Rural Campaigning
-
The Long Campaign
Part three of John Haywood’s journey In my previous two blogs I described the build-up to the 2019 local elections, when Labour had three town councillors elected in Ringwood, and the start of the period between 2019 and 2023 when we used that platform to build a Labour presence in the New Forest. Labour local…
-
You make your own luck
Part two of John Haywood’s journey Cllr John Haywood In the previous instalment of this blog, I covered the 2015-2019 period of local campaigning in Ringwood. At the 2019 local elections, due to the Tories not having enough candidates to maintain their usual near-stranglehold over Ringwood Town Council, we managed to get three town councillors…
-
Rebuild in Coast and Country | Rachel Reeves MP
It was a privilege to join Labour Coast and Country recently to talk about how Labour can rebuild support in towns, rural areas, and coastal communities. Currently, the electoral map shows England as a sea of blue, with small clusters of red in and around our cities. Our road to power must encompass towns and…
-
Organise To Win with David Drew | Zoom Event
Join us for an informal Zoom discussion on Thursday (25th) at 6:45pm about the organisational tools needed by rural and coastal CLPs to win and the motions we should send to this year’s virtual party conference to make that a reality. We’ll be joined for the session by David Drew, the former MP for Stroud and Shadow…
-
West is best . . . fighting for a Labour Welsh Assembly
One of the familiar strap-lines of the Scarlets; and an oft repeated remark of my west coast friends and family. Last weekend saw a significant pick up in the campaigning for the Welsh Assembly elections. We joined comrades on the Gower, in Llanelli and in Ogmore to support their respective AM West is best candidates – Rebecca Evans…
-
Rural voters and the price of milk
In recent years my campaigning activity has been limited, but having been made redundant from local government I was able at last to play an active role at the general election this year. I hit the streets with gusto wearing my ex-council demographer hat to find out the lie of the land. Now, being a…
-
LCC Fringe – Conference 2015
Sunday lunch-time of the first day of Conference 2015 saw over 40 members from across England and Wales gather to reflect on what next for Labour in communities of coast and country. After moving to a larger room to accommodate everyone more comfortably, a wide ranging discussion occupied those present for almost two hours. That discussion…
-
Why bother?
On Saturday, we marched. In May we campaigned. We blog We tweet. We try. But what for? A socialist, I live in a safe Tory constituency, rural and largely affluent. But there are people here as elsewhere who are not affluent, who need the support of the State, even just for a while. So should…
-
Towards a More Resilient, SME Friendly Rural Economy
As a One Nation Labour Party we need to expand our horizons beyond haphazard thinking on rural issues in order to secure a sustainable economy for Britain’s countryside and reach out to the rural electorate. What must be recognised is that rural areas are subject to an intrinsic ‘separation’, a root cause of so many…
-
A Coast & Country Report from the NPF
The penultimate weekend of July was one of the hottest of the year when sensible people were heading to the coast or country. However members of the National Policy Forum were instead gathering in Milton Keynes to finalise our policy platform for 2015. As part of the National Policy Forum, Ed Miliband gave an excellent…