On the face of it Hugo Swire would normally be assured of a straight win again. However, three things come into play locally. Firstly, the lack of Hugo Swire’s presence in the Constituency over the past 4.5 years and his failure to speak out on behalf of his electors on key local matters e.g. the relocation of the Knowle and the farce that is the EDDC Local Plan. Many local voters will surely see this as an opportunity to punish the East Devon Conservatives for their Councillors’ arrogance.
Secondly, the great way that
Claire
Wright and other independently minded local Councillors have fought
over recent years on behalf of the electors. At every step of the way they have
sought to challenge the, almost rotten borough approach that the ruling
Conservative majority, on EDDC, has used in
pushing through matters that the electors have vocally opposed. Claire has led
the way in showing that the East Devon Conservative
Party machine, with its MP and Councillors, is totally out of touch with
residents. Claire
Wright must be seen as a significant challenger to Hugo Swire.
Thirdly, there is a mood
within some parts of the electorate in some parts of the country to vote
against the two main parties. UKIP is trying
very hard, despite all of its very public shortcomings, to position itself as
the main recipient of Conservative votes.
Indeed, if I was Hugo Swire I would look at
last year’s local European election results and worry about how badly the UKIP bandwagon will impact upon his, until now,
reliable voters.
It currently looks as if we
will see an exciting three way fight for the parliamentary seat, as thus far no
other candidates have been announced.
But 7 May is not the only opportunity that local electors will have to exercise their democratic right to determine who represents them. There are also the important East Devon District Council elections. Voting in this election will not determine who runs the country but equally importantly it will determine who runs our District Council.
The expectation is that many of the incumbent Conservative
EDDC Councillors will find themselves opposed by independent candidates.
This is an opportunity to show that one party politics has ruined local
politics and democracy. As someone else recently said on another blog, it’s
time for a political cull. Independent candidates are being coordinated through
East Devon Alliance http://www.eastdevonalliance.org.uk/.
East Devon is a Constituency where
its recent electoral rolls have shown a loss of 6,000 voters. The question has
to be what led to this? If you have followed this story on East Devon Watch’s website http://eastdevonwatch.org/ you will know
that the question just hangs, as does what has/will our local Electoral Returning
Officer, who’s also EDDC’s Chief Executive,
do about it?
6,000 voters don’t just disappear. 6,000 voters can make all the
difference to election results.
East Devon Watch’s reporting
of this story is at –
http://eastdevonwatch.org/2014/11/17/the-missing-6000-plus-voters-where-does-the-buck-stop-does-it-stop-at-all-is-there-even-a-buck/
If you, or anyone in your family who is eligible to vote, have yet to
register to allow you to vote on 7 May, then use National
Voter registration Day to rectify this. It is very easy to register.
Just click on this link and register – https://www.gov.uk/register-to-vote
Then on Polling Day it is equally easy to cast your votes – 2 strokes
with a pencil to create an X in the right boxes is all that it takes. It’s
painless for you and hopefully somewhat more painful for the East Devon Conservatives! Go on, you know it makes sense!
It’s
time for a change! It’s time for challenge!
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