PARLIAMENTARY CANDIDATES IN CORNWALL

Here’s a list of prospective parliamentary candidates I am aware of so far for the six new Cornwall seats.

CAMBORNE AND REDRUTH
Conservative George Eustice, Labour Jude Robinson, Liberal Democrat Julia Goldsworthy MP, Mebyon Kernow Loveday Jenkin, UKIP Derek Elliot

The previous Conservative candidate for Camborne and Redruth, John Woodward, resigned 15 October 2008. Read about it here .

The Times of 25 September 2009 has an article, PR consultants who are working to become your Tory MP, which includes a reference to George Eustice.

NORTH CORNWALL
Conservative Sian Flynn, Liberal Democrat Dan Rogerson MP, Mebyon Kernow Joanie Willett, UKIP Ivor Masters

ST AUSTELL AND NEWQUAY
Conservative Caroline Righton, Labour Lee Jameson, Liberal Democrat Stephen Gilbert, Mebyon Kernow Dick Cole, UKIP Clive Medway

ST IVES AND ISLES OF SCILLY
Conservative Derek Thomas, Labour Philippa Latimer, Liberal Democrat Andrew George MP, Mebyon Kernow Simon Reed, UKIP Mick Faulkner

The MK candidate was Richard Clark but he had to leave the area for work reasons. The Green candidate was Tracy Stanton but she stepped down in November 2009 because of a change in personal circumstances.

SOUTHEAST CORNWALL
Conservative Sheryll Murray, Labour Bill Stevens, Liberal Democrat Karen Gillard, Mebyon Kernow Glenn Renshaw, UKIP Stephanie McWilliam

TRURO AND FALMOUTH
Conservative Sarah Newton, Green Lindsay Southcombe, Labour Charlotte Mackenzie, Liberal Chris Tankard, Liberal Democrat Terrye Teverson, Mebyon Kernow Loic Rich, UKIP Glen Corcoran

The previous MK candidate, Conan Jenkin, resigned because of increasing work and family commitments. Read the MK announcement here. The web has several writings by Loic Rich, just google his name.

Two current Liberal Democrat MPs, Colin Breed for South East Cornwall and Matthew Taylor for Truro and St Austell, are not standing again. The five Cornwall seats have been rejigged into six. There are three newly created seats: St Austell and Newquay; Truro and Falmouth; and Camborne, Redruth, and Hayle.

The parties have websites and details of the candidates are largely available. For example, see here for Derek Thomas and here for Philippa Latimer.

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Original post 11 May 2008.

Related post

Unitary and EU elections in Cornwall

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AFFORDABLE HOUSING IN CORNWALL

I have already looked at Labour’s failure on child poverty. Now another important and dismal failure: housing waiting lists. On 1 April 1997 there were 8 124 households on the public housing waiting lists for housing in Cornwall. In 2008 there were 17 728. The figures are here and the explanatory notes should be read, especially note 1.

This increase is not unique to Cornwall; there are increases across England. It isn’t down to second homes, or empty houses, or the increase in household formation, or any of the litany of excuses: it is at bottom a failure to build enough houses for rent and purchase that local people can afford, a failure by a government in effect indifferent to such housing and lacking the resolve to push for it, and councils timid about nimby ire. Public housing has been neglected by the Labour government. The numbers being built are pitiful. There has been a lack of will, a failure of determination, much talk and few houses. Is housing and child poverty the “failure that topples all our success”?

Finance for affordable housing is difficult and there has been a notable lack of imagination in realising new schemes for making land acquisition and building and rent and purchase feasible. There has been insufficient will. The government should think of letting councils keep the housing receipts to finance the building of new houses.

Why does it matter?

