Bernard Deacon's Blog, page 64

Do as I say, not as I do

With the Climate Conference in Paris upon us we’re being urged by the assorted great and good attending to change our ways. All well and good – we do need to consume less to help achieve a carbon-free economy asap. But we might also ask what example those assorted great and good are setting.

Take our Duke, lawd bless him. He’s keen on saving the forests and walking lightly on the earth. So what’s been happening to his own greenhouse gas emissions?

In 2014-15 the http://www.princeofwales.gov.uk/media/annual-review/annual-review-2015greenhouse gases emitted by the Duke of Cornwall’s household rose by 10%, to 1,619 tons. This was on top of a smaller rise of 2% in 2013-14. This figure doesn’t even include all those official overseas trips, which in 2014-15 added another 1,818 tons.

And it doesn’t include the global warming effect of the Duchy’s agenda at Newquay

The growth in hot air greenhouse gases from the Duke’s household comes at a time when domestic carbon emissions in the UK are falling. (Although that doesn’t allow for all the consumer junk we import from China, thus allowing us to blame the Chinese for selling it to us.)

The average UK household emits around nine (9) tons of greenhouse gases.

Bringing Barnet to Cornwall: Council Council chooses another Chief Exec

Welcome, Kate Kennally, Cornwall Council’s latest Chief Executive. You join a distinguished list of occupants of the hot seat at the council that harbours odd delusions it’s some sort of (powerless) regional assembly. So what skills and experience do you bring us; what wise words from the east should we expect? Inevitably, as with past Chief Execs, Kate has no discernible connection with Cornwall. In the press release extolling the joyous news of the third coming, she assures us she wants ‘to make a difference to a distinct and beautiful place that I love‘. That’s enough on its own to set all the alarm bells ringing and have us heading for the hills.

Has Kate Kennally experienced a road to Damascus moment? Do Cornwall’s councillors know? Do they care?

Is someone ‘in luuurve’ with Cornwall really the right person to reverse Cornwall Council’s drive to create a two tier, parallel Cornwall? The plan is that inland we’ll have a (sort of) Cornish Cornwall where longstanding natives rub shoulders with not so well off new arrivals in an increasingly congested urban spine. That’ll leave coastal Cornwall safe for holidaymakers, second home owners and the gentrifying class. In which Cornwall will Ms Kennally live? Indeed, will she live in Cornwall at all? Or like her predecessors, will she be handed large sums on top of her £150,000+ salary to commute across the Tamar?

It’s most unfortunate timing that the phenomenon of an over-mighty, over-paid, placeless local government mandarin class, running on their career escalators from one job to the next, coincides with the imposition of neoliberal ideology. This is designed to protect and enhance the global 1% and the corporations, and is subscribed to by a Government determined to ensure local government in the UK pays the major costs of its crusade to shrink the state. Which gives the mandarins all sorts of new ways of sowing havoc in their wake.

Ms Kennally’s career record looks similar to her revolving door forerunners, having worked in Hampshire, Buckinghamshire, Windsor and then from 2006 Barnet, where she’s currently Strategic Director for Commissioning and Deputy Chief Executive. A career spent within the Home Counties presumably provides the perfect job experience for Cornwall, rapidly being transformed into another Home County.

Ms Kennally claims that ‘‘. Which is nice. Hold on though. Isn’t it also a bit puzzling? Because hasn’t Ms Kennally for the last decade been working right at the heart of the Council – Barnet – that’s enthusiastically embraced the Tories’ agenda and is privatising everything in sight? So is she now therefore rejecting the policies she’s been implementing for the past few years? Has she had a revelation while stuck in a traffic jam on the road to Truro? Councillors need to ask.

You might have thought that Cornwall Council would have learnt the lessons of the BT privatisation fiasco, or had a little shame after channelling public money to SITA rather than devise a properly sustainable waste policy. But no. It looks like, having cocked up their privatisation projects, they’re determined to do it better next time. So why not turn to someone from Barnet, someone with vast experience of ‘commissioning’, to put us properly on the path to privatisation?

The problem is that Barnet’s record makes even Cornwall Council seem vaguely competent. For the council Ms Kennally works for pioneered a policy of ‘easyCouncil’ back in 2009. This included the idea of having two levels of public services. Wealthier residents were able to get a ‘fast track’ service by paying more. After throwing £millions at consultants to evaluate the scheme, that particular gem was scrapped and the Council went instead for a ‘One Barnet’ (sound familiar?) scheme. This involved outsourcing (privatising) as much as possible.

The result is that at present 92% of Barnet Council staff are facing the doubtful joys of being ‘outsourced’. This and other cuts have resulted in a series of strikes this year. Undeterred, Barnet Council is pressing on with plans to cull 46% of librarians for example and in the past hasn’t hesitated to cut the pay of the lowest paid care workers by almost 10%. All while handing over wads of public money to the private sector. Which has led to regular appearances in Private Eye‘s Rotten Borough column. (Funny how we didn’t read any of that in the West Briton‘s report of Ms Kennally’s appointment. But then, investigative journalism has long been a dead art in Cornwall.)

So is Ms Kennally fleeing a privatisation hell or is she a missionary for it? In 2014 she was busy regaling the local government sector with a ‘graph of doom‘, pointing out the consequences of savage government cuts and the need to be imaginative in outsourcing. Now, don’t I seem to remember a certain Kevin Lavery (RIP) who used to flash a similar ‘graph of doom‘ in 2012 to impress and befuddle witless councillors?

Looks like another fine mess you’ve got us into, John.

