Last year I promised that, after the Unitary elections, I would return to review the Cornwall Council election results but, given a change of house (twice) and a change of work circumstances, I have not had the opportunity to do so. With things now being a little more settled, I will share some reflections.
The 2009 elections had been an unmititigated disaster for Labour, deeply disappointing for the Liberal Democrats, comforting for the Conservatives and the Independents; for Mebyon Kernow, they had been less than stellar, although they had shown progress whilst UKIP and the Greens had nothing but dashed hopes.
On the face of it, several parties can claim to be pleased with the results of 2013 but, as with all elections, the story is somewhat different when you look more closely. With Cornwall, things are never quite as simple as they first appear.
I will look at the result in each division to reflect upon what happened (and how wrong, or right, my predictions were). As with most of those who had made educated guesses about the results, whilst I predicted UKIP would do well, I did not see what was coming and that was the biggest surprise of the elections for me.
The big disappointment was the big drop in turnout compared to the 2009 elections.
I would direct you to my former posts of April, 2013, where I made my predictions. I apologise for the many grammatical errors, but I managed to lose half my work and had to quickly retype it and made a bit of a mess. I have corrected it to some degree.
For an overall view of the results:
Affiliation Councillors (compared to 2013)
Independents/Unspecified: 37 (+5)
Liberal Democrats: 36 (-2)
Conservatives: 31 (-19)
Labour/Labour and Co-operative: 8 (+8)
UKIP: 6 (+6)
Mebyon Kernow-Party of Cornwall: 4 (+1)
Green Party: 1 (+1)
The Liberal Democrats did extremely well in North Cornwall, disasterously in Kerrier (where they pretty much withdrew),Carrick and Penwith, and had mixed results in Restormel and Caradon. It should be remembered that the Liberal Democrats had had a very bad year in 2009 and some bounceback should have been expected and, in many places, not only did it fail to materialise, they actually fell further.
The Conservatives had an awful election, with the pre-election defections, fallouts and splits not helping them in what was likely to be a difficult set of elections. They did not find candidates to defend several of their seats (sometimes due to the sitting councillor standing under a new banner) and, with the odd exception, suffered serious setbacks.
Labour (and Co-op) appeared to have a good election with them gaining 8 seats compared to the nightmare they had in 2009, but they did not poll as well as they would have hoped in many of their areas of traditional strength (see Kerrier) and lost their sole byelection winner and coucnillor of the last council when Jude Robinson was defeated in Camborne Roskear. They successfully re-established themselves in Falmouth and Penzance, but they still have something to learn from the Liberal Democrats in terms of targeting when it comes to Camborne/Redruth. Their standout result was surely in Mevagissey.
The real story of this election is UKIP, who came out of nowhere in many places to grabb 6 divisions; the real sign of their progress is how disappointed they will be to have just missed out in several other seats. Their biggest disappointment though will be in the old Penwith area where they came second in terms of votes cast, yet failed to win any divisions. This points us towards another interesting political reflection shown in a few places in Cornwall,: where UKIP has a strong history of campigning and standing for election, they usually fared worse than where they had no hsitory. This is certainly the case in much of Penwith and may be partly explained by them not being a new chioce for many voters and also that the others parties were prepared for them. UKIP may have done worse in the Camborne area if the other parties had realised what a threat they were.
Mebyon Kernow-Party of Cornwall had really hoped to make a serious advance at this set of elections and, in light of their hopes, to only increase their number of seats by one since 2009 must be a disappointment. They came very close in several divisions, falling only 26 votes short in Newlyn and Goonhavern and only 13 votes behind in Fowey and Tywardreath. They lost their seat in Camborne when Labour took the Treslothan division but, in the remarkable circumstances of that election, they were only 32 votes behind whilst being in fourth place.
For the Green Party, the delight of finally breaking through in St. Ives with their only winning candidate, Tim Andrewes, taking the laurels with a majority of 132. They failed by just 7 votes in St. Ives East (see the Penwith commentary).
The Independents, for all of their diversity, tend to sit as a group and I have reflected on their electoral history and success or failure with that in mind. They were the only large group to increase their share of seats, but some of those are councillors who have changed parties just before the election.
The preceding posts (or those below on the blog) are for each of the former districts/boroughs of Cornwall.
The Communion of Saints
I hope there's room for me.
