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Famous By-Elections: Edward Timpson and Crewe & Nantwich 2008
13 Plays10 hours ago
Our team interviews for Conservative MP Edward Timpson, winner of the 2008 Crewe and Nantwich By-Election. The seat became vacant on the death of Gwyneth Dunwoody who had been the local MP since 1974. Timpson’s victory in the by-election was the first Conservative gain in a parliamentary by-election since 1982 and the first from the Labour Party since 1978. At the time, Gordon Brown had replaced Tony Blair as Prime Minister and it was the first by-election gain under future Prime Minister David Cameron’s leadership of the Conservative Party.
The Guardian said 'Gordon Brown is facing the gravest crisis of his premiership after David Cameron led the Tories to their first byelection gain in a quarter of a century this morning, on a 17.6% swing that would sweep the party into Downing Street. In one of the most humiliating setbacks to Labour since the era of Michael Foot.'
The BBC's Nick Robinson said 'Be in no doubt. If David Cameron becomes prime minister many will look back at the vote in Crewe and Nantwich as the moment they first believed it was possible.'
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Transcript
Understanding Political Shifts through By-Elections
00:00:08
Speaker
By-elections can shift the political landscape and signal changes in the ideas of the electorate. In May 2008, the Crewe and Nantwich by-election did just that.
00:00:20
Speaker
Edward Timpson made history by overturning a huge Labour majority, but also signposted a shift as the country turned away from Labour and towards the Conservatives. was arguably a campaign filled with personal emotion, political risk and of national significance.
Edward Timpson's Entry into Politics
00:00:36
Speaker
So I'm really excited to welcome Edward Timpson to the Observation podcast today. How are you doing, Edward? Hi, Jason. Thanks so much having me on. Looking forward to a good chat. Yes, so um I'm Jason McKenna. Welcome to the show.
00:00:49
Speaker
And so first of all, we're going to start with the context of the 2008 by-election because it was a fascinating session ah setting. There was an emotional background that we will explore, but also some interesting tactics were deployed by Labour to regain the voters.
00:01:05
Speaker
But let's look at the unique um emotional aspect of it that you were campaigning against. So first of all, the 2008 by-election crew and Nantwich by-election came under sad circumstances following the death of Gwyneth Dunwoody, who had been the MP for the constituency since 1974.
Challenges of Campaigning in Crewe and Nantwich
00:01:23
Speaker
How did you approach a campaign with such sensitivity and in an emotionally charged environment?
00:01:32
Speaker
Well, first of all, I wasn't very politically savvy, I have to say. I was very new to it. I had no sort history in my family of involvement in politics, so I was ah very much the new kid on the block. And I'd only just been selected as the Conservative parliamentary candidate ah in 2007. So I was very much at the beginning of my own of political journey, if you want to put it that way.
00:01:57
Speaker
And when I got selected for Cronan Antwitch, as you rightly said, Gwyneth Dunwoody was the sitting MP. She'd been there forever. She was a stalwart, very independently minded.
00:02:07
Speaker
And as I discovered in the early days of canvassing on the streets of Cronan Antwitch in areas that I thought would be ah rich pickings for the Conservatives, ah discovered that a lot of people would say, well, you know, I I vote Conservative in the local elections, but in the general elections, I vote for Gwyneth because, so you know, she really stands up for our area. So, so I knew when I got selected that I had a and real uphill battle to unseat Gwyneth de Wooden. I suspected I wouldn't have done.
00:02:36
Speaker
um It would have been very, very difficult, even at a general election. And then literally one night, my phone went off at about four o'clock in the morning. I was in the middle. I was a barrister at the time and I was in the middle of a case. I do family law in North Wales and my phone went and it was my dad.
00:02:58
Speaker
I thought, okay, um either he's got sir the time wrong, he's abroad or something quite serious has happened. And he said, well, I'm really sorry to wake you up because you had a few quite small children as well.
00:03:10
Speaker
ah back in 2008. In fact, our third one had just been born. a And sorry for disturbing you, but I've switched the TV in the middle of the night. I woke up and watched the news and Gwyneth Lundwoody, the MP for Crew Enancement, she's died very suddenly.
00:03:27
Speaker
ah So there's going to be a by-election. and And literally, that phone call ah turned my life upside down. And the circumstances in which it happened...
00:03:39
Speaker
ah made the fact that I was very very politically naive, um even more so when you had to factor in, well, how do I now campaign against the backdrop of these very difficult and tragic circumstances?
00:03:56
Speaker
ah um But before I knew I didn't really have much time to think about it because I was whisked down to London to Conservative Central Office. You have a conversation with the chair who at that time ah was Caroline Spellman.
