After several rounds of voting former Met Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Brian Paddick beat Mike Tuffrey by just 91 votes.
At the time people I spoke to claimed they’d voted for Paddick because he had a big profile as demonstrated by his appearances on the news and I’m A Celebrity.
He would, I was assured, be more familiar to people and be better able to connect with voters than was the case when in 2008 he led a campaign which lost two London Assembly seats.
For his part Paddick insisted he would be a better candidate second time round and promised to deliver the “best ever result for the Liberal Democrats in a Greater London Authority election”.
In the end he delivered the worst.
In the elections for Mayor and London Assembly the party slipped to fourth place behind the Greens.
A party which in 2004-08 held 5 of the 25 Assembly seats now holds just 2 and one of those thanks only to UKIP’s failure to pass the 5% mark.
It is a disaster of a result which very nearly cost Londoners a highly effective team of Mayoral scrutinisers.
Based on Twitter activity much of the credit for the two seats seems to belong to Caroline Pidgeon who tirelessly campaigned across London.
Ahead of the results Paddick’s campaign Twitter account criticised a “Failed LD politician who lost a massive majority & then had no support in London”.
Whatever it is, when the LibDem result for 2016 comes in he’d probably best not offer unsolicited commentary lest the words be quoted back to him.
Damian Hockney says
May 5, 2012 at 2:28 pmThe fascinating thing about all of this indeed is what would have happened if there had been equality of tv coverage with others, in particular UKIP. Almost certainly UKIP would have gained that seat on the London Assembly. It’s clear that the Greens had a good result partly because of the bonus of being given “state favoured” status by the BBC. Their opinion polling figures increased after each large dollop of free advertising given by the BBC. The LibDems of course may have suffered from the very same thing – their candidate was fairly wooden and with the party shackled to the Conservatives nationally, people were indeed aware of him and probably thought “why bother?” No amount of free media can sell a turkey (well one that has clearly gone off, anyway). Large amounts of free advertising by the state pushed him down to a level while the same for Jenny Jones increased awareness and lifted her party.
Ronald Duncan says
May 5, 2012 at 4:46 pmAnd how would Siobhan Benita have done with some media coverage?
A competent person running for Mayor? Scary!
Damian Hockney says
May 5, 2012 at 5:02 pmWell, of course. Ms Benita got her votes almost purely and simply from the daily fawning coverage in the Guardian and Independent which spilled over a little into other media – after a week or so of this you begin to get some traction, some actual public recognition from the regular readers of those papers. Nothing wrong with that – it just demonstrates that free positive media given to you every day has a value in terms of votes. This is why in the USA you pay $100,000 a day in some elections to advertise your candidate at certain times! But heavy handed support in a couple of papers is not enough of course to get anywhere close if you are barred from tv in any meaningful sense. If Ms Benita had had meaningful tv coverage, there is a chance that she might have impressed – but of course you were not allowed to find out!
ASLEF shrugged says
May 6, 2012 at 10:37 amWhen you are wrong you are wrong, I said Paddick wouldn’t sink below 200k and he didn’t even get half of that. Interesting that there were about 50k more votes for LibDem Assembly members than for Brian. Also note that while 100k people wanted a UKIP Assembly member less than half that number voted for Lawrence Webb. One got loads of TV coverage the other didn’t, make of that what you will.
Bring on Shawcross v Pidgeon v Malthouse v Jones 2012
Damian Hockney says
May 6, 2012 at 1:47 pmThe key for Paddick of course is that you can get all the media coverage/free advertising on state tv in the world but you cannot sell a turkey that’s gone off. But if you are barred from advertising at all, like UKIP was, no-one really knows your product is available or what it stands for or how impressive it is (or isn’t of course) – and they have to actually look for it (which most people will not do). My cousin actually did not know UKIP was standing yet he has casually voted for the party from time to time, with no particular determination or commitment. This seems fantastic to you or I, but we are interested and active in our interest – those who are not, pick up what is going on on tv and to some extent their newspapers. It is fast and superficial in a fast moving world where people all have other interests and pressures. Having been a magazine publisher selling titles through the newstrade, I know all about the value of actually being there on the shelves and being able to promote there your new products – if you are there with racks of promotions in all outlets but put out a duff product, you will still sell more than someone with a good product that is not in the market (or can’t be found and is unable for whatever reason to promote). This is why large companies with duff or declining products and a good market share try to squeeze out small companies with good products from being seen or being made available – and use the time they have bought to rebrand the failing product. And Aslefshrugged, I love all those people you name at the end, and I’m sure their mothers adore them, but the electorate? This is an election about ‘celebs’, you know, not ‘civilians’…
Surely, it will have to be Cilla Black v Ginger Spice v Holly Willoughby (’causes a commotion as the neckline plunges south’) v Wayne Rooney?