People need houses to rent and to buy at a price they can afford. Put aside for the moment notions of fair play and social justice and even interdependency, it’s in our own interests to ensure people have a roof over their heads. People more easily believe they have a stake in their community and are less alienated from society and more socially minded if they have decent place to live. It pays us to ensure people are housed well. Children, the people who will work tomorrow and create the wealth and pay the taxes for our pensions and health service and roads, deserve better than third rate, insecure accommodation. They have the best chance of flourishing and growing up straight in a loving and stable home with a sense of being important to their family and their society. A decent, permanent house is part of that. It pays us to ensure children have a decent house to grow up in.

A decent place to live is also necessary ground for an autonomous life, a resource and right of positive freedom. People do not become independent, rational, self-realisers without the means to education and health and housing. For most of us society makes possible the circumstances wherein we might live with independence and dignity.

Affordable houses and child and adult poverty: key matters where Labour has let us down and where Conservatives are unlikely to seriously try to succeed.

We mustn’t give up in Cornwall or anywhere on building much more affordable housing. In Cornwall we should explore whether the new council should seek to build and own some housing; who provides isn’t a question of dogmatism but of what mix delivers best for people in need of a home. We mustn’t abandon those local people struggling to get a house. There has to be more determination and imaginative intelligence and I hope that the government even at this late time and the new unitary council will have those in spades, though the latter has set a cautious and unchallenging target.
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“a failure that topples all our success”: John Steinbeck The grapes of wrath

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CORNWALL ELECTION RESULTS 2009

I have merged the posts on the EU and unitary election results for Cornwall

EU PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS IN CORNWALL 4 June 2009

The EU electorate in Cornwall was about 409 000 and the turnout in these elections was about 41 percent. There were six seats to be filled from the southwest.

These are the number of EU seats won in the southwest region, the number of candidates in the southwest region, the proportion of the total votes cast in Cornwall (including rejected votes), and votes cast in Cornwall (not votes in the southwest region as a whole):

Conservatives 3 southwest UK seats, 27.6 percent of the Cornwall EU vote, 6 candidates in the southwest, 46 589 votes in Cornwall

UKIP 2 southwest UK seats, 23.6 percent, 6 candidates, 39 954 votes in Cornwall

Liberal Democrats 1 southwest UK seat, 17.4 percent, 6 candidates, 29 436 votes in Cornwall

Greens 7.9 percent, six candidates, 13 361 votes in Cornwall

Mebyon Kernow 6.8 percent, 6 candidates, 11 534 votes in Cornwall

Labour 5.0 percent, 6 candidates, 8483 votes in Cornwall

BNP 3.0 percent, 6 candidates, 5118 votes in Cornwall in Cornwall

English Democrats 1.1 percent, 6 candidates, 1781 votes

Others (eight groups plus one independent) 6.5 percent, 11 071 votes in Cornwall

In the thirty three seats MK contested in the unitary elections it got a mean average of 16 percent of the votes cast in the ward; on the Isles of Scilly MK got 39 votes, 4 percent of the total EU vote.

The EU candidates who stood are listed in this post of 21 May 2009 which also links to a list of the unitary candidates.

CORNWALL UNITARY COUNCIL ELECTION RESULTS 4 June 2009

For the 4 June 2009 unitary council election the full results for each seat are here.

The Cornwall unitary electorate is about 412 000 and the turnout was 41 percent. There are 123 seats on the new council which replaces the county council and six district councils. The unitary Cornwall Council results are:

Conservatives 50 seats won on the unitary council, 34 percent of the total unitary vote, 123 candidates stood, 57 115 votes in total

Liberal Democrats 38 seats, 29 percent, 119 candidates, 48 187 votes

Independents* 32 seats, 24 percent, 112 candidates, 39 807 votes

Mebyon Kernow (MK) 3 seats, 4 percent, 33 candidates, 7290 votes

These parties did not win any seats:

UKIP 4 percent, 28 candidates, 6350 votes

Labour 3 percent, 60 candidates, 5698 votes

Greens 2 percent, 16 candidates, 3139 votes

Liberals 0.6 percent, 9 candidates, 945 votes

BNP 0.2 percent, 4 candidates, 363 votes

English Democrats 0.05 percent, 1 candidate, 81 votes

* I have included in the Independents both candidates who described themselves as Independent on the ballot paper and the candidates who did not put any political description on the ballot paper.

