It was a Tory held seat, Labour had been wiped off the political map for the new unitary council in 2009 and came fifth in this ward with just 11 per cent of the vote, it was December, activists were busy with Christmas and the weather was unusually cold – especially for Cornwall, where we have come to expect mild Decembers, not day after day of thick frost.

The Conservatives had also won the recent town council by election, which was partly the same area but with an additional semi-rural polling district with an arc of wealthy residents.

Our campaign was not a slick or well-financed. All of our leaflets were printed on our risograph in red and black. We struggled to get everything done with a few people and although nominations closed on 13th December, we did not get any print material out until the end of the year.

While we were slow off the mark with leaflets, the Liberal Democrats showered the area with paper and reproduced the general election bar chart to claim that ‘Labour can’t win here’. Their candidate is also a town councillor, so well known.

The by election was always about whether any of the five other candidates could win enough to beat the Tories. With the three main parties, plus Liberal, Green and Mebyon Kernow, the indications were that the anti-Tory vote would be split.

So how and why did we win?

Most important I think, was that I had met a lot of people on the doorstep as the general election candidate and from fighting the November town council by election in part of the ward. When it came to a choice between leaflets and canvassing, we focussed on knocking on doors.

We countered the Liberal Democrat spin but had a positive message of our own about providing real opposition and accountability at the new Cornwall Council. We highlighted the abolition of EMA, and linked it locally to our first class Cornwall College, asking whether young people in Camborne will still be able to access the education and skills they need – a big issue in an area of low wages.

Due to the weather, we canvassed more during the day than evenings – once the light failed it was clear that people were turning the TV up rather than answering the doorbell – but we managed to speak to a lot of people. As I stood for Labour and the Cooperative, we used out-cards to explain what the Coop stands for, with a positive message about fair trade, community solutions and ethical trading. We kept our leaflets simple with key messages about cuts, accountability and standing up for people.

On the doorstep, the disgust with the Liberal Democrats was palpable. At the general election, voters had been bombarded with leaflets and calls, badgering them to vote Liberal Democrat ‘to stop the Tories winning’. It feels as if a big shift has taken place and anti Tory voters will never forgive them.

Many of those voters – especially those who had switched for mainly tactical reasons – were back with Labour straight away but many took more convincing. The feeling, especially when we started was very undecided. A lot of people who have some affinity with Labour and voted for us in the past are not sure about coming back to us. Many were adamant they would not bother voting at all, for various reasons – apathy, laziness, cynicism. Those voters can’t be won back in the weeks of an election campaign – there is still a big job to do there.

Although we had no leaflets to go out before Christmas, postal votes are crucial and as the weather remained cold and gloomy enough to keep voters at home, we knew we could not miss the boat. A few of us spent our Christmas folding and stuffing but gradually more supporters emerged from festivities to deliver letters to around 1200 households, 2000 people, between 29 December and 2 January. Thankfully, the weather was generally dry and cold rather than sodden.

The Liberal Democrats tried to whip up a storm about cuts hitting the vulnerable hardest (unwise, I thought, to rub it in) and a local library they claimed was threatened with closure and needed the usual Liberal Democrat petition to save it. We countered by pointing out that the Council had announced on 3 December that it was not under threat, threw the cuts back at the Lib/Tory coalition and promised that I would take up issues of concern at the Council. We maintained a ‘real opposition’ approach and avoided the semi-hysteria of the Liberal Democrat campaign. Although the Tories were the ones to beat, as usual the Liberal Democrats targeted Labour supporters and we knew we had to counter them in a way that was effective but didn’t make them the focus of our campaign. We included the results of the last town council election in our leaflets (we came second to the Tories) to negate the ‘Labour can’t win here’ avalanche.

The theme of our first leaflet was ‘Did You Really Vote for This?’ aimed at our voters, who felt angry at trusting the Liberal Democrats to keep Tories out and with our positive message about standing up for people and asking tough questions at the Council. The second leaflet was titled ‘A Positive Vote for Camborne’ and asked people to stand up and fight the cuts.

The first few days of January were a washout. Like many others , both my husband and I had bad colds and the most I could do was some croaky phoning dosed up on medication. It felt as if we were slipping backwards as the Liberal Democrats showered the ward with paper, several of them in red to look like ours, one in blue as if from the Tories. The message was always the same – voting Labour will let the Tories win or ‘sneak back in’. Their campaign had an air of desperation about it, though. By coincidence, the Tory candidate had the same surname and resorting to ‘Vote for the REAL Pascoe’ seemed excessively cheap even by local Liberal Democrat standards.

The last week of the campaign really took off. Linda Gilroy, former MP for Plymouth Sutton, fellow co-operator and feisty campaigner arrived back from holiday and mobilised support. By Thursday (a week to go) we were back on the streets but this time with the energy boost that goes with a good team of canvassers from other constituencies in Cornwall and Plymouth. We had some deliverers but many leaflets were handed out by the team or left with an out card. I am convinced the work on the doorstep clinched it and we had some good, cold but bright weather to help.

Finally, we worked our socks off on polling day. It began pre-dawn with four of us and 1000 leaflets that asked people to ‘Do Something Positive for Camborne Today’ – Vote Labour and Cooperative! Thankfully, it was dry between 6am and 9.30am but after that the heavens opened. It was a real Cornish polling day. We got to the point where we could not have been wetter but somehow this added to the determination to keep going.
We knew it would be close between us and the Tories. Even at the count, I was holding my breath. We won the postal votes, lost the semi-rural box but nudged ahead in the other boxes to win by 27 votes.

To come back from fifth to win this seat has broken a psychological barrier and changed the game. We had held a parliamentary seat here from 1997 – 2005 and in this part of west Cornwall had a strong presence local government for years before that. Even so the Liberal Democrats have thrown huge resources at their claim that Labour cannot win in Cornwall and worked hard to sway our voters.

This time, it cut no ice and they came third. Our next task is to use the huge boost in local membership and enthusiasm to let voters know there is an alternative to the coalition and Labour is as relevant to Cornwall as we are to the rest of Britain – and as committed. I am confident we will win more seats in Cornwall and the wider South West on our journey back to government.