Bob Blizzard Articles

How great a pointer to the next general election is provided by midterm council election results? Not much. Only about 30 per cent of voters take part and many are those who follow local matters and are prepared to vote on local issues and for hard-working local...

May 2015 was the fifth general election I fought as a candidate. I spoke to more voters in this campaign than all the others put together. I shook lots of hands in the ‘blitzing’ sessions of 1997, but that involved little more than ‘thanks for your support’ as the big...

One of the biggest surprises of my political life was walking into the count for Waveney’s  2013 county council elections. In the midterm of a Tory government I had expected that Labour would win all eight of the Lowestoft wards, all won by the Tories in the disaster...

UKIP’s triumph in the local elections did not just damage the Tories The overall results of the local elections of 2013 were towards the middle of the spectrum of expectations. A net gain of 291 seats was not at all bad for Labour, and there are several areas where...