The number of seats a party contests influences it share of the total vote and thus if a party contests only a few seats its share of the total vote of all seats is perhaps misleading. However, I think parties by and large contest seats which they think are most favourable to them and for which they have candidates; this is an indication of the strength and health of the party in Cornwall. The proportion of votes a smaller party wins in the seats it chooses to contest cannot be extrapolated to uncontested seats; such an extrapolation is arithmetically invalid and politically not sensible, and in any case would be an average of proportions that much vary among those seats.

Labour sinks

For Labour the Cornwall unitary elections were a catastrophe. It won less than a fifth of the votes it got in the last county elections and its mean average vote per seat was ninety five compared with 693 in the last county elections. It contested sixty unitary seats and in seven-tenths of those it polled fewer than a hundred votes. These figures suggest it spread itself far too thinly for its present intrinsic strength and it would have fared better if it had focussed hard on its few possibly winnable seats. Labour will not recover easily in Cornwall from this disastrous result.

Mebyon Kernow stands still

In the Cornwall unitary elections Mebyon Kernow (MK) has not advanced on the immediate past though the number of MK candidates has increased absolutely and proportionately.

MK had no county councillors and seven elected district councillors out of a grand total of 331 before these elections: it now has a pro rata three on the unitary council. It won 7290 votes in these unitary elections; in the last county council elections it won 9421 votes and in the last district council elections 8919 votes (not all district seats were up for election in Cornwall as in one of the districts, Penwith, only a third were so the MK district votes can be reasonably likened to the county votes). The mean average votes in each seat MK contested are: county 523, district 372, unitary 221: these figures suggest that MK has, like Labour, overstretched itself this year.

The MK leader, Dick Cole, polled 927 votes, 78 percent of the total vote, in his unitary ward, a very impressive result.

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Also see the post How has MK done in the 2009 elections?

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LABOUR HELPS 130 000 IN COLD CORNWALL

The current cold weather is a good time to recall that the Labour government has done much to help pensioners pay the accompanying high fuel bills, notably with the winter fuel payment introduced by Labour in 1997.

Every household with a person or couple over sixty gets £250 as a winter fuel payment. People of eighty and over get more. Of course, this doesn’t pay the whole fuel bill but it certainly helps; and of course some are more in need than others. Cornwall is far from being the coldest place in Britain in winter but about 131 000 winter fuel payments are made in Cornwall and Scillies (Hansard 27 November 2007, columns 333W-334W). Those payments are for the year 2006/07 and the number will have increased by now – I think my headline figure is an understatement. More needs to be done about the price of fuel and how to make it affordable to those on low incomes, but the fuel payment is a capital practical policy.

The Conservatives have refused to guarantee its continuance should they form a government: Hansard 4 June 2008 column 841. Let me repeat that: the Conservatives have not guaranteed to keep the winter fuel payment.

The elderly in Cornwall have much to thank Labour for. Free bus travel and shorter waiting times in the NHS, state spending on pensioners up 50 percent in real terms since 1997 (Hansard 4 June 2008 column 844), effectively a single pension of £124 a week and £189 a week for a couple (standard minimum guarantee of pension credit), a promise to restore the link between earnings and pensions.

There is still much to do. A scandalously large amount goes unclaimed in benefits and it is urgent to simplify the system and get more necessary money to people who rightfully are entitled to it. The delay in linking pensions and earnings is disappointingly far off: 2012 at the earliest under present government plans. We need a national, rational, and coherent energy policy that minimises gigantic leaps in domestic fuel prices.

