THE SUCCESS OF SMELLY ELLY

James Innes on the man

who wins by-elections for the Liberals by unorthodox methods

ANDREW Ellis is 34 years old, stands 6' 4" and is Secretary General of the Liberal Party. He runs probably the best election machine in British political history and if only because David Steel is being called on to distance himself from the man and his methods — will soon be famous. You read it here first.

Ellis is an English eccentric. He'd prob- ably be a young fogey if he could be bothered finding out what a young fogey is. The legends about him, from his dirty Pullovers to his dirty tricks, are good value. Every hack in the by-election circus has one. But perhaps a few facts are needed to substantiate our man's claim to fame. There are plenty to choose from. Ellis has been Liberal Party Secretary General (a title based, doubtless, on the Liberal infatuation with all things EEC) for less than a year. But the previous ten years were spent as what he calls 'a freelance Political agent' for the party. His speciality was and is by-elections. His first big hit in 1982 was Croydon North-West. Remember Bill Pitt MP? 'The SDP had just been formed. They'd already come very close in Warrington when Roy Jenkins had a 30 per cent swing in his favour,' explains Ellis. 'They wanted Shir- ley Williams to fight Croydon, but the terms of agreement meant it was our turn and the local Liberals insisted on Bill Pitt. Pitt was not a big name so it was pretty "Portant that we did well after resisting the SDP pressure.' The Liberals, with Ellis at the helm, did very well. They won. In Bermondsey, Ellis ran probably the best by-election campaign ever. A sup- posedly safe Labour seat, a traditional 110t-wing Labour machine based on the Irish docker vote — but from a near five-figure Labour majority Ellis and his team turned in a near five-figure Liberal !Daintily. Labour do not look like winning It back either. In Brecon nobody believed Ellis when he said the Liberals would win. They did. In Ryedale, with a Tory majority of more than 16,000 and a Tory MP for 100 out of the last 101 years, Ellis again said he could win. This time the hacks did believe him and he rewarded their faith by almost 5,000 votes. His latest hit, of course, was Newscastle-under-Lyme. The almost- potteries town has been Labour for 67 years, and since John Golding won it at a by-election in 1969 a regular 18,000 Tory voters have turned up to do their par- liamentary duty.

The 'Golding factor', with new trade union baron John handing over to wife Llinn and producing a potential and unpro- letarian family income of £50,000 a year, was bound to put Labour's monopoly at risk. Still Golding, a serious and skilful betting man with £1,150 on the wife, reckoned there was no way the Tory vote could collapse enough to let Ellis and his Liberals in. He'd played the potters' holi- day fortnight card. 'They'll go away Labour and they'll come back Labour,' he told me. On the day, 3,000 Labour voters abstained while 11,000 Tory voters absconded. The Liberal lost by just 799 votes.

Between Croydon and Newcastle the Liberal record is astonishing. Ellis's arrival on the national scene coincided with Mrs Thatcher's arrival in No. 10. Since then there have been 30 by-elections. The Tory vote has gone down in 29 out of those 30. The Labour vote has gone down in 24. The Liberal or Alliance vote has increased in 29.

Ellis says there is no big secret about his success, although the fact that he is highly numerate does make him out of the ordin- ary in the political world. Ellis senior was in computers and junior was 'friendly' with the machines at a young age. 'Yes, I was a bright boy,' he agrees. He won a scho- larship to what he quaintly calls an 'inde- pendent' school at the age of eight. A maths degree from Trinity and a master's in statistics from Newcastle proved he could still count. It was at Cambridge that Ellis joined the Liberals. 'I had friends who were doing some good campaigning work and they asked me to join. It seemed a good idea.' Even then Ellis probably en- joyed the campaigning more than the policy-making.

After the master's, Ellis kept the money coming in by running a small printing and photocopying business on Newcastle quayside. It gave him a feel for leaflet layout and design. It was during those years that he demonstrated he was no political slouch himself.