Disaster or opportunity? The prospects for Corbynism

The plan was straightforward enough. In order to portray the impression that the Party was not utterly bereft of radical ideas and wedded to austerity politics, they’d kindly permit the ageing leftist Jeremy Corbyn to stand in their leadership election. The cunning wheeze would show that Labour still had a left-wing, albeit one muzzled to the point of invisibility. This could be allowed to put its views over, only to be promptly trashed by the sensible majority, steered helpfully by the media. That should have been all that was needed to keep the deluded and gullible socialist minority in the party happy, surely.

Except that it backfired. In fact, the ‘sensible’ parliamentary ‘realists’ of the Labour Party have surpassed themselves in cocking things up so royally. Instead of getting back to unalloyed Blairism after the vacillations of Miliband, they’re now lumbered with something even worse – someone who appears to think principles are important.

With the help of a one-person, one vote system and the ease of joining up and getting a vote, the Blairites have been swept away by a tsunami of those who think having principles might actually be preferable to power without principles and the mindless embrace of neo-liberalism that today passes for social democracy. With a more selective electorate than that at the Scottish referendum last year, amazingly the politics of hope won out over the politics of fear, despite a predictable torrent of increasingly desperate and bizarre media portrayals of Corbyn as the spawn of Satan. Even Ukip voters were found to be keen on Jeremy – anyone but the same tired, old parliamentary consensus crew it seems.

So should Corbyn’s leadership of Labour be regarded as a good thing or a bad thing? As an unreconstructed lifelong libertarian socialist who last voted Labour (and first to come to that) in February 1974, I had little interest in Labour’s leadership popularity contest. And I certainly never contemplated forking out my three quid to help breathe life (if that’s what it is) into its decaying corpse. But from this cynical standpoint I’d say Corbyn’s election was potentially both good and bad.

It could all easily in tears and on balance probably will. It could be just another half-assed lurch to the ‘left’ by Labour. This will engender the usual naive and myopic enthusiasm from broader progressive elements outside the party. As in the early 1980s, people will rejoin (or join) in their thousands. But the danger is that Labour will remain the same old, centralist, arrogant, English nationalist, state-centric dinosaur, its essential parliamentary politics unchanged.

Incidentally, a more leftist Labour Party better fulfils a useful function for capital and the Establishment. It provides an outlet for disaffection but an essentially tamed and toothless one. Unremittingly savaged by the corporate press from Day One, Corbyn’s Labour will be ruthlessly caricatured as ‘hard’ left, as it is is already, irrespective of any detailed policies it comes up with. The last thing we should expect is careful dissection and discussion of policies in the media. Furthermore, Corbyn and his supporters will be surrounded by the unreconstructed mass of the parliamentary party and besieged by grumbling and plots from an internal second front from the word go. The only way out of this conundrum is to open Labour up and stop confining its role to that of Her Majesty’s ‘loyal opposition.’

If it grasps the opportunity Corbynite Labour could kickstart a genuinely new politics. To do so Labour has to prove that it’s changed its spots. For the next election this means making proportional representation a central plank and the first reform it will undertake. Not AV, but genuine PR, preferably the single transferable vote as for the Irish Dail, the Stormont Assembly or Scottish local councils, a system that reduces the power of the party apparatus. This should be coupled with a more open practice. Local alliances with the Greens, SNP, Plaid and yes, even MK, would give other progressive parties a free run in some places. The Socialist Party in France has done this for decades; it can’t be beyond the wit of Labour to see its advantages. With a PR policy and a properly inclusive and open practice in place, Labour would gain the moral right to call on those of us who don’t vote Labour to lend them our votes this once.

Of course, once PR were in place we would go back to voting Green/nationalist or whatever and the Labour Party itself would no doubt split into its separate social democratic and ‘socialist’ components. But this would only be a more accurate reflection of the pluralism of British politics. On the other hand, if Labour doesn’t grasp this opportunity then its usual tactical ineptitude is likely to guarantee an electoral massacre of the innocents in 2020. This will encompass a (temporary) obliteration of alternative leftist parties (with the possible exception of the SNP), the disillusion of another generation of dreamers and the continuation of a hard-faced Tory hegemony for the next decade or two at least. A high price to pay just to keep the Labour Party intact.

Nightmare turns out to be true. Pundit flees public wrath.

Phew, just woke up from a horrible nightmare. Dreamt that the polling companies had got things totally screwed up. Instead of the hung parliament everyone predicted, with Labour and Tories neck and neck, there was somehow a Tory lead of 6%. In the dream a wasted landscape was disgorging thousands of blue zombie neoliberals, shuffling through endless acres of supermarkets and housing estates, waving English flags and forcing people into food banks with cattle prods.

Aaaaaaaargh!!!

What the hell happened? Confounding every single pollster, the Tories are on course for a majority after all. We can look forward to enjoying another five years of smarmy David Cameron preening himself and crossing the Amazon Tamar for the occasional holiday in Kensington by the Sea. While the sinister George Osborne dons his hard hat and visits all the building sites. And for the first time since the 1930s all Cornish seats have gone Conservative. The future is blue. Look on the work of the great voting public and despair.

For the sake of posterity I suppose I’ll have to record the results. Here they are.