Labour has made many mistakes and has not always understood the impact on the poor and vulnerable of their policies such as the abolition of 10p tax rate. Too often poor men’s reasons have not been heard. Its response to its own culpability and to that of the well-heeled for the present economic recession is seriously inadequate. Jerusalem is not yet. Perhaps we never reach Jerusalem. But look what Labour has done that is good. Read the first four paragraphs again. People in Cornwall are being helped, their lives are made better, they and their needs are recognised, not theoretically, not generally, but in minute particulars that count and in that everyday world in which most of us live.

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The original paragraph immediately around the the Arnold and Blake quotations are rewarding reading and I have linked immediately below to accessible online books.

Jerusalem is not yet: Matthew Arnold A French Eton original page 112-113 in the online book

Minute particulars: William Blake Jerusalem original page 55: 60-63 in the prophetic book online (this is not the poem)

Poor men’s reasons are not heard: Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) Gnomologia (Proverb 3897)

LABOUR IN CORNWALL: AN OBITUARY

A few years back Labour existed as a party in Cornwall. It won seats on local councils and even parliamentary seats. Although Cornwall voters tended to vote Liberal (then Liberal Democrat) or Conservative, there was a substantial radical, progressive heart that chose Labour.

What was said about the parrot? Dead, deceased, expired, pass on and over. That’s what has happened to Labour here. The party now gets risible votes in general elections outside Camborne; in local elections it fights only a minority and loses more often than not, coming fourth and last in a recent by-election for a seat on the parish/town council in Camborne. First-past-the-post voting has hastened Labour’s death in Cornwall. While the party structure still exists, active, door-knocking membership is very small and there are only church-mouse funds.

The Labour government has delivered for Cornwall in many ways. This is different and better than the Tory years. The improvements in the NHS and schools can be seen here too, Sure Start works, the A30 is better, inroads have been made into child poverty, higher old age pensions and benefits and the godsend of the minimum wage have improved life for many people in Cornwall, and under Labour EU money has flowed in. The Labour party in Cornwall inexplicably has not cried up these advances. Of course not everything is glowing: people in Cornwall as elsewhere felt the folly of the abolition of the 10p tax rate, and now feel the economic misery of higher energy prices and the government’s weak response; unemployment will rise; many people here will experience keenly the economic recession.

We are past all that now, the good and bad. The Labour party in Cornwall failed to shout loudly enough the progressive successes when it had the chance, letting down its natural supporters, and has withered quietly as its own government succeeded. Locally, although councillors and candidates and the last MP and some members have worked hard and well, the party should have worked more vigorously at evangelism, it never had enough money or resources, it failed to show how it was relevant to people in Cornwall, and it demonstrably failed to enthuse. I get the impression that the national party wrote Cornwall off as Libdem/Tory territory a while ago. Now the national gloom is here. The grave is dug, the corpse is tumbling in. Shovel in the earth. It is over. Labour in Cornwall is dead.

(I would love to eat my hat.)

HOW MUCH DO THE TORIES COST PENSIONERS ?

In 1980 the Thatcher government broke the link between the state retirement pension and earnings and since then the pension has been uprated by the rate of inflation. Overall earnings generally run ahead of inflation and, although the Labour government has redistributed millions of pounds to targeted pensioners, the state pension is now worth less than if it had remained linked to earnings.

How much less?

A parliamentary answer says about £43 a week less.

The average state pension is now £97 and week and had it remained linked to earnings would be £140 a week. The current pension is 44 percent less than it would have been. The details are at Hansard for 16 June 2008 column 742W.

Cornwall has a disproportionate number of pensioners many of whom – but not all of course – have only or are primarily dependent upon a state pension.

Labour aims to restore the link in the next parliament and by 2012 if possible. I am unsure whether the Conservatives, the current favourites to form the next government, have signed up to this. It would be a handbrake turn for them.

Nor do I know why Labour in Cornwall isn’t shouting all this from the rooftops.

BEWILDERED IN THE MAZE OF SCHOOLS

As we glide effortlessly into the unitary set up, let me recall the present political disposition of Cornwall.