While the period 1979-86 has been fertile for the Liberals, the 1974-79 term was poor. They made progress in just two by-elections. One was when David Alton took Liverpool Edgehill, and Liverpool was a solid Liberal base before then. The other, barely noticed at the time, was in Newcastle (upon Tyne) Central. The Labour successor to the recently ennobled Ted Short was not all that surprised when his Liberal opponent came within 1,800 votes of victory, with a 17 per cent swing in his favour. The Liberal was 24-year-old Andrew Ellis.

Andy McSmith, now a Labour party press officer at Walworth Road HQ but then working in Newcastle, remembers: `Ellis had frightened us even before the by-election. He'd already taken West Der- by ward in the council elections. West Derby was supposed to be one of the safest Labour wards in what was a safe Labour city. Ellis didn't go away either. We tried hard to win that ward back, but as soon as I went canvassing I knew it was all over. Ellis worked hard, the punters respected him and there was no way in.'

While the first-rate brain impresses, it's probably the fourth-rate body which does most for the Ellis legend. Although by common consent he has improved since his elevation to Secretary General, the Ellis reputation for personal hygiene is not high. On his first day at the Darlington by- election (he was helping his Alliance col- leagues, although it was Ellis himself who christened the unfortunate SDP loser a `mega-wally), he spilled a chicken madras on his pullover. The hacks ran a sweep on how long it would be before he changed clothes. The stake tickets ran out of time. The body odour has its own notoriety. have seen David Steel wince at five yards, lashed by the Ellis fragrance,' says televi- sion's best known political pundit. Andy McSmith confirms: 'He was famous among Newcastle politicos. Smelly Elly they cal- led him.'

The new, sweet-smelling Ellis maintains a donnish appearance: the necessary slumped shoulders to take a few inches off that embarrassing six foot four, the bottle glasses, the hair swept back from the noble brow, the gaze swivelling intently from the Ashbourne Water (English product, corn- munity politics) to three inches above whomever he addresses. England's version of the right stuff.

Does Ellis win by-elections by dirty pullovers or dirty tricks? Hal Miller, the Tories' own campaigning MP expert, has no doubt. 'Ellis? He's the biggest _ _ _ _ unhung.' Miller clearly believes it is more than dirty pullovers. His opposite number for Labour, Robin Cook, agrees. 'Ellis will use any device he can to win votes. In Newcastle, in West Derbyshire and espe- cially in Brecon we saw his methods.' Cook says he doesn't blame Ellis. 'What I can't stand is David Steel coming on Mr Clean while the Liberal machine is playing dirty.'

The strongest accusations against Ellis (and here the real aficionados also cite his two key colleagues, Peter Chegwyn and Chris Rennard) are as quoted by Cook. In Newcastle they made great play with that £50,000 combined income of the Goldings. Their leaflet on the salaries threw in an MP's secretarial allowance for good mea- sure. Who complains about David Owen's wife picking up £70,000 a year as Jeffrey Archer's literary agent? ask the critics. In West Derby the Liberal loudspeakers announced to the electorate that the Labour candidate, Bill Moore, didn't talk to his neighbours, making Moore so irate that he wrote to the Guardian in protest by Moore's standards a major effort.

In Brecon and Radnor the trick was low life. The gossip had it that one major party candidate's sexual preferences were in doubt while the other major party candi- date had been living out of wedlock for years. The Liberal leaflet asked the elec- torate to vote for the candidate with a `normal' family life. Not a very liberal sentiment.

Others talk about the Liberals' very own Non poll. Non stands for something like National Opinion Research Institute. It might as well stand for Nickers Off Ready. . . . It's the Liberals' own creation, and it gives them hard information when their canvassers pose as pollsters. Ellis is unrepentant. 'We don't do well in by- elections because of dirty tricks, we do well because we organise. I have a team of key people, and we concentrate on canvassing and analysis of canvassing — you must listen to what the people tell you leaflets, targeting our material, and visuals.

`It's not computers either. Forced to choose between the computer and my nose, I'll take the sniff factor every time. The real reason we win is because we are the first people to realise that by-elections are a major industry. Labour is slowly catching on, but the Tories are still follow- ing a ten-year-old model and everything has changed since then.

`What the Tories and Labour are wor- ried about is that after 60 years in the political wilderness we're pulling off the biggest dirty trick of all. We're winning.'