00:04:11
Speaker
You have the skeletons in your cupboard conversation to find out, you know, is there anything we should know about your past before you stand? And what people don't always realise is that if you have been selected to stand as a parliamentary candidate in a general election, that doesn't mean that you automatically become the candidate in the by-election.
00:04:31
Speaker
So your party have a choice of saying, actually, you're not the right person for us in this by-election. ah Because of the the issues of the day or your level of experience or your like maybe what your local connections are, we need a particular type of candidate and you don't necessarily
Timpson's Political Identity and Campaign Strategies
00:04:48
Speaker
fit that mould. So from the very start, I had to work out, well, who am i um Am I up to this?
00:04:55
Speaker
And do I think I can deliver what the party wants? and obviously what I wanted myself. And could you describe that process then? How did you decide on who you wanted to be? Who was Edward Timpson in that election?
00:05:12
Speaker
Well, first of all, i had to accept that I had chosen which party I wanted to stand for and but which party best represented at that time the values that were most important to me.
00:05:24
Speaker
And so you know, pin my colours to the blue mast. And in a way that defines you to a certain extent, because a lot of people who vote, they will not know a huge amount about the candidate, particularly at a general election.
00:05:40
Speaker
However, a by-election is different because you get such a level of exposure and there's no other elections going on normally. Sometimes there might be local elections, but normally it's it's just the by-election.
00:05:52
Speaker
So you are able to both provide your electorate with a ah but more than just a pen picture of who you are and explain, which I tried to do, that I was someone, i was a family man.
00:06:10
Speaker
My parents had ah fostered many children whilst I was growing up. ah We had a ah family business that had been started by my great-great-grandfather. We were sort of entrepreneurs, people who you know worked hard, played by the rules.
00:06:25
Speaker
but believe everyone should have an equal opportunity to be their best. And that was borne out by own sort of family's experience and how they had conducted themselves both in public and private. and But you with that, you have to accept that it also gives the opposition, the people who don't want you to to win the seat, to find their own way of describing you to the electorate, which we'll probably come on to, which may be a ah less favourable ah caricature of ah of who you actually are.
00:06:58
Speaker
And that's clearly something that is in a by-election, ah something that you just have to accept is going to happen. Because obviously with that high pressure situation, everything is kind of being learned ah in the moment, isn't it?
00:07:14
Speaker
Absolutely. I mean, but my biggest worry was being a rabbit in headlights and that I was going to have some gotcha moments where a microphone gets thrust in my face by Nick Robinson or someone like that. And they're going to ask me a question, very basic question about the local area or the price of milk or whatever it is.
00:07:36
Speaker
And I would just freeze and just not be able to give them the answer that should have been on the tip of my tongue or even worse, say something which was getting the name wrong of the ah local vicar or, you know, whatever it is that demonstrates that I don't really know the area.
00:07:53
Speaker
I'm not really a serious candidate. that That was my biggest worry. And because I was so ah new to politics, I had to learn literally on my feet.
00:08:05
Speaker
um And the way it works is, and I've done this subsequently myself for other by-election candidates, is you have, and certainly I did, and I think other parties do something similar, is you have someone called a candidate's friend.
00:08:19
Speaker
And this is someone, in my case, it was ah a member of parliament called Angela Browning, who'd been around for quite some time. very savvy, very world-wise, sort of a, quite a sort of so maternal figure. She was like my sort of substitute mum for the duration of the by-election.
00:08:38
Speaker
And she was pretty much from the moment I got picked up in the morning to the moment I got dropped off back at home at night, she was with me the whole time, really to reassure me in those moments about ah how to handle myself.
00:08:50
Speaker
I remember that the first things she did but she gave me a but little piece of card I could keep in my top pocket of my jacket because one of the big issues at the time, is funny how these things come around again and again, was about the cost of living.
00:09:04
Speaker
And that the government with the 10p tax were hitting the people who could least afford it. And she said, you need to keep in this, make sure you don't have that Nick Robinson moment with the microphone.
00:09:17
Speaker
Keep this in your pocket and just rememberize memorize it each day. and it had how much on that day, pint of milk was, liter of petrol was, a loaf of bread, dozen eggs. All all those questions ah that just give you a level of confidence that you're not going to get caught out.
00:09:36
Speaker
And I'm so glad she did because I did get asked that. I remember being in Asda in Crewe. Theresa May, who was Shadow Home Secretary at the time, was with me. And it was Nick Robinson.
00:09:48
Speaker
My nightmare had come true. Asking me, as we were near the bakery area, know, how much is, you know, you say you're a man of the people and this is a cost of living by election and Labour let people down, but ah you don't know anything about it yourself, do you? i mean, how much is a loaf of bread? And I thought, huh?