Camborne & Redruth

George Eustice (Conservative)
18,452
40.2%




Michael Foster (Labour)
11,448
25.0%




Bob Smith (Ukip)
6,776
14.8%




Julia Goldsworthy (Lib Dem)
5,687
12.4%




Geoff Garbett (Green)
2,608
5.7%




Loveday Jenkin (MK)
897
2.0%




turnout
68.5%

North Cornwall

Scott Mann (Conservative)
21,689
45.0%




Dan Rogerson (Lib Dem)
15,068
31.2%




Julie Lingard (Ukip)
6,121
12.7%




John Whitby (Labour)
2,621
5.4%




Amanda Pennington (Green)
2,063
4.3%




Jeff Jefferies (MK)
631
1.3%




John Allman (Independent)
52
0.1%




turnout
71.8%

St Austell & Newquay

Steve Double (Conservative)
20,250
40.2%




Stephen Gilbert (Lib Dem)
12,077
24.0%




David Mathews (Ukip)
8,503
16.9%




Deborah Hopkins (Labour)
5,150
10.2%




Steve Slade (Green)
2,318
4.6%




Dick Cole (MK)
2,063
4.1%




turnout
65.7%

St Ives

Derek Thomas (Conservative)
18,491
38.3%




Andrew George (Lib Dem)
16,022
33.2%




Graham Calderwood (Ukip)
5,720
11.8%




Cornelius Olivier (Labour)
4,510
9.3%




Tim Andrewes (Green)
3,051
6.3%




Rob Simmons (MK)
518
1.1%




turnout
73.7%

South East Cornwall

Sheryll Murray (Conservative)
25,516
50.5%




Phil Hutty (Lib Dem)
8,521
16.9%




Bradley Monk (Ukip)
7,698
15.2%




Declan Lloyd (Labour)
4,692
9.3%




Martin Corney (Green)
2,718
5.4%




Andrew Long (MK)
1,003
2.0%




George Trubody (Independent)
350
0.7%




turnout
71.1%

Truro & Falmouth

Sarah Newton (Conservative)
22,681
44.0%




Simon Rix (Lib Dem)
8,681
16.8%




Stuart Roden (Labour)
7,814
15.2%




John Hyslop (Ukip)
5,967
11.6%




Karen Westbrook (Green)
4,483
8.7%




Loic Rich (Independent)
792
1.5%




Stephen Richardson (MK)
563
1.0%




Rik Evans (NHAP)
526
1.0%




Stan Guffogg (POP)
37
0.1%




turnout
70.0%

So how do we explain this victory for zombie politics? Clearly, either a good number of Tory voters were lying through their teeth to the pollsters, or there was a very late (as in picking up the pencil in the polling booth and changing your mind late) swing to Cameron and Co. It’s easy to come up with a list of possible explanations. Pick from the following. Enough people have been insulated from the aftermath of the 2008 crash. Pensions and incomes for the elderly (who vote) have held up. The media has kindly disseminated the Tories’ magical and mendacious narrative of creating economic ‘success’ while Labour left us ‘with no money’. Those who endure the brunt of austerity policies don’t tend to vote. The population is becoming more politically illiterate and can’t tell s**t from sugar.

The Tories’ success is also greatly aided by a rigged voting system that allows expats on the run in Spain to vote for 15 years but makes it more difficult for students, tenants, the mobile and dispossessed to register in the UK. And of course, you can win a majority of seats with the votes of just 24.1% of the registered electors. Or put it another way. The Tories win 36.5% of the vote and get 330 or so seats while Ukip gets 12.5% and just one. There’s something a trifle unfair about this but for the life of me I can’t quite put my finger on it.

So what can we look forward to? Manifestly, for the moment we’re locked in a neoliberal future. That was always going to happen, as a stunning 87.5% voted to continue the politics of austerity. Whatever cuts the Tories eventually make will impact on the poorer and more vulnerable just as they did during the last parliament, while their chums in the City and financial sector can look forward to big handouts and tax cuts to come.

Local government will continue to disintegrate, while public services and chunks of the NHS are sold off to the first spiv or con-artist who happens to show up with a wad of cash. The Equal Constituencies Act will become law, entailing a complete re-shuffling of parliamentary seats every five years and consolidating the Tories’ hold on the levers of government, as they fasten their suckers more firmly on us. The planet will go on frying as little real effort is made to decarbonise energy. Indeed, expect the continuation of massive subsidies for fossil fuel companies as we stick our collective ostrich heads deeper in the sand.

The prospects for Cornwall over the next five years look dismal. Look forward to the ongoing de-Cornishization of our communities as developers celebrate the return of the Tories and get the green light to run rampant over our land. The affordability crisis will worsen as another wave of second home owners greedily cast their eyes west to England’s first colony. Anticipate the crumbling of local services and an increasing gulf between lifestyle Cornwall and lifestruggle Cornwall. Count on the promise of never-ending population growth as the unstated Con/Lab/Lib promise of a million people in Cornwall by the end of the century moves closer to fruition. Contemplate the growing congestion as our towns become monuments to the slash and burn neoliberal consumerist vision. Watch zombie politics tighten its grip on our little, pumped-up, local council elite, myopic, mistaken and misled by assorted bureaucrats and ‘opinion-formers’ in hock to the parasites who’re plundering our land.

So how wrong were my predictions? Clearly, I was a gullible idiot to believe in the polls. I didn’t think they could all be so wrong, but they were. In particular, the hints of a last-minute swing to the Lib Dems in the polls turned out to be in fact a last minute swing to the Tories. Although, as it’s become so difficult to tell them apart, you can surely cut me some rope here, folks.

If we look more closely at my predictions earlier this week and compare them with the actual results we can see that I badly underestimated the Tory vote in Cornwall across the board by 6-10% and overstated the Lib Dems by 4-8%. On the other hand my predictions for Labour, Ukip and the Greens weren’t that far out at all and I was bang on the MK share, with the sole exception of St Austell, where I was just 1% out. Moreover, I got the order of the top four candidates correct in South East, Truro and St Austell and was almost right in Camborne-Redruth. In Truro & Falmouth my predicted scores were right for six of the nine candidates, which can’t be bad. My biggest failure however was in not seeing the Tory clean sweep and predicting the Fib Dems would hold on to two seats.

But let’s not waste any tears on them as they brought their downfall entirely on themselves. They should now do the decent thing in Cornwall, dissolve their party and get out of the road. Moreover, their incompetence over the past few decades must take some share of the blame for allowing the toxic English nationalist Ukip to gain a foothold in Cornwall.

