Normal service to resume

Normal service will return to this blog once Zorro has managed to find time to give away from elderly parental duties.

EDDC relocation documents start to see light of day - finally

Zorro is trying to catch up with East Devon District Council events. The District Council has tried very hard to keep key documents related to decisions surrounding the proposed sale and relocation of its headquarters site at the Knowle in Sidmouth away from the prying eyes of the public that it is meant to serve.

Literally on the eve of polling for this year’s District Council elections the Information Commissioner published his decision in respect of the request for public disclosure of Knowle related documents by local resident Jeremy Woodward under the Freedom of Information Act. The Information Commissioner determined that the actions of the District Council had effectively delayed the conclusion of the Commissioner’s considerations for 9 months. This allowed the outcome of the Commissioner’s investigations and the publication of documents to be delayed until electors had gone to the polls on 7 May.

More on the outcome of the decision by the Information Commissioner to find in a damning manner against the District Council will be covered by Zorro.

Following the Information Commissioner’s decision the District Council has started the process of releasing documents related to the relocation. On 15 May it published documents covering the period 2009 to 2013. This was reported in the Exmouth Journal and the Sidmouth Herald on the same day –

http://www.exmouthjournal.co.uk/news/eddc_makes_relocation_and_knowle_documents_public_1_4074894

 The first tranche of relocation documents are accessible at –

http://eastdevon.gov.uk/council-and-democracy/council-business/moving-and-improving/project-document-archive/

Unelected EDDC Conservative candidates' comments - local people hit back

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EDDC Conservative candidates brand electors - foolish & wrong for having betrayed them!

Oh dear! The fallout locally from the East Devon District Council elections hits the local press! Some of our, now ex, Conservative Councillors really are sore losers. Perhaps they arrogantly assumed that the electors would just forgive and forget. Clearly in some Wards the electors didn’t do either and the losers have shown their real colours.

Last week’s Sidmouth Herald covered the outcome of the local elections and obviously for that newspaper and its readers the results of the elections were, as its front page headline said “Bombshell? It’s as nuclear blast”. The headline reflected the clearout of Conservative incumbents on the District Council in Sidmouth and the Sid Valley generally that the electors had brought about.

In the Sidmouth Rural Ward incumbent and (previously) influential Conservative candidate Christine Drew was trounced by Independent candidate David Barratt. Apparently Christine Drew was “devastated”. Indeed she saw the result as “The people in the Sidmouth Rural Ward have out of the blue voted for the independents”.

Zorro thinks that it was less "out of the blue" Christine but more the blinking obvious given the shenanigans that there has been about the proposals to build an industrial estate on AONB land at Sidford. Perhaps if you had listened and acted on local electors concerns then 800 plus people wouldn’t have voted against you!

Not only was Christine Drew out of touch with the electors, she also showed her true feelings for them when she told the Sidmouth Herald “I think it is the wrong decision, and they (the electors) will realise that”.

So Christine, 813 electors in the Ward that you were contesting as the incumbent candidate got it wrong! How humble and gracious of you! Christine must be regretting her tactical decision to stand down from Sidmouth Town Council to concentrate on her District Council work after all she was the District Council’s Vice Chair! That was clearly a gamble that failed!

Also in the Sidmouth Herald last week unelected Conservative Councillor Sheila Kerridge, who had contested Sidmouth Town Ward, was even more condescending and derogative towards the electors in Sidmouth. She said “They targeted us over the Knowle relocation – it’s just one tiny thing when you think about what we have done”.

Oh dear Sheila! It was just the Knowle relocation was it? The Knowle relocation is “just one tiny thing” is it? Think again back to what and how you and your Conservative peers acted over the previous 4 years. Think about the impact on Sidmouth from the loss of the Knowle to the town. Even the local stalwarts of local business, Sidmouth Chamber of Commerce, opposed the Knowle sale and relocation. And what about all those “Save our Sidmouth” signs that popped up all over the town? What was all that about? Perhaps that related to “just (another) one tiny thing” or two, or three.....

Sheila was there nothing else that persuaded the electors in the Ward to cast 1495, 1704 and 1832 votes respectively for the three Independent/East Devon Alliance Independent candidates who was elected was 384? As you say “it’s just one tiny thing”! Or perhaps hundreds of tiny things.