Wednesday, 26 March 2014
Cornwall Unitary Election Results, 2013: Kerrier
As with my overview of the forthcoming elections last April, I decided it would be fun to follow (as far as possible) the old district and borough boundaries.
The last time that local council elections took place in the now defunct (as of 2009) Kerrier District Council, these were the results:
Party Votes Percent Seats
Independent 8140 30.6% 22
Liberal Democrat 5377 20.2% 11
Conservative 5219 19.6% 5
Mebyon Kernow 2509 9.4% 3
Labour 2489 9.4% 2
UKIP 1656 6.2% 0
Liberal Party 1183 4.5% 1
Not much of a change on 2003's results for anybody but Labour, who lost 3 seats, only contested 8 of the wards and fell behind Mebyon Kernow. In an area which should be the stongest for them in Cornwall, they polled badly.
In 2009, the Unitary Council replaced the County and District/Borough Councils and the results for what would have been the old district were:
Party Votes Percent Seats
Independent 11150 37.2% 10
Conservative 8073 27.0% 10
Liberal Democrat 5493 18.3% 1
Labour 1984 6.6% 0
Mebyon Kernow 1938 6.5% 1
Liberal Party 700 2.3% 0
UKIP 493 1.6% 0
Green Party 117 0.4% 0
A big change from 2007 with the Liberal Democrats share of the vote apparently only slipping back a little but being reduced to on 1 seat out of 22, as opposed to 11 out of 44 on the old District council. The reason for the apparently small vote change is that they only had candidates for 24 of the 44 seats in 12 of the twenty wards in 2007, but 21 out of 22 in 2009. Their share of the vote can be better judged by the slip from over 29.1% in the Camborne wards in 2007 to just over 24% in the 2009 Camborne Divisions.
It was a very bad election for the Liberal Democrats in 2009.
It was an excellent one for the Conservatives whose increase in vote share is partly due to having 21 candidates in the 22 divisions as opposed to 21 out of 44 candidates and only standing in 11 of the twenty wards in 2007 but also to the fact that they managed to hold or increase their vote across the area. In Camborne, 4 out of the 5 Divisions (counting Troon and Beacon) against very split opposition.
The Independents continued to do very well across the old district, wirth candidates (sometimes more than one) in 20 out of 22 Divisions in 2009, having candidates in 18 out of 20 of the old wards in 2007 (only one in Camborne though). Their vote share was considerably improved even thought they faced party candidates in every Division this time.
For Labour, it was an unmitigated disaster, failing to win a single election in its traditionally strongest area of Cornwall. They had 17 candidates out of 22 divisions, having only fielded 8 candidates in 6 wards in 2007. Despite this, the Labour vote fell by almost a third. In Camborne, Labour came bottom, or next to bottom, in every division.
Mebyon Kernow had fielded only 8 candidates in the 2007 council elections in 5 wards. In the 2009 Unitary elections they put up candidates in 8 divisions. They slipped back quite considerably in terms of vote share, but managed to see a candidate elected in Camborne South (Stuart Cullimore) with only 28.4% of the votes cast and a 20 vote majority over the Tories.
The Liberal Party had 6 candidates in 5 wards in 2007, including the victorious Paul Holmes in Illogan North. They fought 6 divisions in 2009, falling back considerably in their normally strong Illogan base, with Mr Holmes losing out to the Conservative's Terry Wilkins.
For UKIP, from fielding 14 candidates in 7 wards in 2007, they only fielded candidates in 2 divisions in 2009, polling fairly decently in both.
The Greens only ran a candidate in 2009 in St Day and Lanner.
Coming to the 2013 Unitary Elections.
Party Votes Percent Seats
Independent 6609 26.0% 8
Conservative 6252 24.6% 7
UKIP 5530 21.8% 4
Labour 3389 13.3% 2
Mebyon Kernow 1889 7.4% 1
Liberal Democrat 867 3.4% 0
Green Party 725 2.9% 0
Liberal Party 143 0.6% 0
The real story of these elections in the old Kerrier district is the remarkable progress of UKIP who fielded 21 candidates in 22 divisions, managing to win in four and coming very close in several others. In Camborne, they took the Pendarves and Treswithian divisions by majorities of 21 and 12 votes, just missing out on Trelothan by 7 votes and Trelowarren by 18 votes. In low turnout elections, those wantng to vote UKIP were very motivated and nealy pulled off a remarkable near-clean sweep in Camborne (they were also-rans in Roskear, but still polled fairly well).