Meanwhile, the Greens’ surge came and went three or four months too soon. As for MK, although their vote held up from last time in the face of a squeeze from five other parties and the usual BBC ban, is it not time to rethink the strategy of contesting parliamentary elections and throwing away £3,000 every five years? Now the focus must be the Cornwall Council elections in 2017. The work of stopping people wasting another vote on the Lib Dems, Labour or Ukip becomes the urgent task. More imagination and involvement in bottom-up local campaigning is likely to be the key.

Although in England the politics of fear, scaremongering and greed have triumphed, there are some silver linings to this train crash. The Scots have shown us that the politics of hope are always possible. Turnout rose by up to 10% in Scotland but was fairly static in England (although rising slightly across Cornwall). Levels of disaffection and disillusion remain at record levels. The trick is to turn those disillusioned non-voters into voters for change. The SNP has done this; it should not be impossible here. Labour and the Liberal Democrats’ pathetic caving in to Tory bullying when they joined in demonising and isolating the SNP has backfired very badly. Even had Labour held on to its Scottish seats it wouldn’t have prevented a Tory majority, so it’s lucky for the Scots that they proved immune to that particular canard.

The danger now is that the Tories will cynically find some way to remove the Scottish MPs from Westminster. That, plus the Equal Constituencies Act and a dysfunctional voting system, will then cement them in place and make it very difficult to see how they will ever be shifted by a politically torpid and dumbed down English electorate. More hopefully, the election has driven another nail into the coffin of tactical voting. All those people in Cornwall who at the last moment voted ‘with their head’ but now see it had zero effect on the outcome should hang those heads in shame. Until we resist the siren call of tactical voting we will never rid ourselves of this antiquated electoral system and join the vast majority of more enlightened democracies elsewhere in Europe.

Finally, there’s the question of legitimacy. As the Tories gloat their way back to their Westminster sinecures and set about allowing their mates to go on plundering the planet, they’ll be doing it with the active support of less than a quarter of the British people. Is this right? Is it fair? Is it proper?

Exclusive: inexplicable late swing to Lib Dems (embarrassed cough – comment added morning after poll)

In 2010 the Great British Electorate confounded the pollsters by not voting Liberal Democrat in the expected numbers. Today, they’re confounding the polls once more by indulging in an irrational and whimsical late swing to the Lib Dems. Although this time it’s more the Little English Electorate, as the Scots have tumbled to it and decided not to encourage them any more.

While Scottish polls remain sternly unmoving, and elsewhere the two bigger parties are still locked together, there’s been a noticeable movement in the last two weeks to the Lib Dems. Having bumped along between 7 and 8% for months, they’ve suddenly put on a couple of percentage points to reach 9-10%. They’ve narrowed the gap to Ukip, although still unlikely to close it, especially as up to a fifth of voters have already posted their ballots and fortunately can’t change their minds.

What are the implications of this late shift?

First, if, as is possible, the turn back to Liberal Hypocrisy Democracy is greater in Lib Dem held seats, then the Lib Dems may well be looking at a seat total nearer 35 than 25, thus enhancing their bargaining power in the now smoke-free rooms following the election. If the pundits are right and the Tories are back as the largest party, then the outcome looks more likely to be another Tory/Lib Dem coalition. Suggesting we might as well not have bothered with the whole circus in the first place.

Second, in Cornwall it looks as if St Ives and North are safe for the Lib Dems while even Yellow Tory Gilbert may even have a sniff of saving his seat at St Austell and beating off Blue Tory Double. Retaining all three Cornish seats would be nothing short of miraculous and cause wild jubilation among the Lib Dem faithful. It also means anyone agonising today over whether to vote with ‘head’ or ‘heart’ need agonise no longer. Vote for what you believe in; it’s vital to maximise the vote for the challenger parties in order to keep their issues on the agenda. In any case, this is a false and simplistic dichotomy, as voting with your heart is in the long run also voting with your head.

In that long run of course, all this is mere window dressing. If/when Clegg and Cameron (or his successor) patch up their differences and cobble together another working relationship, the Lib Dems face another five years of attrition, the loss of hundreds more council seats and languishing in the polls. If they escape by the skin of their teeth this time, then surely they won’t be able to do it three times running. Will they? Please?

Meanwhile, the government will have to deal with the consequences of European austerity politics and Grexit, the next financial crash when it inevitably arrives, and the growing contradictions between the infinite growth they all thoughtlessly sign up to and the finite globe we live on. Sooner or later, people will begin to realise there have to be alternatives to the sham democracy that legitimises an ideology ruthlessly and irresponsibly pillaging our planet. In the meantime by all means vote, but then get down to some serious politics and organise.

St Ives: Coalition victory assured

Two parallel elections take place tomorrow in Cornwall’s most westerly seat. The first is to elect the MP. Will Andrew George be returned for the fifth time? Or will it will be second time lucky for his Tory opponent Derek Thomas? And then there’s the race for third place. The Greens have made this one of their top ten targets and are pushing hard. A few years ago Ukip were doing relatively well in west Cornwall although, as they’ve hunkered down in the far east of England, their support in Cornwall has, relatively, been sliding. And then there’s Labour, which as recently as the 1980s was contesting second place here with the Lib Dems. Those days are gone but a traditional Labour vote still lurks in this constituency, unlike in east Cornwall.

The Greens’ challenge is key to Andrew George’s survival. He must be more than a little peeved as his record is the most progressive of the Cornish Lib Dem MPs, which is not saying a lot admittedly. He opposed the bedroom tax and selling off the forests; he worked with Green MP Caroline Lucas to introduce an NHS Bill and he’s generally on the side of animals, atheists and angels. Andrew might feel he least deserves a serious Green challenge. But if you live by the sword of an antiquated disproportional voting system then you must die by it.

