Sunday, December 04, 2005

With hindsight...

I tried to find libdemwatch today but apparently their account has been suspended!


However I stumbled across something from the Guardian's Election 2005 blog from last April where someone was belittling the Lib Dem campaign in Leeds NW:

"Witnessing the Lidbem campaign strategy on the ground can leave you wondering which way is up.

Libdemwatch has picked up an example of this in their LeedsNW campaign - where, despite coming 3rd in the last two general elections - they are STILL claiming they are set to win. How do they do this? Well certainly not by showing their share of the vote in '97 or '01.

They do this by showing their share of the vote increased between 1997 & 2001... erm leaving them in 3rd place again!

Witness this is all it's glory from a scanned 'Focus' newsletter here: http://www.libdemwatch.co.uk/archives/000466.html"


Some interesting comments - both pro Lib Dem and against - follow.

After reading this I thought to myself, "Wait a moment ... Didn't we...?" and yes, there it is

Leeds North West
LibDem gain
Mulholland G.T. LibDem 16,612 37.15%
Blake J. Ms. Labour 14,735 32.96%
Lee G.A. Conservative 11,510 25.74%
Hemingway M.F. Green 1,128 2.52%
Knowles A.D. English Democrats 545 1.22%
Sutton J. Ms. Alliance for
Green Socialism 181 0.40%

Electorate: 71,650; Turnout: 62.40%;
Majority: 1,877 (4.20%)


Not one of libdemwatch's finest moments...

2 comments:

James Graham (Quaequam Blog!) said...

My understanding is that the author of Lib Dem Watch was a Leeds Uni graduate, which explains his interest.

But if he'd taken his own advice and looked at the 1997 and 2001 election results, he'd have noticed one thing: the end of a 20 year decline in Lib/Dem support. Combine that with the local election results and we only needed one thing in Leeds this year: momentum generated from a well organised campaign.

It's something that these next generation New Labour apparatchiks will never understand, but that the old guard from '97 understand all too well.

Anonymous said...

you tossers. lib dem watch was an experimental website that was groundbreaking in the fact that no other political blog explained and told the public just how bizarre and wishy washy the lib dims really are.keep moonlighting!.... and dogging

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