Just as Heineken ‘refreshed the parts other beers cannot reach’, clever campaigning in rural Leicestershire paid dividends, says Matthew O’Callaghan
There are many who stereotype Labour as ‘urban, anti-hunting, veggie and anti-farming’. Campaigning in the Melton Mowbray area – UK fox-hunting capital and tenth most sparsely populated part of the country – therefore has its challenges. In the early 1990s we developed a strategy to win control of Melton, Tory-controlled since its inception.
We first developed policies relevant to rural communities by talking to local people and organisations such as the National Farmers’ Union, the Women’s Institute and parish councils about their problems and the policies which could resolve them. We also looked at best practice from elsewhere. This gave us our manifesto; we had our first councillors elected in 1995.
Despite being heavily outnumbered, every couple of council meetings we proposed a motion from our manifesto which was often adopted by the ruling group, such as the establishment of a farmers’ market, a proposal to register the Melton Mowbray pork pie for protection by the European Commission, a food festival and so on. We supported an evening bus for young people to get from villages to events in the town and back. And, of course, we informed the press in advance of each of these initiatives.
We branded the Labour party as local as possible using ‘Rural Labour’ or ‘Melton Labour’ – you can also develop a logo with the word ‘Labour’ and a local landmark or emblem. Instead of glossy election leaflets covering the whole borough we printed smaller batches of black and white leaflets (on pink paper) targeted at each village or local community. We printed regular newsletters summarising planning applications and other issues relevant for each village – people appreciate being kept informed.
We recruited locally active people to the Labour party who we believed shared our values. These included local vicars and parish councillors, many of whom became Labour councillors.
We were ruthless in targeting resources. We focused everything on target seats we felt we could win, but we also put up candidates in every ward, to keep the Tories busy everywhere. We delivered dummy leaflets and canvassed non-target villages using the list of names on the Tory nomination sheet, going to just these people and their neighbours – great fun to see them react.
Prior to the 1995 local elections, Labour had had no councillors anywhere in Melton borough for 20 years. Our ‘Heineken strategy’ paid off: four years later, Labour took control of the council.
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Matthew O’Callaghan is prospective parliamentary candidate for Loughborough
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