Nick Hillman for Cambridge

Now that we finally have a new Prime Minister, I thought I would post some thoughts about the election campaign here in Cambridge

I loved every minute of the campaign – I had no idea being a candidate would be so much fun. I learnt a huge amount and it helped that the campaign here in Cambridge was (relatively) clean. I would have liked to have won, but I am genuinely pleased with second place – and the first increase in the Tory vote share since 1976! Every failed PPC has a favourite stat, and that is my one. Thank you to everyone who came out to help.

Here are some of the things I learnt (or had confirmed) during the campaign:

1. Cambridge Green Party are good people. When you are out campaigning, you get to know the other parties and their tactics pretty well. I was very impressed by the Greens’ campaign here as it always focused on their programme and eschewed attacks on others. It was also imaginative in terms of getting publicity – my favourite one of their stunts was their campaigning by punt, and I also liked the ‘Vote Green’ bike stickers. I disagree with the Greens’ economic policies but they livened up the election here and it was a pleasure to share so many platforms with Tony Juniper, from whom I learnt a great deal. It is very hard for small parties to win seats under our electoral system but the Greens won a seat in Brighton so they presumably fought good campaigns elsewhere too. (I am trying to remain positive towards our local Greens despite the odd story in today’s Cambridge News in which Tony Juniper and Daniel Zeichner, the Labour candidate, lump all their votes together with those of the Lib Dems and then claim that they were part of some big anti-Tory force. Guys: Sorry, but you lost and your previously expressed negative views about our new MP are a matter of record. There is simply no evidence for your assertion that your votes and Julian’s came from the same pool and that mine came from somewhere completely different – the main swing in Cambridge was away from the Lib Dems to us. As you both said during the campaign, we should leave disingenuous claims about how the votes in Cambridge break down during general elections to the Lib Dems and each get on with trying to win our own votes by offering a positive alternative vision.)

2. I surprised myself by having a higher opinion of Tony Blair at the end of the campaign than at the start. So many of his straplines – evidence-based policy, welfare that works, tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime – are well attuned to the electorate’s concerns. Blair messed up in my opinion, especially over Iraq and public service reform, but I now have a greater understanding of why he was such a successful politician in electioneering terms. This is not something I had previously expected to learn during the campaign.

3. Lib Dems should reassess some of their tactics. To the best of my knowledge, the only party to indulge in questionable activities during the campaign here were the Lib Dems. It’s all relative and nothing they did was too terrible but I still think it was pretty poor politics to tell the voters (in literature and when out canvassing) that Cambridge was a Lib Dem / Lab marginal, when it was clear that the Labour vote was collapsing and when Conservatives had come second in Cambridge in the 2009 European elections (the previous time the city had voted in a national election). What angered me most, however, were not the graphs on the Lib Dems’ literature but the evidence I was shown of a co-ordinated email campaign which focused on asking me lots of tricky and time-consuming questions, the answers of which were then circulated back among local Lib Dems so they could pore over them and see if they could catch me out. This was dispiriting though I don’t believe Julian, our new MP, was involved and it ultimately didn’t work.

4. The only two people on the doorstep who raised the critical issue of inequality with me both lived in massive, beautiful and very expensive houses. I was polite to both, even though one was spoiling for a fight. I found it a bit bizarre that they berated me for not caring about inequality when in fact I do (see the Writings section of this site) and when the party they both support (Labour) has not lived up to their promises in this area. I guess it shows how some people’s views of 300 years of Conservatism are still tainted by the more negative aspects of 11 years of Thatcherism. Perhaps I should have asked them if my pregnant wife and I could move out of our smallish, two-bed, rented, terraced house into their residences, thereby making Cambridge a smidgen more equal overnight!

5. I worked really hard to respond personally and honestly to every email and questionnaire I received during the campaign (sorry if I missed yours). But, without trying to insult the questioners, I think there were two sorts of questions that were perhaps a tiny bit misguided. First, there were those which asked for information on exactly how I would vote on imaginary pieces of legislation that might or might not be put forward in the new parliament. In my view, this misunderstands the fact that an election is about choosing someone who shares your basic philosophy, not someone who announces in advance exactly how they will act in response to every vote, big and small, over the next five years, including votes on pieces of legislation that have not yet been written/published. Of course, candidates should say where they stand on the big issues – and on the smaller ones when they can. But there was only one candidate in Cambridge (Old Holborn) who was promising to put every decision to the public vote – and even he was not saying in advance exactly how he would vote on every issue. Secondly, I think there are lessons for all us involved in politics from the Democracy Club survey. Conservative candidates, as well as Labour candidates, were the butt of a piece in the Guardian – as well as negative Tweets and so on – for their low response rate to this survey. I worked really hard to try and work with Democracy Club during the campaign – for example, I spoke at their hustings event even though it clashed with the second leader’s debate. I also wrote a lengthy blog entry explaining my views on 11 local issues they raised with candidates. I was still attacked for not responding in exactly the way Democracy Club wanted. Yet I remain of the opinion that their national questionnaire massively over-simplified some really big issues and would have left an inaccurate impression of my views even if I had filled it in honestly. To me, refusing to answer this particular survey was more responsible than doing so, though that stance probably lost me some votes. While I am a massive fan (and regular user) of TheyWorkForYou, I just think they called this survey wrong. Politics should be a conversation not a multiple choice exam. For an organisation that strives to be participatory, perhaps they might have consulted more widely on the survey before it went live if they wanted higher response rates.

For the record, my view about the political crisis that is now coming to an end is that, while it was not immediately clear who won the election, it is clear who lost it. Our new MP feels strongly about civil liberty issues so he should be pleased that his party are now in alliance with my party, which is resolutely opposed to ID cards and the database state.

**Update: It seems from his Tweet that Julian is indeed happy with the new arrangements.