Whilst in other parts of Cornwall where there have been more disappointing results where UKIP have been firmly established, UKIP , with some history in Camborne, did remarkably and completely wrong footed the main parties.
In the absence on the Lib Dems as a traditional party of protest, Labour may have hoped to be the main beneficiaries, but UKIP has reached across to many people who felt disenfranchised or angry and they did well across the area, gaining Mabe, Perranarworthal and St. Gluvias division and Four Lanes division. They just missed out in Redruth North by 36 votes, were a fairly close third in Illogan and generally acquited themselves beyond, I suspect, even their own expectations.
As it traditional, Independent candidates continue to pull in the most votes in the area but, with Indepedent candidates only contesting half the divisions at this election, and votes turning to party candidates more and more, the vote share was well down from 2009 and the Independents no long hold close to half the seats.
The Conservatives had a mixed election, seeing their vote share fall back by 2.6% and only holding 7 divisions (as opposed to 10 in 2009), any disappointment will be tempered by how much worse it could have been. They will be worried by the UKIP advance, but so will the other parties as UKIP seems to had a big chunk out of everybody's potential voter base. They fielded 18 candidates (21 last time), which will explain much of the drop in their vote share. In terms of vote, they pretty much stood still, in terms of seats, they slipped back.
Labour should feel extremely disappointed with these election results; whilst they were coming back from the disaster of 2009, they really should have done better in terms of both votes gained and seats won. It will be very disappointing for them that Jude Robinson, the lone Labour UA councillor after a remarkable byelection win in the old Camborne North Division, failed to win in the new Roskear division, but she did manage to poll extremely well after the depths of 2009, but otherwise, they should have done better in Camborne (byelections had suggested they might), Redruth and Carn Brae and Illogan areas. They pulled off a great victory in Pool and Tehidy and almost grabbed an unexpected victory in Redruth South, but Labour's one victory in Camborne, with less than 20% of the vote (their poorest vote in Camborne), is not exactly a ringing endorsement or a good sign for the General Election. They can comfort themselves with the knowledge that the doubled their vote share whilst fielding the same number (17) of candidates as in 2009, but they have to hope that the UKIP surge is spent.
The real diaster was for the Liberal Democrats, who only fought six divisions which, given one would have assumed a bounceback after the bad results in 2009, was surprising. What was more surprising was how badly the those few candidates did:
Camborne Treslothan: 6.8%, 6th place
Illogan: 13.7%, 4th place
Helston North: 5.1%, 4th place
Helston South: 19.8%, 2nd place
Porthleven and Helston West: 3.2%, 4th place
Mabe, Perranarworthal and St. Gluvias: 22.9%, 3rd place
I had fully expected the Liberal Democrats to have good chances in Camborne Treslothan, Illogan, 'Porthleven and Helston West', and 'Mabe, Perranarworthal and St. Gluvias'. Any targeting done in fewer Divisions seems to have failed and one can only imagine the state of the local activist base in places like Camborne where the party was recently in a fairly strong position.
Mebyon Kernow-Party of Cornwall (the English appellation a conscious reference to the Plaid Cymru-Party of Wales nomenclature) will be happy to have seen the redoubtable Dr Loveday Jenkins easily elected in Crowan and Wendron after her earlier gaining of the Wnedron division in a byelection. They will be more disappointed with the loss of an elected councillor in Camborne where Treswithian was a notional MK-PC seat and Trelothan was a hope for them. With 8 candidates (same as 2009), they slightly improved their vote share and nearly pulled off a suprise victory in Illogan.
The Green ran four candidates this time and polled surprisingly well in St. Keverne and Meneage, taking over 30% of the vote - their 2.9% of the poll is mostly the result of that result.
The Liberal Party only ran one candidate this time, former councillor Paul Holmes in Four Lanes, where he trailed in fourth.
Below are more detailed reflections on each division and the election results.
Breage, Germoe and Sithney
From a very close run election and evenly divided field in 2009 when there were 4 candidates, this one a two-horse race between defending Conservative Councillor John Keeling and UKIP's Michael Mahon, who came in last in 2009.
Elected as an Independent in 2009, Councillor Keeling joined the Conservatives and will be happy to have achieved 55.1% of the vote having only managed to take 31.4% and a 36 majority in 2009.