Ex-Councillor Sheila Kerridge also told the Sidmouth Herald “I think that the people of Sidmouth are going to feel a bit foolish – I feel they have put the wrong people in. I feel as though we were betrayed”. Hopefully the 1500 plus electors who voted against Sheila and her fellow Conservative candidates will remember this. Perhaps it was the electorate of Sidmouth Town Ward who felt betrayed Sheila, hence the fact that, as you say, they determined to “put the wrong people in”.

And Sheila Kerridge and her Conservative colleagues wonder why so many people went to the polls across East Devon to try to eject them from power!

Even ex-Conservative Councillor Chris Wale who stepped down at this election hadn’t understood that whilst many electors were resentful about the way that the decisions about the future of the Knowle had been conducted, as well as the outcome of the decisions, this had not been the only reason why so many Conservative candidates failed in and around Sidmouth and the Sid Valley.

Chris Wale seemed to blame the Knowle fiasco for the reason that many failed to be elected as he told the Sidmouth Herald “One local issue (Knowle) has robbed the Sid Valley of some good Conservatives who served to the best of their ability”. Chris, it wasn’t just the Knowle that did for the Conservatives! And frankly, perhaps the electors realised that “the best of their ability” just wasn’t good enough!

Zorro leaves the East Devon Conservatives to ponder how they will fare in four years time at the hands of the electors when the Sidmouth Herald supplementary headline for its District Council election report that reads “Robbed, betrayed and devastated – the verdict of ousted Conservatives” dusted off. Humility costs nothing, but can save votes! For some of you that lesson has passed you by!

It’s still time for challenge!

Only 1,820 days until next general election!

Hurrah! Only 1,820 days until the next general election.

The countdown starts now!

Hugo Swire's website puts spin on his election result!

Here we go! Hugo Swire has only just been re-elected to parliament and he is already spinning about his result.

His website claims that Hugo Swire was returned at the latest election “after increasing his majority”. This is factually correct. What the website fails to mention is that, as Zorro showed in yesterday’s posting, his actual vote and percentage share of the vote went down in this election.

This is how Hugo Swire’s website spins the election result –

Hugo Swire's website - spinning his election result!

Compare and contrast Hugo Swire’s website information with the facts posted yesterday by Zorro. It will show you a different story to the one portrayed by Hugo Swire.

So, Hugo Swire yes your majority did increase but your popularity decreased! Your popularity bucked your party’s national trend. How embarrassing must that be! Your majority increased not due to you or your party’s efforts or popularity, but rather the broader challenge that there was to you from four other candidates!

So, even before you return to parliament please stop the spin Hugo, it’s not a trait that your electors like! It’s unbecoming for you an MP to try to gloss over a decrease in your popularity in this way.

It’s still time for challenge!

Hugo Swire comes out of 2015 election less popular than going into it!

The dust is settling on the elections held last Thursday and this now allows some introspection of what happened locally.

In the parliamentary election we know that the Conservative candidate for East Devon, Hugo Swire was re-elected. In this election Hugo Swire was challenged by Claire Wright (Independent) and Steve Race (Labour), Stuart Mole (Liberal Democrat) and Andrew Chapman (UKIP).

At the same time we know that nationally the Conservative Party was elected to govern on its own, with its previous coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats taking a real hammering, to the point of verging on being wiped out. We know that the Labour Party was all but wiped out in Scotland where the Scottish Nationalists were all conquering. UKIP, managed to produce a reasonable showing as an overall percentage of votes cast in the election, but failed to make the breakthrough in turns of parliamentary seats that it had both predicted and expected.

Zorro was intrigued to understand what lay behind the East Devon parliamentary voting figures. This was particularly as in his acceptance speech Hugo Swire said “I am deeply honoured to have had an increase in (my) vote; my majority is at its largest since I was first elected back in 2001”.

Zorro has pulled together the election results for East Devon for the past four elections since Hugo Swire was first elected, covering 2001, 2005, 2010 and 2015. This has then been compared election upon election and for the 2015 election the local voting per candidate has been compared with how their parties (where this is applicable) fared this time.