00:10:08
Speaker
I know the answer to that. So I told him and then I got a little bit cocky and then said, I know, and I can also tell you that a pint of milk is such and such. um But it helped give me a so a sense that maybe this isn't as going to be as horrific um as I thought it was going to be.
00:10:24
Speaker
But pretty much I was being coached through the whole experience. protected to a certain extent because they didn't want to overexpose me and put me in situations where i'm yeah I could fall flat on my face.
00:10:35
Speaker
So I basically trusted those around me to know what they were doing. And I did my best to so respond in the way that they wanted me to. But it did mean that although the elect ah election, I think it was only about three and a half weeks long, it was quite a short campaign.
00:10:53
Speaker
I do remember the end of each day was absolutely shattered and didn't know was going to do it again the next day. But you have to, you've got no choice. And yeah how many times do you estimate that you looked at that card?
00:11:09
Speaker
Oh, ah at least times. to 10 times a day because you're in between events ah because yeah there was like a succession of shadow ministers coming up because of course they thought we were on a bit of a roll.
00:11:25
Speaker
that Labour were running out of steam. Gordon Brown wasn't that popular. He'd had his moment the autumn before when he that that summer of 2007, when he'd become Prime Minister, he had a run where he was dealing with floods and plagues and all sorts things and and coming up with the goods. But then he missed his moment in autumn to call an election. After that, things started to unravel for him.
00:11:50
Speaker
And so ah the Conservatives had just had really good local election results. Boris Johnson had just won the Mayoralty of London for the first time. Takes us back, doesn't it? um And so there was a sense that we we had the wind behind us um in our sails, but you still have to deliver.
00:12:11
Speaker
And so what i made sure I did is in between Every event I had with a shadow minister, because they all wanted to be part of this by-election, that I reminded myself after each one what was on that bit of card.
00:12:28
Speaker
So I
Labour's Campaign Tactics and Timpson's Response
00:12:29
Speaker
didn't sort of lose the thread and get carried away, which you could have done with yeah suddenly meeting all of these MPs that I'd seen on the TV and never met before.
00:12:40
Speaker
It was all very surreal, I can tell you.
00:12:44
Speaker
And, you know, ah you you talked there about your kind of winning moment against ah Nick Robinson there. But was there also maybe a moment that stood out as possibly the most difficult for you?
00:12:55
Speaker
Yes, I ah remember two things. One was a Hustings that we held ah yeah in Stoke, weirdly, because BBC Radio always do a Hustings, or they try to, but there isn't a BBC Cheshire.
00:13:11
Speaker
bit of a bone of contention. There's Merseyside, Manchester, there's Shropshire, but ah there's nothing for Cheshire. so there's But there is BBC Radio Stoke, so they're the station that covers Cheshire, who certainly are part of Cheshire.
00:13:25
Speaker
And they decided to hold a candidate's debate in Stoke, in their studio. And I remember sitting down at the front where they put a desk where all the candidates sat,
00:13:38
Speaker
but it was a very small room and and they put the audience who were apparently handpicked to be a fair representation as the BBC have to do. But there were quite a few faces there that recognised who I'd seen walking around ah with Labour placards and ah people who probably weren't going to be particularly friendly to me.
00:14:00
Speaker
And when they sat all of the audience down, they put one guy, I swear he was about five feet from my face, And he spent the whole of the, the, um, the hustings and and obviously it was being broadcast live, just shouting at me, shouting at me um when I was trying to give my answers. And, uh, and it was funny, it was funny, very difficult to sort of, to keep myself, um, coherent knowing that people, because it was on the radio, people wouldn't know the circumstances and this was happening. All they could hear was me potentially sort of finding it hard to answer a question.
00:14:39
Speaker
So so that that was a really, really difficult moment. And just and quickly, another one was, Cruise is obviously very famous for the railways. And so David Cameron thought, well, let's go and do a railway visit.
00:14:52
Speaker
And we went down, i think it was at the time, Pete Waterman from Stock Aitken and Waterman back in the day. He was a big train enthusiast. was involved with crew and particularly the steam ah engines there. So we we did a sort of photo call where were sort of hanging out of a a a train um door.
00:15:16
Speaker
And there was a ah flank of journalists or with microphones, and I i think ah one of them ah was um is is um ah Michael, or his surname's just gone out of my head, but he was notorious for trying to um
00:15:36
Speaker
trip and then a politician up with a a sort a question so coming from left field. And remember it was a day where we were all wearing the high biz, as you have to do these days, um for these sorts of events.