In 2005 there were elections for the eighty two county council seats and a general election for the five seats; in 2007 there were elections for the six district councils, elections for the whole council in five of the districts and for a third in Penwith. The results of these give us the present party make-up of Cornwall.

Overall nearly 800 000 votes were cast in the three sets of elections. Here they are in percentages:

General election 2005
Liberal Democrats 44.4, Conservatives 31.8, Labour 15.9, UKIP 5, MK 1.4, Greens 0.7, all others 0.9

County council elections 2005
Liberal Democrats 39.2, Conservatives 24.1, Independents 19.5, Labour 10.5, MK 3.2, Greens 1.3, UKIP 1.1, all others 1.1

District elections 2007
Liberal Democrats 36.1, Conservatives 30.7, Independents 20.0, MK 3.9, Labour 3.5, UKIP 2.5, Greens 0.7, all others 2.6.

There are caveats.

These figures do not compare the same seats over time but different seats. The aim is to give a general county snapshot using the latest figures available in the three sets.

In the county and district elections some seats had more than one councillor elected and so people had more than one vote. The percentages are based on totals of votes not ballot papers. The “others” include unlabelled candidates, Liberals (a separate party from Liberal Democrats), two BNP candidates, and Veritas. Uncontested seats are excluded.

The votes cast for a party depend in part on how many candidates stand for that party though how many candidates a party puts up reflects its organisational and membership health and its estimate of its chances.

The parties perform differently in the seats and these overall figures, which represent general averages of real votes, do not reveal those differences. A couple of very popular candidates do wonders for a small party’s total vote and percentage and make it difficult to assess that party’s general standing with the electorate. These considerations suggest that in local elections at any rate some people do not vote only for a party.

The general election throws up very different results so here are the two local government sets in percentages of votes cast, county 2005 and districts 2007, more than half a million votes:

Liberal Democrats 37.9, Conservatives 26.9, Independents 19.7, Labour 7.5, MK 3.5, UKIP 1.7, Greens 1.1, Others 1.7.

Finally, these figures are about people’s choices. Seats won are a different matter, about power.

The next elections are in spring 2009 for the unitary council.

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Bewildered in the maze of schools: Alexander Pope (1688-1744) An essay on criticism

SOAKING THE POOR

About 48 000 households in Cornwall worse off

Labour argued for and introduced a 10 pence income tax rate because, it said, it was fairer to the low paid and would make work pay and thus be an incentive to work for the poor. I think in fact that the best way to help the poor would be to raise the tax free threshold and to cut regressive indirect taxes such as VAT, but Labour chose another, less efficient way. Nevertheless Labour did act on tax and also created a minimum wage to help the low paid.

In his 2007 budget Gordon Brown announced the abolition of the 10 pence income tax rate. The change comes into effect tomorrow.

Belatedly some more Labour MPs have just realised that this abolition will leave about 5.3 million households worse off. These are largely the households without dependent children and who do not have tax credits and who have incomes of between about £5400 and £18 500 a year. Way back in October 2007 the government gave its estimate to Frank Field of how many would be worse off and even said 900 000 of those had incomes below £10 000 a year – actually the number refers to the household reference person (Hansard 18 October 2007 column 1266W).

Field was on to this unfairness at the time of the 2007 budget and tried to get an impact assessment of tax changes on different groups and transitional arrangements if necessary for those on the lowest pay: his clause was rejected by Labour MPs though a handful of six Labour MPs and most Libdems voted for it, along with a few others (Hansard 25 June 2007 column 108 onwards). Julia Goldsworthy and Matthew Taylor both voted for Field’s clause and Dan Rogerson was a teller for it.

I can estimate how many households in Cornwall are adversely affected by the abolition of the 10 pence rate by comparing the number of households in Cornwall with the number in the UK and those adversely affected in the UK. This arithmetic suggests that suggests about forty eight thousand households in Cornwall are worse off because of the abolition of the 10 pence rate. As the proportion of low income households in Cornwall is greater than in the UK generally, the number affected is probably greater too.

