Labour in Cornwall: new candidates and old

As Labour’s leadership veers dizzily from neo-liberalism (more austerity) to radicalism (end MP’s second jobs) to tax cuts for the well-off funded by tax rises for the even more well-off, what’s the party up to in Cornwall?

In South East Cornwall, they’ve chosen a new candidate. Declan Lloyd (of Looe?) has been trying to get selected since November, then enquiring whether the Labour Party had a ‘possible opening’ for his candidature. They did and his dream has now come true. He’ll be fighting with the Greens for fourth place as the more right wing parties squabble over the seat.

You wait for ages for young candidates and then you get two. Or at least you do in the South East. At just 18, Declan joins Ukip’s Bradley Monk, also just out of short trousers, as young candidates in that constituency. Unlike Bradley however, Declan is an ardent supporter of animal rights, which should go down well with the foxhunters of rural east Cornwall, and is campaigning under a ‘one-nation’ slogan. Funny, that used to be appropriated by the Tories in the good old days. No longer though.

Not such happy times further west. In Truro and Falmouth it emerged that Hanna Toms’ sudden departure was the result of an oversight over housing benefit. This then triggered the predictable ridiculous bile from commentators such as so-called Conservative blogger and shameless self-publicist Guido Fawkes. [Update: Labour has lost no time in choosing Stuart Roden to replace Hanna Toms. Stuart is a full time tarde union officer, being regional [sic] organiser of UNISON. A member of the Labour Party for more than 40 years, this is a safe, if moderate, pair of hands. The party has gone for old Labour after the experience of new Labour in the shape of Hanna Toms, who only joined after the Great Betrayal of the Lib Dems in 2010]

Even further west, Michael Foster continues desperately to pour money into buying Camborne and Redruth. Unfortunately, his two appearances at Tremough student hustings haven’t gone down so well. At the first he was described as ‘the worst person of the night … arrogant and rude’, while in the second he lost out badly to the Green spokesperson. Still, Michael can console himself that the student vote in Camborne and Redruth is hardly massive. And he still has a lot of money to spend.