Andrew George – getting worried?

The Greens’ Tim Andrewes is fending off the inevitable Lib Dem squeeze and his success in holding their vote together is key to the outcome. The Greens are calling for people to ‘vote for what you believe in’ and ‘vote positively’. They might also remind people what a certain Nick Clegg said back in 2010 – ‘Vote with your heart; vote for the values and the policies you believe’. The Greens are also appealing to those ‘tired of the same old parties’ who aren’t living up to their responsibility for the planet. With this clearly including the Liberal Democrats, there are signs that Andrew George might be getting worried.

Is the ‘Green surge’ in St Ives a figment of a fevered imagination?

He also has to resist a less organised effort to siphon off voters on his Cornish flank. Again, he’s been the only Cornish MP to stand up consistently against second homes and oppose the ongoing colonisation of our land and at least he abstained on the Tory/Lib Dem plan to introduce a Devonwall constituency. His presence has succeeded in reducing MK support in the constituency to a rump. But the voting system serves to conceal a potentially much larger pool of support for MK and its active local candidate Rob Simmons. It’s probably fair to say that MK wouldn’t exactly be weeping with sorrow if Andrew George lost, as the longer he stays on, the longer they’re marginalised electorally.

Then there’s Labour. Cornelius Olivier, yet another local candidate, began with a burst of energy, trying to capitalise on the second homes issue, although a difficult area on which to confront Andrew George convincingly. This has since seemed to falter and his presence on social media has tailed off. It’s likely that Labour voters may be more prone than others to fall for the tactical voting ploy now being played to the hilt by the Lib Dems.

Derek Thomas – the Sarah Newton of St Ives?

Of course, the Tories could also lose votes to their right – to Graham Calderwood, who’s standing for Ukip. At one stage Derek Thomas, whose public statements are otherwise fairly anodyne and uncontroversial, was posting on social media that a vote for Ukip was a vote for the SNP. He didn’t care to specify the convoluted logic behind that particular nonsense. Thomas’s apolitical politics, taking the Sarah Newton route to Parliament, may not prove that attractive to those toying with voting Ukip however, who may be looking for more red meat.

It will be close, but on the basis of his local record, plus the evidence that sitting Lib Dem MPs are holding on to their vote share much better than others and the possibility of a late swing to the Lib Dems as people fall (yet again – will they ever learn?) for the tactical voting trick, I reckon he’ll sneak it. St Ives will stick with him rather than a relatively unknown Tory who’s reputedly a creationist. Should anyone who thinks the earth is younger than farming be allowed anywhere near the Commons?

Andrew George hasn’t been helped by his leader Nick Clegg and his clear cosying up to the Tories over the last few weeks. When Andrew claimed that ‘I am sure my party would not go for it’ (another coalition with the Tories), he was immediately slapped down by Clegg, whose comments on the SNP and reliance on Tory voters in Sheffield mean he’s more than prepared to go for it again.

So what will Andrew do when the inevitable Tory/Lib Dem coalition emerges from the horse-trading? It could have been so different. If only Andrew had taken one of those many opportunities to resign the Lib Dem whip and build up a base as an outspoken, environmentally aware, Cornish independent MP, he could have made his mark in Cornish history. If he loses this time, he’ll be just a footnote. What a pity.

Postscript As I write this, I’m informed that two Green Party acquaintances in St Ives have decided to vote for Andrew to stop the Tory. How many more times? But I’ll tweak my forecast to give him another percentage point. Perhaps it’ll turn out to be less close than I thought.

1. George (LD)
38%




2. Thomas (Con)
34%




3. Calderwood (Ukip)
10%




4. Andrewes (GP)
8%




5. Olivier (Lab)
8%




6. Simmons (MK)
2%

Camborne & Redruth: Coalition set to retain seat

The old Falmouth-Camborne seat was a three-way marginal from the 1990s to 2005. Yet, like the majority of the other Cornish seats, the new Camborne & Redruth seat is looking a safe bet for the Tories this year with a ragtag of competitors struggling to win second place and with their eye on the election after next.

Julia Goldsworthy was once Lib Dem MP here. Ah, those were the days, the days before the expenses scandal, the financial crash caused by having too many nurses and teachers, or the failed austerity policies of the Tory/Lib Dem Government. She’ll now be lucky to get third place as the latest poll in this constituency puts her behind Ukip. As Lib Dem activity in the constituency has withered away, so have Julia’s poll ratings. Those who voted for her last time to keep the Tory out have now deserted in droves and she’s down to a pathetic 13 or 14% in the polls, an astonishing 24% drop on the Lib Dem score in 2010.

It’s unlikely she’ll actually do that badly, but a toxic hangover of Cleggite Liberal Toryism, the whiff of dodgy expenses claims that clings to her and an inability to shake off the tag of Westminster insider-ism dogs Julia. It looks like the end of the line for her, which induces a momentary and unaccountable spasm of pity as she’s actually one of the better Lib Dem candidates on offer in Cornwall.

Crowds wait at Camborne for Loveday Jenkin to speak

While Julia is doomed, former Lib Dem voters may as well cast around for other homes for their protest votes. Such as the Greens’ Geoff Garbett or MK’s Loveday Jenkin. The Greens were spotted canvassing a deserted Redruth Fore Street on bank holiday morning and will be looking to save their deposit. Loveday, scion of one of Cornish nationalism’s royal families, has fought a robust campaign and will be looking to add to the 775 votes she got in 2010.