His majority of 104 here doesn't tell the whole story as UKIP polled very well here, almost trebling their vote share in the former Division in 2009. With another candidate standing, we might now have a UKIP councillor in this Division.
A 29.8% voter turnout, greatly down on 2009 and probably a reflection of unhappiness with the electoral choice as Independents usually poll well here. A relatively high number of spoiled ballots (57, 3.4% of the vote) seems to indicate some truth in this speculation.
Camborne Pendarves
Camborne proved to be happy hunting territory for UKIP and Harry Blakely pulled off a stunning victory, coming from nowhere to snatch this seat from the Conservatives, whose defending councillor David Biggs had stepped down and were now represented by David Atherfold.
Mr Blakely's 21 majority over Mr Atherfold was one of the great successes for UKIP in the old Kerrier area. I had predicted a Tory hold, or a Labour gain(!) but Labour's Trevor Chalker failed to emulate successes in local byelection's for Labour and trailed in 4th with 18.7% of the vote. UKIP pulled in a lot of support from working class voters in Camborne and, with a very divided field, managed to come through the middle.
MK-PC's John Gilllingham had a healthy vote share of 19.7% but this was one of the seats they thought they had a good chance of winning. For the Conservatives to lose by 2% must have been very galling but, with just under 30% of the vote, they did well.
The absence of a Liberal Democrat candidate is both surprising and, as with the rest of the Cmaborne Divisions, perhaps indicative of how far they have fallen from their once powerful position in Camborne.
An okay turnout for Camborne, but 32.2% is not exactly stellar.
Camborne Roskear
This was a very hard fought election and Labour received one of its highest vote shares in Cornwall, taking 35.8% of the vote. Defending the Division after her surprise byelection victory in mid-term, I really thought that Jude Robinson would prevail and go from being on her own to being part of a confortably sized Labour Group at County Hall. However, The Conservative victor, Paul White, had already proved himself a successful campaigner and he managed to take the seat by 40 votes with 39.1% - technically a Tory hold, Mr White's victory is impressive.
As consolation, Labour added 25.1% to their vote share, which would have given them the seat in any other Camborne division (and many other places besides).
UKIP's Tess Hulland pulled in a respectable 19.5% to take third place.
For John Rowe of MK-PC, a big drop in his poll from 2009 and bringing up the rear with just 6% of the vote, suffering from a squeeze by the two main parties.
Again, no Liberal Democrat candidate after coming second in 2009.
35.1% turnout, the best in Camborne with a very tough election battle increasing voter interest.
Camborne Trelowarren
I put this as too close to call, and that turned out to be spot on with defendiing Conservative councillor, John Stoneman, holding the seat by 18 votes from UKIP's Roger Laity and 46 from Labour's Adam Crickett. Whilst close, it was better then the 3 vote majority he achieved in the old Camborne Central division in 2009.
With no Liberal Democrat candidate (who just missed out in 2009), Labour must have hoped that they might take the seat and whilst they will be happy with the big increase in their vote share, they will have been very disappointed to not pick up former Lib Dem voters and to have lost out to UKIP in second place.
MK-PC saw a big drop in their vote share but they at least didn't come last as the Green candidate, David Everett, managed only 4.2%.
So split was the vote that Cllr Stoneman managed to hold on with only 30.3%, 3.1% less than when he just scraped in in 2009.
Only a 23.9% voter turnout.
Camborne Treslothan
Well, this was a pearler or a result. I struggled to decide who would win this seat, maybe MK-PC's Alan Sanders, or Labour's Robert Webber, but plumped for the only Liberal Democrat standing in Camborne, Anna Pascoe, on the mistaken belief that she would have the ground game. What I didn't doubt was that the defending Conservative councillor, Morwenna Williams, would lose her seat - she slipped to 5th place with her vote share in the old Troon and Beacon division in 2009 more than halved to 15.1%.
This election result shows this division to be the most fissiparous in Cornwall, Labour's Robert Webber winning with a only 19.8% of the vote, only 7 votes ahead of UKIP's Roy Appleton with Independent Nicholas heather in third place only another 20 votes behind. Mr Webber pulled off a town council byelection victory in this area and his team must be mightily relieved to have had that campaign as it is probably what enabled them to win through this time.
Deeply disappointed must have been MK-PC's Alan Sanders who surely should have been the favourite to win here with a solid vote to build on and only 41 votes off victory in 2009. I said it'd be a singular disaster if he didn't win and, with only 15.1% of the vote, I stand by that.