00:15:50
Speaker
And he he thrust um his microphone in my face. i mean It was one of those days where i I could hardly keep my eyes open. I was so tired. And he asked me quite a difficult policy question.
00:16:03
Speaker
And I realized in that moment, I have no idea. um And I can see David Cameron looking at me. thinking, I'm going to have to rescue him here.
00:16:15
Speaker
And I sort of stood there, not really saying anything for about three seconds. And then and then David Cameron had to sort of interject. And I felt, I remember going back at home at the end of that day, I thought, oh, no, um you know I've really let people down. I've blown it.
00:16:29
Speaker
um And that that was the closest I got to succumbing to the enormity of the yeah the whole by-election, I think. This was during the campaign, Labour ran attacks about your apparent privilege.
00:16:41
Speaker
Talk about your possible disconnect from the voters and even photo ops, where Labour campaigners wore top hats. On a personal level, how did you react or even did you react to that line of attack?
00:16:55
Speaker
Well, remember when it first happened, I was waiting at the top of Victoria Street in Crewe, which is sort of part of the pedestrianised area, because David Cameron was up yet again and we're waiting for his car.
00:17:06
Speaker
And obviously, somehow, Labour had found out where he was going to be and something had leaked. and um And before we knew it, although we'd assembled our own group of supporters with their blue balloons and their Edward Simpson placards and and all the rest of it, ah out of nowhere, this...
00:17:25
Speaker
ah large contingent of Labour supporters, if I can put it as mildly as that, um sort of appeared out from around the corner just as David Cameron's car was sweeping in.
00:17:36
Speaker
And before we knew it, we were surrounded by them all. And um in amongst them, as you rightly say, they had, think it was two of them, maybe three, who were dressed up in top hat and tails, sort you know, Lord Snooty.
00:17:49
Speaker
And this was all part of their their campaign tactics to portray me as someone who was from privilege, who had no real understanding of what the real world is like. ah Classic Conservative.
00:18:08
Speaker
And by but using that imagery, I hope that that would be the what was then stuck um throughout the throughout the campaign. And they they took it sort of to even further level. they ah um They actually came to my house um and discovered that in the field behind my house were some llamas.
00:18:30
Speaker
And so they they then apparently they had and I've seen a photo of it put up in their campaign office ah to basically tell people this is what we're saying about Edward Timpson was a picture of a llama that they put a top hat on.
00:18:44
Speaker
sort of photoshopped a top hat on and that was sort of that was basically what they were saying I was all about the fact that they weren't even my llamas they were the farmer farmer next door was irrelevant it was all part of trying to sort of push out that that portrayal so that if people are asked in the street do you you know anything about Edward Simpson oh yeah he's the guy he goes around in a top hat and he's got llamas at home so so that that's what we were up against um but they didn't really do their homework. They wanted to play the class war card, which can work sometimes, but what they they hadn't appreciated was that if you walked around Crewe and if you walked around Nantwich, you'll see a shop there called Timpson's who repair shoes and cut keys.
00:19:33
Speaker
ah So these are, this is yeah family who are on the high street, they're cobblers and then When we then talked about in our literature that we were pumping through people's letterboxes, that actually this is this is Edward Simpson's family.
00:19:51
Speaker
And did you know that his mum and dad fostered 90 children over 30 years and he's got two adopted brothers and ah and that their business employs people who've been in prison to give them a second chance. And suddenly this whole imagery that Labour tried to create around me just fell away.
00:20:11
Speaker
and And actually people then became angry about the way Labour were trying to hijack um the the agenda, which then meant really serious issues about cost of living, which we obviously talked about a lot, were not being properly aired.
00:20:29
Speaker
And so, yes, it it it was tough in one respect, but because it is such a whirlwind to be in the middle of something like this, this little maelstrom with Fleet Street descending on the streets of Krurin Antwitch,
00:20:40
Speaker
I didn't have a huge amount of time to really process it until afterwards um when you know the circus had left town. But I think probably my parents found it more difficult than me um when they saw me going through the experience.
00:20:57
Speaker
and Well, just to add to that, Eric Pickles, who helped run your campaign in 2008, later said he believed that Labour's strategy actually backfired. When you were talking to voters at the time, was this something that you you got from them, you know, adding to what you've just said there?
00:21:13
Speaker
it Definitely. As the days rolled by and we got closer to polling day, ah that became more and more of a feature of interactions we had with um members of the public, ah the electorate in the Kronantich area.
00:21:27
Speaker
And you have to remember, this was before social media, emails just sort of around a bit. I did a blog every night. I say I did it. i remember George Eustace, who was working at CCHQ at the time. He was he was the blogger, so I used to sit there.
