In the 1895 election in Southampton the Conservative candidate, Sir Tankerville Chamberlayne, arranged for a horse and cart to be deposited outside the Cowherds public house, which is at the top of the city. The cart was unhorsed and six strong men pulled it down Above Bar to the party headquarters, with Sir Tankerville standing in the back throwing out sovereigns as they went.
Today’s Conservatives aren’t using horses or physical sovereigns, but they are using Ashcroft-funded large billboards across Southampton, as well as booklets and leaflets which are usually as glossy and professionally produced as they are devoid of substance.
You won’t find inheritance tax cuts for the very wealthy featuring strongly in these leaflets – but what you will find is Conservative councillors and candidates doing their best to take credit for Labour initiatives like free swimming, free bus travel and the schools and hospitals we have restored and rebuilt since 1997.
Of course, Conservative Councils taking credit for Labour Government initiatives isn’t new or unique to Southampton. But what is unique is that in Southampton we got a lucky peek into what Conservative Councillors and candidates really think, when their leader in Southampton wrote this blog entry for Conservativehome:
“We do not in principle favour “free this and free that”, eg swimming or transport, school meals or computers or whatever it is, because it always involves earmarking for particular groups, and not everybody wants to swim or go by bus or whatever… For ideological reasons we are going for outsourcing, externalisation, privatisation, wherever possible and sensible, especially but not exclusively in the leisure and recreation area. Naturally there is a lot of in-house resistance.”
It’s hard to think of a bigger contrast between what the Tories are saying on their glossy leaflets, and what they are saying to their own members when they don’t think anyone else is looking.
We can’t match the big Tory billboards or the volume of leaflets they shove through the door – but we can campaign smarter and better than them. Strong links with local community groups helps a lot – it means we have the intelligence and the capacity to do more small-scale, genuinely local campaigning, not just glossy city-wide productions. Face-to-face contact matters just as much. We’ve doubled the number of face-to-face contacts we made compared to just a few years ago, and we are (hopefully!) on course to double that again by the end of this month. Our fundraising isn’t just done online, but also in old-fashioned letters to members, raffles, campaign launches and other events.
It can be daunting to think of the vast sums of money being piled into target Labour constituencies by the Tories – but this does, rather perversely, also present a unique opportunity for us. This is our chance to demonstrate that real constituency work, face-to-face contacts, galvanised activists and donations from ordinary people can beat big donations from millionaires. “Ashcroft wastes his money” is a headline that could have big repercussions for party funding in the future. That is a remarkable point to prove for politics in Britain, and something worth the time and slog to fight for.
To help us fight in Southampton Test and reach as many voters as possible please donate to our campaign
Candidate: Alan Whitehead
Seat: Southampton Test
Currently held by: Labour
Majority: 7548 (notional)
Candidate website: www.alan-whitehead.org.uk