Although a rather late choice following an earlier typical Ukip candidate cock-up disaster, Bob Smith of Ukip has been taking his band of angry middle-aged men leafleting and canvassing through the streets of Camborne-Redruth and especially the Ukip heartland of Hayle (what is it about Hayle?) Ukip was at one point tipped to be a serious contender here as it looked like a three-way marginal – Tory/Labour/Ukip – last summer. But the Ukip surge faded and he’ll do well now to retain third place.

Labour voters on way to poll at Redruth

However, for a properly angry middle-aged man, we have to turn to Labour. Labour has taken a novel approach this time, adopting as its candidate a self-made millionaire from London with a holiday home on the Helford who made his fortune advising media celebrities. Michael Foster claims he’s a new sort of politician. It’s difficult to see why. It can’t be, as he asserts, because he’s a businessman. The House of Commons and even the Labour Party is stuffed full of those these days. Indeed, he seems to be ‘new’ in the sense of being very old. Ross Poldark would have been very familiar with Foster’s political style as it reminds us of the eighteenth century when candidates would throw their money around to buy seats in pocket boroughs.

Pouring his own money into the constituency, Foster has been wildly outspending other candidates in the run-up to the election. But this new very old candidate has also injected some much-needed controversy. Sailing close to the wind when soliciting postal voting and making the usual outrageous statistical misrepresentations, Michael Foster was then accused of directing a volley of earthy cursing and threats against MK’s Loveday Jenkin at a hustings. The former Labour parliamentary candidate here, Jude Robinson, has loyally dismissed the allegations as not containing a word of truth and just being ‘silly stuff’.

Michael Foster tries to look sweet

While losing your rag with Loveday is something that’s hardly impossible, as anyone who has sat through a meeting with her might attest, the notion that she went to such inordinate and excessive lengths and concocted such an extensive and elaborate fabrication is just not credible. It might also be easier to believe it was all made up had there not previously been a series of bizarre episodes where Michael Foster’s anger management issues appear to have got the better of him. For example, he threw a mobile phone at Tory MP Sheryll Murray during a BBC TV debate, is reported to have blown up at the Greens’ Geoff Garbett at an earlier hustings, lost it when questioned by a student at a Tremough event, and has been alleged to have tried to take away Truro Ukip candidate John Hyslop’s phone on another occasion, almost provoking a fight.

Just make sure you don’t stand anywhere near him at the count when the results come out. As it doesn’t look as if this unsettling mix of eighteenth century political style and the usual bullying and arrogant bluster that seems to overcome the Labour party when in Cornwall will work. While all this nonsense goes on, PR lobbyist and strawberry farmer George Eustice calmly and quietly slides his way back into Parliament, courtesy of the very poor choice of candidates made by the old London-orientated parties.

Here’s my forecast.

1. Eustice (Con)
34%




2. Foster (Lab)
22%




3. Goldsworthy (Lib Dem)
20%




4. Smith (Ukip)
15%




5. Garbett (GP)
7%




6. Jenkin (MK)
2%

Truro & Falmouth: Coalition the popular choice

It’s fortunate that the Truro and Falmouth constituency has the highest number of voters with degrees and a university campus or two within its boundaries. For here, alone in Cornwall, or any other place in this benighted election for that matter, the issue of neoliberalism has become an explicit subject for the hustings. You won’t actually meet the word neoliberal in any of the Westminster parties’ manifestos though. And the Con/Lab/Lib gang don’t exactly flag up their commitment to neoliberalism on TV. But signed up to it they are.

Neoliberals don’t need to stand for election as such as the whole of the global elite has since the 1980s rushed to embrace this caustic, dangerous and delusional ideology. More than that, they’ve worked their socks off to promote a neoliberal economy and society. This is the ideology that daily informs us that the richer you are the more wealth you create, where the poor are responsible for the crises of financial capitalism and must pay the price, where every man and woman is an island, where the planet itself is ransacked in the interests of a tiny minority of the population. This is the disastrous show that all the Westminster parties (and Ukip) work desperately to keep on the road.

In Truro and Falmouth however, David has confronted Goliath. Four of the candidates have declared themselves openly against neoliberalism. Meanwhile four of the others are in favour of it or don’t understand what it’s about and the ninth is god knows where on this issue as well as most other issues.

All nine Truro and Falmouth candidates at a hustings

The most coherent case against neoliberalism is being put by Stan Guffogg of the Principles of Politics Party. Stan has come up with what must be the best line of any over the Cornish election campaign – ‘Think about stuff! Better than you do at the moment’. Of course, as the most principled candidate, he’s guaranteed to come last. Unfortunately, the other anti-neoliberal candidates will be struggling with the don’t know/don’t care candidate for fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth places. Which might hint that even the voters of Truro and Falmouth need to think a hell of a lot more than they do at present.

Nice. Transforming Truro into a neoliberal, consumerist, over-congested wasteland.

The other three sensible anti-neoliberals include Karen Westbrook, who’s injected some energy and enthusiasm into the Green campaign. She claims the Green surge, which peaked back in January everywhere else, has mysteriously reappeared in Falmouth. Proving that they’re more than two scats behind down there. Her facebook site has attracted some interest, plus predictable comments such as the person who believes ‘all the parties are manipulated from [a] higher controlling force.’ Calm down, dear; it’s called capitalism.

Rik Evans of the National Health Action Party is on record as opposing privatisation for at least ten years, from a time when the Labour Party was quite keen on it, Although they’re not now. Categorically not. In fact they’re going to ‘save’ the NHS. Honest, guv. Rik’s been keen to have a debate on the NHS with the sitting Tory MP Sarah Newton but she’s been a tad reluctant. A bit like David Cameron in his Oxfordshire seat. I wonder why.

