Keith explained that it was part of the Third Place First campaign that has been relaunched by Progress recently.

Guildford really is a constituency where we need to go from third to first. We have come third in every general election since 1983 and, despite having an excellent PPC, Tim Shand, in 2010 we nearly lost our deposit. We lost our last seats on the borough council in 2007 and I stood in a by-election in those seats a year later and we were pushed into third place. In our other target ward we were also in third place. We knew that the only way was up!

We took the decision in January to employ a full-time agent – this was the best decision we made. Olly Deed, a politics student at Surrey University, was excellent, a wise head on young shoulders who allowed us, the candidates, to be just that – candidates – on the doorstep day in, day out. While he grafted away, finding candidates, producing literature, dealing with the media and so on we were talking to the voters about their concerns and local issues.

We were fighting the Liberal Democrats in our two key seats. Their message was familiar: ‘Labour Can’t Win Here’, ‘A Labour Vote is a Wasted Vote’ and irony of ironies ‘A Labour Vote Lets In The Tories’! The irony wasn’t lost on us or many of the voters and it became obvious as the campaign progressed that lots of former Labour voters who had switched to the Liberal Democrats were coming back to us.

As election day drew nearer we realised that we were in with a chance of winning and sure enough, former councillor Angela Gunning was elected in one of our target wards and PhD student Christian Gilliam unseated the leader of the Liberal Democrat group in our other target ward. Two candidates who had taken us from third to first. Three more of us came very close to being elected, we moved in to second place in some other wards and our vote went up in every ward.

The reason for this success? Hard work all year round, well produced leaflets, a dedicated campaign team, a superb agent and crucially, more candidates than the Liberal Democrats (41 out of 48), compared to their 39. These candidates ensured that the Liberal Democrats had to work in EVERY seat and also they ensured that voters had a chance to vote Labour wherever they lived.

We now have an excellent platform on which to build for the county council elections in two years time – we can’t wait!

And the Progress campaign day? It was a great success – members came from far afield and we looked very impressive as we marched down the street en masse, clipboard and leaflets in hand. So a big thank you to Progress and its members for their support and thank you to Keith Dibble for relaunching the third to first campaign. We’ve just proved that it can be done.