Some reflection post elections now required

Zorro can't hide his disappointment at the outcome of both elections in East Devon.

Need now to reflect on what the results tell us and come to some conclusions. Will do so early in the week coming.

Claire Wright - a brilliant campaign!

Congratulations to Claire Wright http://www.claire-wright.org/ on putting up a brilliant fight against Hugo Swire. No one can fault the wonderful campaign that you ran and the boundless energy that you undertook it with.

It is hugely disappointing that you didn’t manage to unseat Hugo Swire and your task was always an incredibly huge one. You have every right to be proud of your achievement.

Hopefully your determined campaign has given added confidence to the Independents and Independent East Devon Alliance candidates who stood in the District Council election. We await the Council’s full election results with anticipation.

Thank you to you and all who helped you in your campaign.

Election Day - make it Independents' Day in East Devon

It’s election day!

Let’s get out and elect Independents to bring change to East Devon!

Parliamentary election

Vote – Independent Claire Wright

District Council election

Vote – Independent and Independent East Devon Alliance

This is all it takes on both sets of ballot papers –

     X

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

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!

Plea to East Devon Labour & Liberal Democrats - do the Wright thing on 7 May

In the East Devon parliamentary election on 7 may there is only one candidate who has can unseat Hugo Swire, and that is the Independent candidate Claire Wright http://www.claire-wright.org/.

Independent candidate Claire Wright. The only real challenger to Hugo Swire

 All that the Labour Party and Liberal Democrat candidates can do is to take votes from Claire Wright. If both these Parties let that happen then they increase Hugo Swire’s chances of being returned to Parliament as a Conservative MP. Not only will that be a terrible thing for the electors in East Devon, but it will also help put David Cameron and George Osborne back in charge for a further 5 years. You both know that will be a dreadful thing not just for East Devon’s electors, but also for the country as a whole.

Let Hugo Swire win & this will be a consequence for 5 more years

Both Steve Race (Labour Party candidate) and Stuart Mole (Liberal Democrat candidate) have, even at this last moment in the election, an opportunity to see the bigger picture. Both have an opportunity to support the anti-Conservative tide that there is in East Devon at this moment.

Both Claire Wright, through her high profile campaign as an Independent candidate, and the candidates who are standing in the District Council elections as Independents and Independent East Devon Alliance http://www.eastdevonalliance.org.uk/ candidates, have between them all a very real opportunity to change the political course of East Devon, both in the Knowle and in Westminster.

Zorro has made a plea to both the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats previously, and makes no apology for making it again. Neither of you have any hope of winning the East Devon parliamentary seat on 7 May. You both know that. Now is the time to urge your supporters to back Claire Wright.

Independent Claire Wright

Labour Party and Liberal Democrat voters in East Devon should now be deciding to vote tactically on 7 May. A tactical vote will be a winning vote for Claire Wright.

Even senior Liberal Democrat politician Mike Simpson, who was born in the Constituency has called in his blog for Liberal Democrat's to support Claire Wright on 7 May - https://t.co/1U5iXBB4Q0.

So, come on Steve Race and Stuart Mole, do what is the Wright thing for East Devon, and make it harder for David Cameron to form a government.

 Vote Claire Wright!

Make sure that Claire Wright's votes are maximised on 7 May

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

East Devon a "safe Conservative seat"? Daily Telegraph disagrees!

For what Conservative candidate Hugo Swire calls a "safe seat" for the Party, East Devon's Independent candidate Claire Wright has attracted her fair share of reasons as to why she should feel positive about taking the seat from him on polling day.

The Labour candidate Steve Race seems, from his Twitter account, to spend all his time campaigning for other Labour candidates in other seats. As Zorro commented about him early in the campaign, he's not a serious contender. but then neither is the Liberal Democrat candidate who is equally as invisible across East Devon. The problem however that having both their names on the ballot paper is that  they can attract anti - Conservative votes. These are ones that could bolster Claire Wright's tally .

But the bigger positive reasons for Claire Wright's expectations to cause a major upset on 7 May come from the press and media coverage. She has been gathering more and more coverage as her campaign has blossomed. Now, the high priest of Conservatism, the Daily Telegraph, has today written about how she could cause a major political upset. The Telegraph's piece is at -
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/general-election-2015/politics-blog/11570165/Meet-the-Ottery-independent-candidate-who-could-take-one-of-the-Tories-safest-seats.html#disqus_thread.

https://www.facebook.com/claire.l.wright.7/posts/10152835260741659.

And don't forget Claire Wright's odds are widely quoted at major bookies. She is now quotes at 9/2 to win.

All great odds and great press coverage for someone who Hugo Swire and East Devon Conservatives have been all too keen to dismiss and attack in equal measure. Be clear; they are worried. They are rattled. Not just by Claire Wright but by the credible and significant challenge to the Conservative majority on the District Council from the East Devon Alliance of Independent candidates.

