Daniel Pitt: Reflections on being a candidate in a Council by-election

Dr Daniel Pitt is an Honorary Fellow at the University of Buckingham. He was the Conservative candidate in the Long Eaton North Council by-election in Derbyshire.

Benjamin Disraeli said, in the House of Commons in 1859, ‘finality is not the language of politics’. When I received the phone call sounding me out about whether I would like to become the Conservative Party candidate in the Long Eaton North by-election, Disraeli’s quote was looming large.

Let’s get to the facts first. Heroic defeat is still a defeat despite the heroics. I came second to Reform by 23 votes, which is not good enough. Yet, my result bucked the national polls and the broader trends in recent by-elections, as we increased both our numerical vote and our vote share.

We cut Reform’s majority from 354 (we were actually 401 votes behind as we started in third place, 47 votes behind Labour) to 23 votes. Reform won the by-election with 28.1 per cent vote share, representing a 7.7 per cent drop from May, when they had won the Long Eaton North division with some ease. Our vote share increased to 27.2 per cent, a 4.2 per cent rise. This means we cut a 12.8 per cent lead to just 0.9 per cent, which is a Six per cent swing from Reform to us. This was also the first by-election where our vote has numerically increased since the Eccleshall by-election in July.

I had some key objectives I wanted to achieve during this campaign. The overriding objective was to win, but I had others, too. The scholar in me wanted to test my friend, Carl’s, hypothesis that in local government elections, all things being equal, you can win the election by working harder than any other party. This is what I set out to do with a campaign that was enjoyable to be part of, positive and energetic. Win or lose (and at this point, no one I spoke to thought we would win), I wanted to build morale and give our team a spring in their step again.

We came out firing on all cylinders. I set and communicated my core principles of sound economics, cultural revival and flourishing local communities from the beginning. These principles shaped how I would tackle my six local priorities for Long Eaton North. I got activists to buy into the campaign by showing them how hard I worked and by providing them with hope of winning, and with a truly conservative campaign.

There was a snowball effect. People wanted to be part of this style of campaign. I had Young Conservatives join me from across the country, such as Fin, Alexander and Tyler, to name a few. LGBT Tories provided support, David Jeffery made a campaign video, and Nathan and Jamie motivated many more activists to join our campaign.

This campaign was my favourite I have been involved in for years, perhaps since 2015, which I wrote about for ConHome. The Shadow Chancellor, Mel Stride, joined us. I had support from four former MPs, Jane Hunt, Amanda Solloway, Tom Randall and Maggie Throup, who was my campaign manager. We received excellent support from Alex Dale, the Leader of the Conservative Group in Derbyshire. We also had support from Nottinghamshire, with Sam Smith and Mike Adams and local support from current and former councillors, such as Garry Hickton. This support was invaluable, and it was built on having campaigned for other candidates during the years.

Communication, communication, communication was the order of the day. I had a very active, multifaceted digital campaign with some technical help from Curt. I had to show Long Eaton’s residents that we were working hard, we were listening to them, and what their vote for me meant. My strong digital campaign made it easier to have repeated doorstep conversations as the residents already knew what I stood for. We had laser-like focus with the traditional campaign. My core team, Maggie, Wayne, Hayley and Alex, made the plan, and we stuck to it, met deadlines, and were organised. We had teams within teams. For example, Howard and Bob were superstar deliverers.

I found that Reform’s vote locally was softer than many thought; well, almost everyone I spoke to told me that Reform voters were not in play, but I found that, as a Tory in my tradition, I had a rather strong appeal to a good amount of Reform voters. So, I explicitly targeted Reform and Conservative/Reform waverers and had repeated doorstep conversations. I was also critical of Reform, especially about their record of running councils, but I focused mainly on their incompetence and lack of experience rather than principles. This strategy worked.

Moreover, my first campaign video was on closing the migrant hotel in the division, which I have been advocating for from the very start. I knew Reform would try to make political hay about the hotel, despite my record and personal views on the topic. Hence, I took action to pre-empt them. Sanjoy remarked that he was happy that we were in contention despite having a migrant hotel in the patch. This was due to the pre-emptive action.

Someone summed up my campaign by saying: ‘You did well because of hard work, sound conservatism and your competence and credibility’. June even said to me that I have a ‘new celebratory status, as the candidate who cheered us up’. This renewed optimism is more important than the result.