00:21:45
Speaker
um he He became Secretary of State for DEFRA eventually, which it's funny how these things turn out. But at that moment, he was a blogger. And i literally sat down with him at the end of each day and downloaded what had happened.
00:21:59
Speaker
And that included ah conversations I'd had with but people on the that I'd knocked on their door I'd met in the street. And if you go back and read the blogs, you can see almost like a ah real-time shift of people's responses moving from, to you know, you know why why are you different? Who are you?
00:22:18
Speaker
i don't know what to do. um um I've never really voted Conservative before. I maybe think we need something different, but I'm not sure I can put my ah cross in the blue box.
00:22:29
Speaker
Two, ah really i really like what you're saying, and but i I also really am repulsed by the way Labour are trying to turn this into a a sort of character assassination rather than talking about the issues that I care about. So you could you could see that happening and and also it was happening in what were traditionally very strong labour areas so it wasn't just the sort floating voters that were being put off it was a much deeper rooted change um which was happening right across the constituency.
Focusing on Local Issues and Voter Engagement
00:23:05
Speaker
And focusing on your own message then what did you say to persuade voters on local and national issues? Well what we did is and of course this is when I had the conversation at the very start with central office and whether they were going to keep me as the candidate is making sure i actually knew what the local issues were. And because I had been the parliamentary candidate for the Conservatives in the seat for about nine months or so, I had, you know, alongside having a full-time job and three small children at home, I had been spending as much time as possible ah doing exactly that, um putting some my own literature out, doing surveys, ah starting to
00:23:50
Speaker
develop a relationship with the local area. And from that, you can pick out what you determine to be like the three main issues for that local area, and of which one was the late in the local hospital that was in dire need of of of renovation.
00:24:08
Speaker
And there was an issue about sorting office that Royal Mail were looking to close down, which would probably be a lot of job losses. So you find some of these key local ah issues that you can then say, if you elect me, this I'm going to make sure that I prioritise these ah for you in my work, both in Westminster and up here in Cheshire.
00:24:31
Speaker
But then you have to cloak them in ah in the in the national agenda as well. and And at that time, as I mentioned before, yeah cost of living was the big one.
00:24:41
Speaker
And that's the one that we um were pushing locally. And remember one quite eye-catching leaflet because leaflets was what it was all about those days. People by the end of the by-election would say, you know, literally people putting signs on the door saying, please do not put another leaflet through my door.
00:24:58
Speaker
um i You know, the the the recycling was just full of them. um But we did one which was, ah it was to do with fuel duty and ah it was going to go up. And so, you know, we've had it frozen for years and years and years since then.
00:25:14
Speaker
um And so we had at the time, Grand Theft at Auto was quite a popular um computer game. And so we produced a leaflet, which basically said, it said Grand Theft Auto with a picture of a car. And it was basically saying, you know, Labour are trying to take your money off you the for you to drive around in a car, which you shouldn't have to.
00:25:37
Speaker
That was the sort of basic premise of it. But it, so that it was sort of the start of how campaigning was becoming more um aligned with sort of something in the in the of ah the but public conversation at that time, particularly young voters. who were trying to attract more young voters, which has always been a bit of a struggle ah for the Conservative Party.
00:26:04
Speaker
um And it was also an issue that we knew because The central central office do some of their own polling and they have focus groups and trying to pinpoint what are the issues that people are really going to respond to.
00:26:19
Speaker
Yeah, when it's a bit more visceral, it may be not particularly political, but it's something that really gets their goat up. And that and the Tempe tax, ah particularly for sort traditional Labour voters, they were not happy about.
00:26:33
Speaker
so So that's why we campaign strongly on those. And just, you know, looking back, obviously it's way back in 2008 now. um Do you still have any of these leaflets that you're pick particularly proud of? You know, do you ever get them out and look fondly back at them and then maybe have a chuckle about them as well?
00:26:53
Speaker
Well, I mean, I do have a scrapbook um and also fortunately lots and lots of photos that were taken um throughout the campaign. I slightly wish I'd kept a diary.
00:27:04
Speaker
um the blog is a sort of ah a reasonably good record but um and I do have as I say the Tanzan Dunwoody one of us ah lapel stickers up on my wall at home um but I guess you sort of have to accept particularly when you then have quite often soon off the on the but but off the heels of the by-election. I then had a general election only two years later and then another one and then another one.
00:27:36
Speaker
um And then I decided then to do another one. um it By-election is unique um and the circumstances in which it happened may mean its it's never going to sort of be easily lost in my memory.
