Nothing to say - East Devon Conservatives have no message

Anyone who follows events in East Devon cannot have failed to know that in the forthcoming general election there will be, as of the latest count, two challengers to Hugo Swire for the seat.  At the last election incumbent Conservative MP, Hugo Swire, was elected with a majority of just over 9,000.

Zorro wonders whether Hugo is feeling rather secure as we head into the final 80 days before the general election. The reason why Zorro ponders this is because if you look at the East Devon Conservatives’ website http://www.eastdevonconservatives.org/ and compare his lack of a profile in the Constituency, compared to his two challengers, Andrew Chapman (UKIP) and Claire Wright (Independent) http://www.claire-wright.org/ then it screams out complacency!

At every turn Claire Wright has managed to establish and maintain a high local profile. This is probably helped by the fact that she lives all the time in the Constituency and is heavily involved in supporting local communities through her work on both Devon County Council and East Devon District Council. This is even more incredible when one realises that as an Independent local Councillor and potential MP, all of her activities are funded not via big business or masses of Party supporters, but from committed electors who have decided to put their money where their mouth is.

So, Claire Wright has to maintain a high visible presence which she does through her blog site, on Twitter and making the news that the local press and media are more than willing to report.

On the other hand our errant MP would appear to assume that the seat is his to keep at the general election. Equally, it appears that the local East Devon Conservatives have nothing to say to the electors. Why does Zorro come to that opinion?

Look at the local press and media – we seem to be playing the “Where’s Hugo?” game. Apart from a lovely double page spread recently in the Herald recently that reported on his jaunts to far off places, or his comments back at the end of last year about his EDDC Conservative Councillor colleagues decision to relocate the Knowle, Hugo seems invisible to his electors.

Perhaps Hugo relies upon informing people through his http://twitter.com/HugoSwire Twitter account. Perhaps not! This account keeps you up to date, not about anything that is related to the Constituency but again it keeps us informed about his Ministerial duties.

So, Zorro turned to the official East Devon Conservatives website http://www.eastdevonconservatives.org/ and had to assume that anyone with a connection to Hugo or the East Devon Conservatives had gone away on a rather long holiday. This website tells you nothing about what is happening locally. The most up to date information is In the section Headed “News” and in the sub section “National News” you get the latest national anti Labour propaganda. It looks relatively up to date as it cites information dated 13 February 2015.

However, if you look at other parts of East Devon Conservatives website it paints a much sorrier picture. The message in the “Events” section tells us that there are no upcoming events, and the last newsletter was produced a whole year ago in February 2014. So, over the past nothing has happened of note that should be communicated? Mmmn!

It’s an equally dispiriting search for current or recent information in the “News” section of the website. Here the last posting in “Articles” was on 15 March 2012! The last piece of “European News” was a bit more recent having been posted on 29 April 2014, in the lead up to the last European elections!

As for “Westminster News” we have to go back to 5 September 2012 for any information. Err Zorro thought that even if the site was sparser on local matters then as our MP is a Conservative then this might have more up to date snippets, but clearly not. And as for “Local News” nothing has been posted since 5 November 2014. Again, presumable the Conservatives don’t think that there is much really of interest that has happened locally that ought to be posted.

All in all one has to hope that if telling local people what is happening and being seen to act on their issues leads to votes on 7 May, then Hugo and the East Devon Conservatives will have problems.

Finally, Zorro turned to the East Devon Conservatives Twitter account http://twitter.com/eastdevontories and realised this is how Hugo and the local Conservatives get their message across! It all makes sense now!

 

It’s time for change! It’s time for challenge!