Kirklees Elections 2019 - Newsome Campaign reflections

Councillor Sue Lee-Richards and team at the count

Obviously I'm really pleased that Sue Lee-Richards our new Green Party Candidate for Newsome Ward won big this year. She was defending Julie Stewart-Turner's seat and you always wonder how a new candidate will fare with the electorate. The  result saw our largest majority since 2000, our vote share rose to 63%. Lots of factors played in our favour. Our solid year round work and some very tangible successes were always going to play well which has seen us through 18 election wins on the trot. We were further helped by the frustration of electors with Labour and the Conservatives over the way they have handled the Brexit shambles as were Greens Independents and Lib Dems around the country.

The Labour Campaign this year was quite different  from last years. Then the Labour campaign was misleading, unpleasant and went down badly with electors. The new Labour candidate decided to focus his whole campaign on saving Huddersfield Royal Infirmary and made no mention was made of other more local issues at all. A lot of the Labour literature was unintelligible to anyone other than a committed Health Campaigner and even then it vastly overstated the influence a Council has over NHS decisions. The headline on their leaflet said "Hands of HRI" I think they meant "Hands Off HRI"

We again had the intervention in the election from the local developer who dug up the Newsome Bowling Green and said he was supporting Labour this year because he had been "victimised" by Green Councillors and me in particular. Lots I could say about this but think I'll give it a miss on this occasion.

The day before the election a large number of Green Party posterboards were removed from lamp posts overnight and taken away by persons unknown. Though Labour boards were left untouched I'm confident the Labour Party didn't remove them.

During our campaign we focused on issues of concern to local people and promoted our strong record of action in the community. Sue won BIG with our largest majority for 19 years with 2455 votes.

We never assume in elections that we will win and always contest them vigorously and were really pleased with the enthusiastic support and encouragement we received from local people.