Voting Liberal Democrat is not just a tactical decision
I was a Labour member for a long time – and even a general election candidate back in 1987 – but I have never voted blindly for the party. In 2010, when I lived in Brighton, I helped elect Britain’s first Green MP, the great Caroline Lucas. I have been part of East Devon’s Independent movement, being Seaton and Colyton’s only non-Conservative county councillor in recent years, and supported Claire Wright in her bids for Parliament. But now I am backing the Liberal Democrats.
This is partly a tactical decision – it is essential to defeat the Tories, and the Lib Dems are best placed to win in both the Honiton & Sidmouth and Exmouth & Exeter East constituencies. It helps hugely that Richard Foord and Paul Arnott are both excellent candidates – doughty, dedicated and experienced campaigners and genuinely decent human beings to boot (now you can’t say that about all of the candidates on the anti-Tory side).
But there are also political reasons. Labour is tacking to the right, not prepared even to end the terrible two-child child benefit rule, and showing its authoritarian face in brutally removing some excellent candidates. The Lib Dems actually have some better policies, for example on social care, Europe and Palestine.
Perhaps most important, electing a large number of Lib Dems in this election could make them the official opposition in place of the Conservatives. We would then have a constructive opposition, helping push the Labour government to better places on some issues, and consigning the far-right Tory party to history. And East Devon could be part of this, not part of a discredited and irrelevant Conservative rump. What’s not to like?
Sarah Wollaston’s resignation is a stark comment on the state of Devon’s NHS after 14 years of Tory rule
I am sad to see that Dr Sarah Wollaston, the Chair of Devon NHS who I met several times during our campaign for Seaton Hospital, has felt compelled to resign, saying she felt unable “to sign off on a further cut” with the “elastic already stretched too far”.
Sarah seemed genuinely concerned at the threat to Seaton Hospital, although she had signed off on the proposal and many other cuts. She seemed to be the person pushing the NHS to help us come up with a plan to mitigate the effects – which we are still doing, although progress is on hold because of the election.
That Sarah felt compelled to go is a stark comment on the state of Devon’s NHS after 14 years of Conservative rule. Tory underfunding has produced the threats to Seaton and the other community hospitals over the last ten years, the Tory decision to hand them to a property company made them vulnerable in the first place, and Tory MPs and councillors have sabotaged them.
No one who cares about the NHS or our community hospitals should vote Conservative – in Honiton & Sidmouth and in Exmouth & East Exeter, vote Liberal Democrat; in Exeter and in Plymouth vote Labour. Let’s make July 4th Devon’s day of independence from Tory domination.
Tory cuts to school funding cost Seaton Primary £47k pa
That’s £128 per pupil each year. In the Honiton and Sidmouth constituency as a whole, the cuts amount to £638,000 a year.
Details:
Find out about Government funding cuts to your school. #schoolcuts
— Read on schoolcuts.org.uk/
StoptheTories.vote withdraws its tactical Labour recommendation for Exmouth
StoptheVote.org, a major tactical voting site, has TAKEN DOWN its recommendation of a Labour vote in Exmouth & East Exeter. It now says its tactical advice is ‘COMING SOON: We’re waiting until more polling is released to confirm our advice here.’
It explains: ‘We’ve manually set advice for this constituency because as an Independent was in second place last time, it is not yet clear where those supporters will go’. In other words, the old advice was based on automatically applying national trends without proper local data.
Meanwhile Electoral Calculus, the site which takes into account local information, estimates that the race is incredibly close between the Tory (32.6%), Paul Arnott for the Lib Dems (29.8) and Labour (21.4). It has reduced the chance of the Tory winning to 54%, increased the Lib Dems’ to 34%, and puts Labour’s chance on 10%.
Some facts on this constituency:
- 78 per cent of the old East Devon seat is in it – but some extra Exeter wards have been added.
- In the old East Devon seat, the Lib Dems were always second until 2010 – Labour were never in contention.
- Claire Wright (Independent) took over as the main challenger in 2015, 2017 and 2019, squeezing the Lib Dem, Labour and Green votes down to a very small level.
- In 2019, Claire got 40.4%, Labour 4.5%, Lib Dems 2.8%, Greens 1.1%. Claire is supporting Paul Arnott.
- In local elections in the new constituency in 2023-4, Lib Dems have gained 39.5% of the votes, Labour 13%, Greens 6% – while Tories got 37.5% – confirming that this is a tight Tory:Lib Dem race.
- Labour have just confirmed that the constituency is NOT a battleground seat for them – their members are advised to canvass in the nearest battleground seat in Plymouth.
- Labour’s 2019 candidate has left the party and is standing as an Independent, so their vote will be further split.
Labour confirms neither East Devon seat is ‘battleground’– activists are asked to campaign elsewhere
Although the Labour Party has added eleven more seats to its ‘battleground’ areas, these do NOT include either Exmouth & Exeter East or Honiton & Sidmouth. Members continue to be encouraged to campaign in the nearest battleground-in our case, this is Plymouth MoorView.
Revealed: The 250 seats Labour calls ‘battlegrounds’– full list and map – LabourList
— Read on labourlist.org/2024/06/labour-battleground-areas-full-list-general-election-2024/
Tactical voting: a pollster explains why their models could be getting Exmouth wrong
As a politics academic myself, I have been in touch with a number of pollsters about some perverse-looking projections for the seats in East Devon. Survation even has Labour to win Honiton & Sidmouth – although they got only 3.7 per cent in the by-election and are not even campaigning now! However, most now seem have to recognised that it’s a fight between Richard Foord and the Tory.
The problem is, one pollster admits to me, they are using “national level data for small area estimation”, telling me: “You are certainly correct that there are some surprising estimates in the MRP model, particularly when it comes to idiosyncratic seats.”
The most idiosyncratic seat of all is probably EXMOUTH & EXETER EAST, because most non-Tory voters in the old East Devon seat (which is three quarters of the new one) backed Claire Wright in 2019. She got 41 per cent, while Labour got only 4.5 per cent and the Lib Dems 2.8 per cent – but some pollsters have used these tiny and out-of-date figures to estimate that Labour could be leading the Lib Dems in 2024!
Recognising the problem, Survation tells me that they, YouGov and Electoral Calculus have now agreed to poll more people in both Exmouth & Exeter East and Honiton & Sidmouth, to try to get a more accurate picture.
In the meanwhile, Electoral Calculus are the only pollster to have tried to take into account the unique circumstances of Exmouth & Exeter East – they have the Tories on 33, Lib Dems 29.7 and Labour 23.
New YouGov poll projection has Richard winning by just 1 per cent
Lib Dems 34, Conservatives 33 – too close to call. It just underlines how essential it is that everyone votes for Richard, not Labour or Green. Do we really want another Tory MP? It could be decided by a handful of votes.
New poll shows Richard ahead
A gold standard constituency by constituency poll from Electoral Calculus suggests that Richard Foord has sped ahead of his Conservative challenger in the race to be our next MP. He’s on 45 per cent to the Tory’s 35 per cent, closer than the by-election but a promising lead (bear in mind there is a margin of error in these things).
The same poll shows Paul Arnott, standing for the Lib Dems in Exmouth & Exeter East, only 3 per cent behind the Tory (30 to 33 per cent). Labour is on 23 per cent so if some Labour voters swing behind Paul’s challenge he has an excellent chance of taking the seat. The poll suggests the Lib Dems would be on 59 seats to the Tories’ 66, so with a small further shift, the Lib Dems would be the official opposition to the new Labour government.
Seaton & Colyton MATTERS 