Stephen Richardson of MK is the only explicitly socialist candidate standing. He has a tough task however as the previous MK candidate, later Tory, now Independent Loic Rich, mayor of Truro, is also standing. He’ll no doubt siphon away any potential MK votes, despite now thinking that a Cornish Assembly would be ‘a bit of a distraction’. From what is unclear. Loic is playing the Truro boy card and has a respectable poster presence in the town.

Moving to the neoliberal side, there’s John Hyslop of Ukip. He’s a consultant at Treliske who offers a ‘Cornish voice in Ukip’s NHS policy’ but also seems to think making ‘St George’s Day a bank holiday’ is of relevance to us in Cornwall. Though confused, he seems civilised enough. More that is than some of the thoughtful and well reasoned commentators on his facebook page, such as ‘we cannot let this fascist dictator Sturgeon rule our country!!!’ with the mandatory three exclamation marks that denote the barking mad. Funny, I thought it was the EU that ruled ‘our country’.

For Labour, we’ve the curious and frankly incredible spectacle of the distinctly unimaginative, though well-meaning, union man Stuart Roden welcoming the endorsement from hairy-chested celebrity pseudo-anarchist Russell Brand.

If that’s unexpected, then even more unexpected would be victory for the Lib Dem’s Simon Rix. The Lib Dems came second here last time but their campaign doesn’t have the feel of victory about it. Rix, who can’t tell a Cornish Assembly from Cornwall Council, claims to see no green surge in Falmouth. Instead the town is ‘turning gold again’. Perhaps he meant ‘turning cold again’ – bleddy weather. Anyhow, he’s ‘your local champion’ and ‘on your side’ and refers to a website misnamed ‘Vote Smart’. This humorously calls for ‘left of centre’ voters to vote for him in Truro rather than any of the five further left candidates available. As ‘Vote Smart’ also recommends Liberal Democrats for the discerning ‘left of centre’ voter in every single Cornish constituency, including Camborne-Redruth, it’s either an elaborate spoof or should be renamed ‘Vote Liberal Democrat and act like a gullible idiot’.

Which is precisely what the majority who vote in Truro and Falmouth are set to do on Thursday. Not vote Lib Dem though, but vote for that nice Tory Sarah Newton.

Too nice to vote against

Sarah may have floated spectrally over mid-Cornwall since 2010, an insubstantial phantasm wrapped inside an enigma, seemingly obliviously unaware of the tawdry business of Tory politics, with its naked appeal to the selfish and the greedy. In Sarah’s world Tories never lie, education in Cornwall is ‘world-class’, you need a commission stuffed with the great and good to find out why people are having to use food banks, and it never rains in Truro or Falmouth. Nonetheless, despite, or perhaps because of, her Alice in Wonderland approach to politics, she exudes quiet confidence, effortlessly batting away what she terms Lib Dem ‘dirty tricks’. Although by Lib Dem standards they look like normal campaigning to most people. No matter, Truro and Falmouth is set to return the nice Ms Newton again, and remain safe for neoliberalism, developers and consumers young and old.

Hoping to be proved very wrong, here’s my prediction …

1. Newton (neoliberal Con)
37%




2. Rix (neoliberal LD)
21%




3. Roden (neoliberal Lab)
15%




4. Hyslop (neoliberal Ukip)
12%




5. Westbrook (anti-neoliberal GP)
9%




6. Evans (anti-neoliberal NHAP)
2%




7. Rich (Ind)
2%




8. Richardson (anti-neoliberal MK)
1%




9. Guffogg (anti-neoliberal POP)

St Austell round up: coalition candidates in mud-flying spat

Only a few weeks ago, the Tories’ Steve Double seemed to be cruising to a comfortable win in St Austell & Newquay. But now he’s let himself get a bit rattled. Steve has discovered that the Lib Dems are ‘masters of half truths and misrepresentations’. Really? What’s taken him so long to realise this? At the 2010 election the Lib Dems’ Stephen Gilbert fought a cynical campaign, draping himself in the Cornish flag in the clay country and then doing the same with the St George’s flag in Newquay.

This time, with all the pundits predicting he’ll lose, Gilbert is pulling out all the stops by publicising the £300,000 that Wainhomes director, William Ainscough, has given the Tories and accusing the Tories of planning to institute regional pay, in other words a pay cut for Cornish workers.

Rather endearingly, the other Steve has resisted the obvious riposte, which is to ask about the closeness of links between Wainhomes (and other developers come to that) and some Lib Dem councillors, who seem as keen to ramp up the ongoing colonisation of Cornwall as their Tory counterparts, with their fondness for the mass housing targets being proposed for Cornwall. Steve Double has however dug out a letter that proves that Liberal Democrat Danny Alexander was also supporting regional pay.

Joanna Kerry

Of course, little things like facts aren’t going to stop Gilbert, who’ll stoop to any desperate measure to retain his seat. For instance, there’s a very curious message of support on his website from a Joanna Kerry of Newquay, described as a ‘local resident and campaigner’ in Newquay. But Joanna Kerry bears an uncanny resemblance to Joanna Kenny, Lib Dem Newquay councillor and the person in whose name large donations have flowed into local Lib Dem constituency coffers over the past year or two. Must be a strange coincidence.

Joanna Kenny

Also on his website, Lib Dem Cornwall Councillor Malcom Brown claims that Gilbert ‘will put Cornwall first’. As in putting Cornwall first in the last Parliament by voting for a Devonwall constituency that is. Gilbert claims he’s blocked a snooper’s charter and secured an EU referendum in law, but strangely he doesn’t claim credit for being one of the most loyal supporters of the Tory/Lib Dem coalition government, with a voting record difficult to tell apart from his Tory MP neighbours.