East Devon General Elections 2001/2015 – votes per political party

	2001	2005	2010	2015
Conservative	22,681	23,075	25,662	25,401
Liberal Democrat	14,486	15,139	16,548	3,715
Labour	7,974	7,598	5,721	5,591
UKIP	2,696	3,035	4,346	6,870
Green	n/a	n/a	815	n/a
Independent	n/a	400	n/a	13,140
Total voting	69,542	49,247	53,517	54,717

East Devon General Elections 2001/2015 – percentage of total votes per political party

	2001	2005	2010	2015
Conservative	47.4%	46.9%	48.3%	46.4%
Liberal Democrat	30.3%	30.7%	31.2%	6.8%
Labour	16.7%	15.4%	10.8%	10.2%
UKIP	5.6%	6.2%	8.2%	12.6%
Green	n/a	n/a	1.5%	n/a
Independent	n/a	0.8%	n/a	24.0%

What this information tells us is that Hugo Swire got it wrong in his acceptance speech on the morning of 8 May. In this election he polled less votes than in the last one, therefore he is less popular coming out of the election than going into it. Indeed, Hugo Swire’s percentage of the votes cast is in 2015 at the lowest percentage (46.4%) than in any previous election.

Hugo Swire’s lack of popularity is interesting when one recognises that this election we saw the Conservative Party nationally increase its share of the vote by 0.8%. So Hugo Swire did worse locally than his party did nationally. That tells a story in itself.

Hugo Swire’s loss of popularity has to be compared with the fact that the Independent candidate (Claire Wright) polled remarkably well at 24% of the votes, and that the Labour Party, in a constituency that is well away from its traditional heartlands, also did well to more or less maintain its previous share of the vote. The big losers in East Devon, as with elsewhere, were the Liberal Democrats whose voting share plummeted to just under 7% of the vote; a long way from its heyday when it received just under a third of the votes.

East Devon General Elections 2010/2015 – change in vote share

	2010 East Devon	2010/2015 % Change East Devon	2015 National	2010/2015 % Change National
Conservative	46.4%	-  1.9%	36.9%	+  0.8%
Liberal Democrat	6.8%	- 24.4%	7.9%	- 15.2%
Labour	10.2%	-  0.6%	30.4%	+ 1.5%
UKIP	12.6%	+ 4.4%	12.6%	+ 9.5%
Green	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a
Independent	24.0%	n/a	n/a	n/a
Turnout	73.7%	-	66.1%	-

In comparing the voting in East Devon against the national turnout for the political parties this shows that Hugo Swire dropped his vote by almost 2% at a time when his party nationally increased its share of the vote by just under 1%.This shows that there is some unpopularity with the Conservatives in East Devon at a time when the Conservative Party nationally is riding high.

Equally, the Labour Party in East Devon produced a percentage increase in its vote, therefore outperforming its position nationally. This was probably due to the local dissatisfaction with the Conservative Party, but more importantly, the local and national flight away from the Liberal Democrats.

At the same time UKIP’s vote in East Devon was unable to increase at the same rate as its national party did. This suggests to Zorro that its local candidate’s under performance reflected his lacklustre and poor campaign. East Devon should have been a prime constituency for UKIP to do well in, particularly when the local Conservative Party was performing so badly in the way it was running the District Council.

But, the candidate who really has most to cheer about as a result of this election is the Independent candidate, Claire Wright. Against a national backdrop of an overall improved outcome for the Conservative Party, she came from nowhere and stormed in to take a quarter of the vote. This is particularly impressive when one considers that she had no political party apparatus or funding behind her, and the past four elections have not had a consistent independent challenge. Over the three previous elections a total of 400 votes had been garnered for an Independent candidate.

Zorro remains of the view that a collaborative coalition that works hard over the next five years could mount a credible challenge to the Conservative Party which does not command the support of 50% or more of the voters, let alone electors in East Devon. Indeed, if you tally up the votes for the progressive candidates – Independent, Labour and Liberal Democrats – Hugo Swire barely scrapes through with a majority. There is a real lesson to be learnt here!

It’s still time for challenge!