A General Election to Remember

A General Election to remember and, if I’m honest, a result I still have to pinch myself to believe! I was less active in the campaign for Andrew George’s re-election than previous ones but still got out when I could if he was in and around Penzance, the St Just Parish or the Lands End area generally.

When the General Election campaign proper kicked off and Ed Davey fell off that paddle board, I did cringe somewhat but, as time went on I thought, “He is getting media attention whereas before, they have ignored him and he has been portrayed at boring/ lacking charisma. Whilst I think Andrew George won the election here on his record, combined with Conservative popularity shrinking, I think Ed Davey, people being more willing to vote tactically and a National campaign to target our most winnable seats lead to the Liberal Democrats winning the most seats ever – 72!

So, our next elections are local Cornwall Council and Town and Parish ones. At the moment our Cornwall Council is run by the biggest party which is the Conservative group with 45 Councillors, plus 1 conservative who is there but has chosen not to join his party’s group. The next biggest group on the Council are Independent Councillors – there are 15 in their group and a further Independent Councillor who does not belong to the group and an Independent Councillor who has aligned with the Conservative Group. There are 13 Liberal Democrats, 6 that have formed a Mebyon Kernow/ Green group (I think only 1 was elected as a Green Councillor) and 5 Labour Councillors.

Based on numbers, those wanting change might say it is best to vote for Independent candidates and many might say Politics has no place in local Government. The reality, since the formation of the Unitary Authority in 2009, there have been 3 administrations – the first Conservatives with Independents supporting them, the next 2 were Liberal Democrats with Independents (in partnership, with equal numbers in the Cabinet) and the current one with Conservatives having a majority so running the Council alone. As there are a total of 87 Councillors a party or Independent Group would have to win 44 seats to have control alone.

So, Independents are unlikely to win that magic 44 seats to run the Council alone as, to be fair, it is very hard to run an election campaign as an Independent across what are very large Council wards. Labour has never got into double figures across Cornwall although of course, they have never had 4 MP’s in Cornwall so, I’m not going to predict the impact of that on how they might improve getting Labour Councillors elected BUT, if I was the betting kind of person, I’d lay money that they will not win 44 but probably will get into double figures.

The other factor thrown up by our General Election was the rapid rise of Reform UK and that does worry me. In Cornwall they came 3rd in 5 out of 6 of the seats and in that 6th, was only just pushed into 4th place. It does worry me that they will be going after Labour voters as well as targeting Conservative seats BUT I hope people of Cornwall will not vote for them in sufficient numbers to give them any significant number of Councillors. In this St Ives Constituency, I don’t think Reform will win any seats (I’m firmly crossing my figures now), Labour might win 1 or 2.

As Liberal Democrats, in the St Ives constituency and across Cornwall, we are about to launch our appeal for good community minded folk, who want to step up and represent their community to talk to us about being a Liberal Democrat Councillor. For the St Ives Constituency (so the area that Andrew George is now MP for) I seem to have volunteered (I cannot remember when I put my hand up) to coordinate recruiting and organising the approval and selection processes. So, make contact if you want to be consider being a Liberal Democrat Councillor in the St Ives constituency. If you would like to be a Liberal Democrat Councillor but live somewhere else in Cornwall, I could probably link you up with the right person.

To be sure of bringing change to Cornwall Council, we need to ensure more Liberal Democrats are elected in the St Ives constituency as we have shown we can work well with good, Independent Councillors in a fair and collaborative way, even if we do not reach the magic number of 44 to control the Council alone.

Parliament now has more women elected, it would be brilliant to have more women elected on to Cornwall Council. At the moment, of the 87 Councillors, only 21 are women; that’s less than a quarter! A final fact for you to contemplate, in terms of increasing the number of women elected, the Independent group has no women… I’ll leave that there!

N.B this is very much a Political post and does not reflect the view of St Just Town Council , in any way!