All this means the mud being thrown around St Austell & Newquay is an awful lot of sound and fury that signifies precisely nothing. When it comes down to it, the two Steves are as close as you’re likely to find in a pair of coalition candidates. And as disingenuous. As Steve Double says, people should choose a candidate ‘based on fact not misinformation’. So that presumably means he can’t possibly agree with Cameron and Osborne’s completely fabricated and misinformed narrative about the role of Labour’s ‘high spending’ in causing the crash of 2008 then.

Moving on from this pair and trying to ignore the slightly nasty taste left in our mouths, who’s left? We have David Mathews of Ukip. Not exactly fitting the stereotypical mould of Ukip candidate, David’s share of the vote seems to be holding up better than that of his Ukip colleagues north and west. This is presumably because of the baleful presence of Newquay. He was still within touch of Steve Gilbert according to a poll taken in March but the Ukip organisation on the ground, or lack of it, will probably let him down.

Labour and the Green will be battling with MK for fourth place here. MK’s Dick Cole is the best known and most ’embedded’ candidate and is likely to pick up a personal vote in the clay country. Whether this will be enough to give him the extra percentage point he needs to save his deposit we’ll have to wait to see on Friday. However, Dick is hampered in two ways. First, there’s the declining but still persistent appeal to vote tactically for the Lib Dems in order to dish the Tories. This increasingly ridiculous call is being hysterically promoted by Gilbert’s campaign. A Lib Dem volunteer told me that Dick was making a good impression on the hustings but added that this wouldn’t gain him a single vote. The somewhat arrogant and condescending implication being that nobody would be daft enough to waste their vote on MK when they could vote for the fine Mr Gilbert.

For the Greens we have Steve Slade and for Labour Deborah Hopkins. Both have Newquay connections although Green and /or Labour voters in Newquay must be a relatively rare breed. Deborah has a lively social media presence and is not surprisingly against the evils of tactical voting. Let’s hope she tells that to her fellow Labour candidate in Camborne-Redruth.

For what it’s worth, here’s my prediction. Despite his recent wobbles I still expect Steve Double to take this seat, although Gilbert’s aggressive campaigning may make it closer than it once looked.

1. Double (Con)
34%




2. Gilbert (LD)
30%




3. Mathews (Ukip)
18%




4. Hopkins (Lab)
8%




5. Cole (MK)
5%




6. Slade (GP)
5%

South East Cornwall: Coalition certainty

Everyone backs Sheryll

Sadly these days, South East Cornwall is the least Cornish of all Cornish constituencies. It’s also the most Tory, although the Tory is a swashbuckling Cornish fisherwoman, Sheryll Murray. Sheryll has a professional operation and the Tories have attracted (or paid for) a large number of facebook likes. She’s also frighteningly active on social media, although the same posts are repeated again and again, and then tweeted just to make sure you get the message. If you believe the hype everyone and anyone in south east Cornwall is backing Sheryll, not just fishermen and farmers. They just can’t wait to vote for her, eagerly steering their zimmer frames in the direction of the postbox to return that postal vote.

Lagging far behind is the Lib Dems’ Phil Hutty. Phil is the equivalent of snooker’s Steve Davies, nice but interesting. He says he’s been having ‘interesting conversations with all manner of interesting people’ as he knocks on 15,000 doors. Which was nice. Most people either take pity or have been too polite to say bugger off and this has left Phil with the very mistaken impression that ‘it’s very close’. It isn’t, Phil. You’re languishing behind Sheryll by several thousand mindless votes, as she heads for a comfortable win. Phil’s problem is summed up when he tells us Millbrook surgery is under threat of closure and this shows the ‘weakness of the NHS under the Conservatives’. The only tiny problem with that is that I’m sure the Lib Dems were lurking around in the background somewhere too.

This is the constituency with two candidates who are barely out of short trousers. One of them is very active, the other a little more elusive. Bradley Monk for Ukip has found a ‘worrying amount of non-voters’ in Saltash and Pensilva, which is hardly surprising in Pensilva, which for many years was thought to exist in a time-warp left over from the 1930s. While levels of support in Looe and Polperro were ‘encouraging’. Brad’s task is how to wean these right-thinking anti-European coastal dwellers away from Sheryll, who’s pretty indistinguishable from Ukip on most issues. Inland, surely the disillusioned voters met on the moors should all be clamouring to enrol in Farage’s ‘People’s Army’. That they aren’t shows the limits of this brand of populism.

Labour’s Declan Lloyd was spotted at the last hustings yesterday at Callington, although he skipped an earlier one as he was on holiday with his mum. Declan is apparently surprised that no big names from the coalition parties have bothered to visit the seat. Someone really ought to inform him that it’s hardly a secret; it’s because they all regard the outcome here as completely cut and dried. Somewhat boringly, Declan concentrates on facebook on reposting central office Labour stuff.

As does Martin Corney in respect of the Greens. Like North Cornwall, the Greens may well challenge Labour here for fourth place. Meanwhile, Andrew Long for MK tries to surmount the slight obstacle of being studiously and deliberately ignored by the BBC throughout the campaign. Andrew, along with the MK candidates in St Austell and Camborne, preferred to attend two excruciatingly lengthy Cornwall Council meetings last week rather than campaign. He did this to show his commitment to the local people he represents. Very worthy although, as this wouldn’t be reported, local people will be blissfully unaware and only political anoraks like those who waste their time writing (and reading) this drivel will know anything about it.

Here’s my prediction. Confidently expect Sheryll to be breaking open a bottle (or three) on Friday. Mind you, in 2010 I thought this seat would be very close and even tipped the Lib Dem to sneak it. Which probably proves you shouldn’t really believe a word you read here.

1. Murray (Con)
42%




2. Hutty (LD)
23%




3. Monk (Ukip)
17%




4. Lloyd (Lab)
9%




5. Corney (GP)
7%




6. Long (MK)
2%