Labour has done much, though nothing like enough, to help the poor since 1997 while keeping the economy sound and the bulk of the electorate on side. It has wrought a sea change since the barbarian days of the Tory governments 1979-1997. Things are now beginning to fall apart. It is difficult to understand this 10 pence tax policy. Labour is making a lot of low paid people worse off and doing it on purpose. Is this what people voting Labour thought they were voting for? How does this square with the minimum wage? This policy of soaking the poor is pitiable and shameful. The government should put its mistake right and ensure the low paid are not worse off.

PS The Conservatives officially abstained in the 25 June 2007 vote.

LOW PAID IN CORNWALL GET A KICK IN THE TEETH

Let’s be clear at the beginning. This is the policy of a Labour government we’re discussing.

Alongside the good news about the modest rise in the minimum wage is some bad news about the taxation of the poor.

From next month, when the income tax provisions of the last budget come in, the lowest paid will pay more income tax; the better-off will pay less. The budget abolished the 10 percent tax band and that’s the cause of the injustice. It means anyone earning less than about £19 000 a year will pay more income tax; people above that pay less.

People are liable for income tax when their work income reaches about £104 a week. People on very low earned incomes indeed will pay more tax.

Labour is rightly trying to reduce child poverty and, although progress is being made, this is proving difficult. The increase in the minimum wage will help. The loss of the 10 percent band and the consequent increase in income tax for those on low and modest incomes will reduce their take-home incomes and will worsen child poverty.

Disproportionate numbers of people in Cornwall earn low wages. This tax policy will make them worse off. The low paid in Cornwall are about to get a kick in the teeth from Labour.

I don’t know what, apart from socially unjust and stupid, you call a policy of taxing the poor more and the better-off less but I doubt it was what Labour voters thought they were voting for.

LABOUR TALKS BUT DOESN’T WALK

The Labour party in Cornwall has published its platform. It’s online here.

This is the first platform/manifesto from the three main parties and Labour has shown commendable industry in getting this far in its thinking. When will the Libdems and Conservatives catch up?

Yes, like all manifestos it has glittering generalities and the audacity of cliches to uplift us. It also has some sensible and progressive ideas for making Cornwall a better place for its people.

A party has three tasks in this work: to identify the problems and possibilities, to explain its ideas for tackling those and building Jerusalem, and to explain how it will bring its ideas to realisation. The Cornwall Labour platform does the first two well but the third element is missing.

It rightly draws attention to the minimum wage, Sure Start, and rising employment as examples of Labour national policies helping make life better for many people here. These are real-life achievements that have made a significant difference and suggest powerfully what we can expect of Labour at its best. They are a persuasive advertisement for what people in Cornwall can gain from a Labour government – which is part of the manifesto’s purpose. Odd, isn’t it, that these progressive achievements don’t get a mention among the prattle in nationalism about London parties and Westminster government ?

The section on the economy is representative of the platform in its ideas and flaws. There is a realistic assessment of Cornwall’s economic position, realistic and desirable aspirations for improvement, but few practical policies of realisation. Of course local wages are too low, we all know that, but saying they “need to be brought closer to national average levels” is an inadequate response. How can this be done? Similarly, Labour says we need in Cornwall more jobs of higher quality. Yes, yes, but how do we get them? How do we get the money, the “large-scale capital funding,” to expand Newquay airport?

The other sections are similarly large on aspiration. There is much on this needs to be done but where is the indication of how Cornwall Labour will try to make it happen? Labour has talked the talk and must now walk the walk.

Labour has a serious problem. It is unlikely to have a surfeit of councillors (or MPs) in Cornwall, in the immediate future at any rate, and locally is not going to be able to vote its ideas into practice. In any case many of the aspirations depend upon action by central government. Cornwall Labour therefore needs to work out how its ideas can be realised from a position of relative powerlessness. If the platform isn’t just a long wish list, the missing third element needs to be put up soon.