00:27:55
Speaker
And although I don't really look in the scrapbook that much, and there lots and lots of press cuttings as well, um I do have one press cutting on my wall, which was the front page of the Evening Standard, which was um after the the result had been announced on the platform at the Civic Hall in Nantwich. And it's by my wife giving me a kit. Well, we're both kissing each other in a appropriate manner and it's and it says sealed with a kiss and basically saying Gordon Brown is doomed.
00:28:32
Speaker
i So so that that was that was never going to happen to me in a general election, let's put it that way, ah to be the person at the epicentre of what is being seen as a potential national shift and in politics.
Gaining Confidence and Achieving Victory
00:28:47
Speaker
ah So yeah, I don't i don't mind don't mind looking looking at that front page every certainly so often when I walk past it. Did you ever have a moment of confidence where you thought I'm going to win this you know was was it that moment as you said there where you felt Tasman was overcome um or was there maybe a moment on a doorstep or something familiar as sorry something similar that that kind of stands out for you? Well I think there were two moments one was when I was knocking on some doors, ah which we did every day, morning, afternoon, evening, in an area where traditionally, probably a Conservative wouldn't spend much time ah trying to canvass support.
00:29:33
Speaker
And this was probably about, I'm going to say, 10 days in, ah maybe it may be slightly longer. And it was an older couple who recently retired, he had worked at the, the crew works, which was the, where they, the old sort of railway works, and then suddenly gone on to work at at Bentley motors.
00:29:56
Speaker
um ah think he worked for Rolls Royce actually, and then it became Bentley who were based in crew, um but had always been, know, been member of a trade union, always voted labor, big supporters of Gwyneth Dunwoody.
00:30:10
Speaker
And they They didn't even hesitate to say to me, you've got it. Everyone around here, they they they they don't like what Labour are doing.
00:30:24
Speaker
We've had enough of them. They're not doing anything for us. ah We're going to give you a go. And that was music to my ears, as you can imagine. And then the second moment was um slightly nautily, Angela Browning, who I mentioned before, who was my candidate's friend.
00:30:40
Speaker
When you have... an election, you'll know that you you have postal votes as well as people voting on the day. And although they've tightened the rules up since 2008, what you can do is go along to the opening.
00:30:53
Speaker
You have some agents who are officially allowed to go along at the opening of the postal vote. So although they're not actually being counted, you can see, to certain extent, ah what the votes are going in before polling day and get a sense of where the momentum lies.
00:31:12
Speaker
And um remember Angela Browning coming back to me saying, I'm not meant to tell you this, but we have got over 65% of the postal votes.
00:31:24
Speaker
It's looking really good. And that was the moment when I thought, okay, I'm not going to take that as red because we still I could still mess this up somewhere along the line.
00:31:34
Speaker
But that that moment I thought, this might actually happen, which when I was in in court in North Wales a few weeks before, I definitely didn't think that was going to be the case.
00:31:46
Speaker
So let's talk about the election outcome then. Despite the setting, you achieved a 17.6% swing. This was the first Conservative by-election gain since 1982.
00:31:59
Speaker
eighty two What do you think was the key factor that persuaded the voters to shift so dramatically? We have to remember this was right at the back end of the third term of a Labour government. So we said they never had three terms in a row before.
00:32:16
Speaker
ah And eventually you get any government and we've seen it more recently with the Conservative government ah runs out of road.
00:32:27
Speaker
And if you in for such a long time, eventually people will find a reason why they don't want you anymore. You would have done something they don't like. They would have been affected negatively by a decision that you've made.
00:32:39
Speaker
So I think a lot of politics is just about timing and things falling into place. ah some Some under your control, some some not so much.
00:32:49
Speaker
And at that juncture, we'd had 10 years of Tony Blair, Gordon Brown had come in and we were having lots of issues with the economy.
00:33:03
Speaker
decisions that he's having to make that didn't play well with with Labour voters particularly. um And you could tell that they were they were they were running out of energy and the discipline was starting to break down.
00:33:16
Speaker
And on the other side, you had a Conservative Party, which had reached rock bottom in 1997, hadn't really improved much um until about 2005, where they made a bit of headway at that election.
00:33:29
Speaker
But the game changer really was with David Cameron coming in to create a very different um image of who the Conservative Party were, trying make them a younger party, remember sort of um vote blue, go green, trying to sort of reach out to a wider audience and and also become like a serious party as a government in waiting. in waiting And eventually the the the pendulum starts to swing and, but you have to grab it before it swings back again.
00:34:01
Speaker
And I think that moment off the back of, as I said before, very good local election results, the Conservatives just a few weeks before and Boris Johnson winning in London, there was a ah real momentum behind the Conservatives.
00:34:13
Speaker
People still in those days used to read newspapers that they bought from a shop. That was their, their main way of, uh, of garnering news as well as on the radio, not really as they do these days, um, on social media.
