On election day - vote Independents to make a change in East Devon

Tomorrow, as everyone knows is, election day. In East Devon that means that there are two sets of elections taking place simultaneously. Both of these elections are equally important for different reasons. They are also set to create very significant political earthquakes in East Devon.

Voting for change on 7 May

Parliamentary election

East Devon, or to use its correct parliamentary constituency title “Devon East”, has had as its MP for the past two electoral terms, Hugo Swire, a Conservative.

Hugo Swire hasn’t lavished the Constituency with too much attention. Indeed, a visit from Hugo Swire to the Constituency is a rare occasion even less rare is any intervention or comment by him upon locally important matters. You only have to look at Hugo Swire’s website to see how little he says about anything, let alone matters that local people are concerned about.

Hugo Swire doesn’t even bother to live in the Constituency that he represents, instead, in addition to his London home, he resides within the Central Devon Constituency with abuts East Devon. Surely, any MP worth their salt would want to have some residential base in their Constituency, if for no other reason than to have a feel for what is happening around them. It’s difficult to do that from outside the Constituency’s boundary. It also reinforces the view that electors could get that Hugo Swire is only playing lip service to his total commitment to the Constituency.

Independent Claire Wright. Doing the Wright thing

In contrast Claire Wright http://www.claire-wright.org/ is very much a local person having lived in the Constituency all her life. Claire Wright is rooted in the issues that affect local people through her role as a County Councillor and until the local election was called, as a District Councillor.

Claire Wright has been campaigning to become the Constituency’s MP since she announced her decision to fight for the seat last summer. Since then Claire Wright has listened to the electorate and produced a manifesto that reflects local concerns. She has gone right across the Constituency (several times) meeting local people on the doorstep and on the street. She has held public meetings and attended all of the public hustings. Claire Wright has showed her passion for the constituency.

Claire Wright is fighting this election as an Independent. All of the top bookmakers have Claire’s odds on being elected as around 9/2. Those odds have dropped from 66/1 when she initially announced her candidature. At the same time as her odds have shortened, Hugo Swire’s have lengthened. Claire Wright’s odds are the best of any Independent parliamentary candidate in Britain.

The press have also recognised that Claire Wright can unseat Hugo Swire. Yesterday the Daily Telegraph ran a piece that excitedly considered the possibility of Claire Wright overturning a “safe Conservative seat”, something that Hugo Swire likes to tell us repeatedly. Recently the Western Morning News highlighted Claire Wright’s credentials, particularly reminding us that when Claire won her Devon County Council seat she beat the then Conservative leader of the County Council. So, Claire Wright has form in beating well placed incumbents.

Daily Telegraph – http://t.co/sOLtjGCmml

Western Morning News – http://t.co/1zk9hTzRji

Independent Claire Wright. A real change for East Devon

There are three other candidates standing in the election. UKIP has Andrew Gardner. One might ask who is he and where has he been all through the election campaign period? He really has been the invisible man.

The Labour Party is standing Steve Race who seems far keener to campaign in support of other Labour candidates elsewhere than to spend regular time campaigning in East Devon. Similarly, the Liberal Democrat Party candidate Stuart Mole has managed to maintain an incredibly low profile throughout the campaign.

It is absolutely clear that the only candidate who can change the political colour of East Devon in this parliamentary election is Independent Claire Wright.

Zorro says very clearly – Claire Wright is the only choice! Claire Wright is the Wright choice!

District Council election

The East Devon District Council has been a bastion of Conservative representatives, and should be one of those very safe Conservative Councils. It would not doubt have been so if the current Conservative majority group hadn’t decided to run the District Council as its very own rotten borough.

The Conservative majority group has had such a large majority that it appeared to forget, or perhaps not care, that it was accountable to the electorate. Over the past four years the Conservative majority group on the District Council has, at every turn, stuck two fingers up to the electorate. This has alienated them from those who elected them and created an environment where at this election what was once an unassailable Conservative majority is now facing a very significant opposition from Green Party, Labour Party, Liberal Democrats, the odd (literally) UKIP, as well as a tranche of Independent and Independent East Devon Alliance candidates http://www.eastdevonalliance.org.uk/.

Independent East Devon Alliance - bringing change

In this election the Independent and Independent East Devon Alliance candidates are taking the fight to the Conservatives in virtually every Ward in the Constituency. Local electors have an opportunity to ride East Devon of the politically arrogant incumbent Conservative Councillors and to restore some civic pride to East Devon.

Zorro supports the Independents and the Independent East Devon Alliance candidates.

Let’s make tomorrow an election day – parliamentary and District Council – that will be remembered for a long, long time.

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