Come 7 May East Devon is highly likely to hit the political headlines for good reason. The Conservative "safe seat" is about to disappear into the annals of history!

It's time for challenge! It's time for change!

Axminster Tory District Council candidates in desperate attempt to defeat East Devon Alliance

We know that when things start to get difficult for the Conservatives on East Devon District Council they have no worries about turning on their opponents, whoever they are.

In recent years we have seen the Conservative majority group on the district Council have attacked opposition Councillors when they have challenged the Conservatives actions. Zorro would be the last to object to robust political challenge, but the Conservative group have often relied upon personal attacks and bullying to ensure that anyone opposing them are dealt with.

The Conservatives attacks have not been restricted to their elected political opponents. Remember when 4,000 residents marched through Sidmouth in opposition to what the Conservative group were proposing to do? Remember when residents banded together through campaign groups such as Save Our Sidmouth? For their efforts these concerned residents were denigrated by the Conservatives.

Earlier this year we have the spectacle of Councillor Twiss, the Conservative District Council whip, the man responsible for ensuring that his colleagues kept to the Party line on issues, reported Claire Wright to the Devon and Cornwall Police for a throw away comment that a  member of the public had posted on her website. The crime? The member of the public had called for a political cull of Conservative Councillors at the impending local election.

Judge for yourself whether such a comment could in any way, as Councillor Twiss claimed, be a call to arms for someone to do physical harm to local Conservative Councillors. Or was it a crude and deliberate attempt by Councillor Twiss to try to politically damage Claire Wright, someone who he and his Conservative colleagues clearly dislike and fear?

But this North Korean style approach to politics as espoused and demonstrated by the Conservative group on the District Council has not just remained amongst them. The Conservative candidate in the general election clearly doesn’t like challenge either as we have seen in this election. Anyone who has attended any of the election hustings will have so clearly seen the clear disdain that Hugo Swire has exhibited towards his challengers, particularly Claire wright, his Independent opponent. Indeed Hugo Swire made his disdain so clear when a few weeks ago he wrote to the Express and Echo and attacked all of his opponents.

As we moved towards the point where local people had to decide whether they were going to stand as candidates in the local election on 7 May we saw the creation of the umbrella local party, East Devon Alliance, which allowed those who wished to stand as a co-ordinated set of Independent candidates to do so and to do so within the bounds of electoral rules.

As this was happening we saw Councillor Twiss pop up again to try to attack the EDA as a front for other political parties – Labour, Liberal Democrats and Greens. This attack, whilst being palpably untrue was clearly designed to try to inflict damage on what has become a ground up opposition to the dominance locally of the Conservatives. If the EDA was a front for all of these political parties then given that each of those three parties are also standing candidates, often in opposition not just to the Conservatives, but also the EDA, shows either their collective political incompetence or their individual political independence.

Zorro has previously called for the EDA and the Labour, Liberal Democrats and Green Parties to form a grand coalition in order to not split the anti-Conservative vote in the District Council elections. Indeed, Zorro has also called upon the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties not to stand in the general election in East Devon in order to provide Independent candidate, Claire Wright, with the greatest opportunity to beat Conservative Hugo Swire. Regretfully, these two parties have maintained their political independence.

As we enter the final week of the local election campaign we now have the local conservatives returning to type. In Axminster Deputy Council Leader Andrew Moulding, a person at the heart of the political decisions of the District Council ruling majority group,  and his Conservative colleague Stephanie Jones who are both standing locally in the local elections issue another attack on the East Devon Alliance.

This time, in a poorly produced and written leaflet these two Conservative candidates think that the way to beat the EDA is to describe them as a group of Sidmouth residents. Whilst there is nothing wrong with being a group of Sidmouth residents, in this case it is untrue. This is an attempt to try to make it look as if the EDA is only interested in, and representative of, Sidmouthians. They will find out on 7 May how untrue this childish attempt to dismiss the EDA challenge is.

Equally in this leaflet these two Conservative candidates tried to explain that the EDA will operate as traditional political group, such as operated by the Conservatives on the District Council if elected. Err…. But we have been told time and time again that the Conservative group on the District Council did not operate as an organised political group! Andrew Moulding and Stephanie Jones seem to want to have their cake and to eat it! So, despite the previous protestations from Conservative group Whip Councillor Twiss the conservatives on the District Council did enforce political discipline amongst their Councillors.

Zorro was intrigued that in the rest of this leaflet these two conservative candidates have the brass neck to try (unsuccessfully) to defend the Conservative group’s decisions to delay the production of the Local Plan and the relocation and sale of the District Council Headquarters from the Knowle.

It is clear to Zorro that in Axminster the Conservatives are so rattled and worried about the EDA’s challenge that they have resorted to petty and inaccurate political attack through a poorly produced leaflet.

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