00:34:26
Speaker
Uh, and a lot of the newspapers, uh, who would be, uh, you know, like like the times, good example, the sun, obviously very influential back then had, uh,
00:34:39
Speaker
who had been vote ah telling people to vote Labour, they'd shifted their opinion as well. So that sort of media backdrop was also reason why sense change, smell in the air, was more of change smell in the air ah was more available to people to latch onto.
00:35:05
Speaker
and And I just happened to be lucky um that that by-election, in the circumstances that I wouldn't have wanted, um but it it happened at the time that it did.
00:35:17
Speaker
um If it had happened a year earlier, I probably wouldn't have won. um If I hadn't been had a by-election at all, and I'd stood in Crewe and Antwitch in 2010 in the general election, I probably wouldn't have won either. So it's just one of those sort of things aligning politically, socially,
00:35:33
Speaker
ah emotionally really, because a lot of it is guttural, people's instincts that actually, you know what, I think we're ready for something different now. And we see it the whole time. I just think it happens um more readily now and it politics is much more volatile than it it was back then.
00:35:51
Speaker
um So could you talk us through how election night was for you? You know, the the start, the beginning and the end. um if If you can remember it all, there must have been such a mix of emotions.
00:36:05
Speaker
Yes. I mean, it it was a ah microcosm of what I mentioned earlier of basically just doing what I was told ah throughout the campaign. And by that stage, there's not really huge amount that I personally can do. There was...
00:36:20
Speaker
on polling day itself, a huge polling operation by the party and all the volunteers to try and ah you know get get the vote out, get out the vote as they call it, knocking people up, pledges that we had.
00:36:35
Speaker
um But i was I was sort of kept and and in cotton wool really to try and prepare myself for the evening. and And what they they do for the count, because the count will start at 10 o'clock,
00:36:49
Speaker
or certainly soon after that when the polls close. And rather than as the candidate, you being of dragged along to so stand there and spend ages walking around the tables, looking at votes being counted, waiting for your fate, what they said, and this is what I did also in general elections, and what they told me was stay at home, spend some time with your family. And I remember I went round to my mum and dad's house ah and i think I think we played darts or something, can't remember, something like that.
00:37:19
Speaker
watched a bit of tv had a nice meal. um And then what I agreed with Angela Browning was she would call me when they had a real sense and the in the Civic Hall in Nantowich where the camp was, that that we were either likely to win or not likely to win.
00:37:41
Speaker
And I remember getting that call probably about, I'm going to say past midnight. ah You can imagine I was sort of pacing up and down at home and not really being great company.
00:37:55
Speaker
um And then she phoned me up and said, it's looking good. It's looking good. looking good um But rather than then take you to the camp then, because of the nature of the campaign and the fact that it had been nasty in some elements,
00:38:13
Speaker
um rather than me just being there for a few hours waiting for the result they said once we know what the result is we'll call you and we'll we'll get you driven over and so i didn't actually arrive at the um the civic hall for the result until about 10 minutes before it was announced um there was a huge media presence because it was it become a national event um my my poor wife who got dragged along and suddenly found herself
00:38:44
Speaker
um you know having to uh deal with all the uh the paparazzi um uh fortunately she's probably better at it than i was if i'm honest but um uh but you could but it it was an incredible atmosphere knowing all these people who were there like eric pickles as you said who was uh uh running the campaign but all my local supporters uh my i think my both my parents came along i think but certainly my sister came along uh so it was a very special moment um but i also know had to do to deliver whatever the outcome was in a dignified way whether you win or you lose you just have to accept that that's the result and i have been on the receiving end of both over my political career um
00:39:32
Speaker
and and also knowing what you're going to say um in both circumstances. um The difference in a by-election is any speech that you give after result tends to be more ah driven by the national message as opposed to your own local message.
00:39:51
Speaker
So I was given very, very strict instructions of sort of what I would say, um ah which was, you know, Labour have let you down. um There was lots of sort of ah ways of expressing what David Cameron, if he had been there, would have said himself. I just had to be the spokesperson on that evening.
00:40:14
Speaker
But yes, but actually, yeah so I wasn't actually there very long. And once the result had been announced, I'd done my speech and done some media and we'd done a walk over to the association office, had a glass of champagne.
00:40:27
Speaker
ah All I could think about was going going to bed.
00:40:33
Speaker
Yeah, i'd I'd like to actually delve into that a little bit further as well. You know, it must have been surreal. What was it like being thrust into the media spotlight straight after processing what was probably one of the most important or biggest moments of your life? You know, obviously, after, you know, getting married and the birth of your children, it it must be up there. And yet you, you don't even have time to to sit down and and think and reflect about it. And how it's going to change your life, what you need to plan.
