Tories imply, is a place for ‘people like us’, people who can afford and enjoy posh restaurants, champagne and white tie. It’s not for the likes of you, people from ordinary working class backgrounds – this is the whole message of CUCA’s sermon. In short, they have squarely positioned themselves as a glorified social club for wannabe toffs, social climbers and minor aristocrats.

The Labour Club is campaigning for the People’s Charter, a manifesto for change that will give ordinary working people a fair chance, a sane economy and a new moral start. We are concerned about bread-and-butter issues because we know that life isn’t one long round of white-tie dinners, champagne receptions and aristocratic indulgence for most people. In the context of a Tory Party led by a small clique of Old Etonians who frequented the Bullingdon Club, that bastion of wealth and privilege in Oxford, CUCA’s cavalier and supercilious attitude is perhaps hardly surprising, but it is shocking and shows just how profoundly alienated from the lives of ordinary working people the Tory Party is.