00:41:01
Speaker
ah How difficult was that when you you probably just wanted a rest after all that? yeah Yeah, I suppose helped that you always knew when the finishing line was, that whatever else happened, the 22nd of May, I think it was, 2008, that was it.
00:41:18
Speaker
ah I can't do any more. um Game over. So that that helped sort of rationalise it in my own head about how I was going to handle it.
Reflecting on Victory and Legacy
00:41:31
Speaker
Although nothing really prepares you for the sort of onslaught that you then have to sort of absorb. But yeah it's probably the um most intense training program I've ever been on in my life, ah in terms of media training in particular.
00:41:48
Speaker
I remember one day around lunchtime, ah again, David Cameron was up and Andy Coulson, who was the director of communications at the time for the Conservative Party, ah we were in between two events and we were allowed to go and sit in this rather soulless, airless room in the in the county offices to just grab a sandwich.
00:42:11
Speaker
And I thought, oh, great, fantastic. I just had 20 minutes piece just to sort of gather my thoughts and just really take this in. But for the next 20 minutes, as i was trying to stuff a ah tuna and sweet corn sandwich down, I had sitting opposite me at this in this small room across the table, David Cameron and Andy Coulson firing questions at me saying, if they say this, what are you going to say?
00:42:33
Speaker
ah Oh, maybe I'll say that. No, don't say that. Say this. So I almost, I sort of had, people would have paid a lot of money to have that sort of media training. I probably didn't appreciate it at the time.
00:42:44
Speaker
um But what it did do in hindsight is sort of fast track me through how to be a politician, um but without losing to my humanity along the way.
00:42:58
Speaker
ah And maybe not the way I would have liked it to happen. um But yes, in terms of the access to people who really knew what they were doing, it was, it was like gold dust.
00:43:09
Speaker
Yes. And that kind of moment where you're stage, the returning officer announced you as the winner. Did you realise at that moment the historical significance as well?
00:43:23
Speaker
I mean, i was I was aware of it, but I don't think it had really sunk in, if I'm honest. um I was so caught up in the moment of just making sure, again, I've got my words out on stage, you've got all the cameras and um all the all the media pointing at themselves in in your direction, wanting a story,
00:43:45
Speaker
and I guess you you you you do what you have to do in that moment, and but it's only afterwards you really have a chance to ah absorb everything that's happened and the role that you've you've played in it.
00:44:03
Speaker
um Even now, and it's now, what is it, 17 years on, I still get people coming up to me saying, oh um I came and helped in your by-election It was amazing, the best by-election we've ever been on.
00:44:19
Speaker
um People loved that they were part of it, partly because it was such a sort positive result and historic in that sense. So people like to feel that they contributed to um a moment of importance in politics.
00:44:36
Speaker
ah but But also I felt that the way we conducted our campaign, it it it was it was very professional. It hadn't really been done that way before. it It was sort of a new new way of campaigning, ah but it it worked.
00:44:55
Speaker
And it sort of set the trend for probably the next 10 years or so of of how people conducted a by-election campaign. So one of the, ah sorry, to conclude, an interesting fact was Gwyneth Dunwoody has a street named after in Crewe.
00:45:11
Speaker
And because of the constituency being a railway town, she had a train named after her as well. Would you like a ah train not named after you in the future? Or, you know, what kind of object would you like named after you?
00:45:26
Speaker
Probably a shoe. A shoe. Oh, yes. shoe. Yeah, yeah. There's there's a few few funny plaques with my name on around the constituency. The one that always amuses me most is a a cruise station.
00:45:39
Speaker
i had the honour of opening the first class lounge at Crewe Station. There's a plaque with my name on it ah to commemorate that fact. But of course, the irony of it is, is that as soon as I got into Parliament, just before this first class lounge was opened, we had the expenses scandal, which meant that after that, MPs couldn't claim first class travel.
00:46:02
Speaker
So I've never actually been in the first class lounge. a crew in Nantwich sorry crew station since I unveiled the plaque there in whenever it was 2010 or somewhere somewhere around about then so I that always gives me a little little inward giggle when I er take the train down to London.
00:46:21
Speaker
Yes the the first class lounge opened by you but never actually used by you that's that's quite a funny fact to end on but Thank you so much for your time today, Edward. And thank you to the listeners as well to the Observation podcast.
00:46:35
Speaker
Join us next time as we explore more unusual and impactful by-elections that have helped shape the political history of Britain. But again, thank you so much for your time today, Edward. That's been great to talk to you, Jason. Thanks very much.
00:46:57
Speaker
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00:47:11
Speaker
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