There were only 42 votes between fifth place and victory, with only Anna Pascoe (6.8%)in 6th, and the Green's Jacqueline Merrick (6.4%) in 7th, not coming close.
Mr Webber must still be thanking his lucky stars.
A disappointing 28.1% turnout.
Camborne Treswithian
Challenging Treslothan in the fissiparous stakes is this division, when a photo finish between the four candidates saw just 28 votes separating the victor from last place.
In my prediction, I said I honestly didn't know who would win. I certainly didn't think that UKIP's Viv Lewis would and there was no history to suggest otherwise. For Labour, stalwart Steve Richards came in a very creditable second place, raising the Labour vote from the old Camborne South division from 6% to 25.2%, the Conservatives' Jeff Collins will be disappointed to have come so close and lose with 24.8% and only 20 votes behind but they held on to their vote very well.
It would appear that the Lib Dem vote from 2009 mostly flowed to Labour and MK-PC candidate Mike Champion must be bitterly disappointed to have failed to hold the one seat in Camborne that Mebyon Kernow had held in 2009 with retired councillor Stuart Cullimore. This is an occasion when Mr Cullimore might have been able to pull across enough personal votes to hold it. Nonetheless, Mr Champion managed to hold onto most of the vote share with 23.4% of the poll.
UKIP proved to be a remarkable dark horse in most of Camborne and slipped through the middle here. Cllr Lewis has a tiny 12 vote majority here but that is enough for 4 years in County Hall.
A 28.6% voter turnout.
Carharrack, Gwennap and St Day
Never a seat likely to change hands, sitting councillor and Cabinet Mamber Mark Kaczmarek was alwys certain to keep hold of this redrawn division; that he did so with 62.4% of the vote is a credit to him and his 558 majority over UKIP's David Parker is a great achievement. His prominent role in the previous administration does not seem to have caused him any drop in popularity.
The only question was who would come second and UKIP should be satisfied with 18.5% of the poll from a standing start. With a smaller field than Cllr Kaczmarek faced in 2009 (including no Conservative or Liberal Democrat standing), both the Green's Geoff Garbett (10.3%) and Labour's Rosanna Phillips (8.8%) have reason to feel some satisfaction in their vote shares increasing.
Constantine, Mawnan and Budock
There was never any chance of an upset here with Conservative councillor Neil Hatton defending an near 1,000 majority over the (now absent) Lib Dems in 2009. The only real interest was whether the marvellously named Lomond Moonyean Handley of UKIP could eat into Cllr. Hatton's near 72% of the vote to create a decent second place and if Labour's Susan Webber could take advantage of the Liberal Democrat absence to significantly increase the 7.1% vote share in the Constantine Division in 2009.
Ms Lomond Moonyean Handley (sorry, an name this magnificent needs to be used in full at all times) received 29.1% of the vote and has every reason to feel happy about that with the Tory share down to a very decent 57.3% and a 442 vote cushion.
In the absence of a Liberal Democrat candidate, Susan Webber might have hoped to do better than 13.6% but will not be too unhappy.
32.9% turnout.
Crowan and Wendron
Unsurprisingly, MK-PC's Dr Loveday Jenkin firmly held onto her byelection gain in this Division, greatly increasing her vote-share to 54.9% and with a very comfy 461 majority. Conservative Linda taylor, who had slightly increased the Conservative vote from 2009 in the byelection, managed to do so again and, whilst in a distant second place, should not be too unhappy with 21.2% but, in the absence of a UKIP candidate this time, might have hoped to do better.
Won by the late Independent Councillor Mike Clayton on a low vote share of 31.7% in 2009, the Independent mantle was taken up this time by David Knight, but after the byelection victory of Dr Jenkin, it was always going to be a tough call and he only managed 3rd place and 16.6% of the poll.
Labour's Jackie Harding will be disppointed to have only managed a 7.3% vote share but at least she achieved my other target for her - treble figures (100) votes.
A good result for Mebyon Kernow-Party of Cornwall's former leader and she should be safe here for as long as she wishes.
32.3% turnout.
Four Lanes
Oh well, if you are going to get something wrong, get it very wrong - I had suprised a Liberal Party supporter by predicting a Paul Holmes victory. I should have changed my prediction on that basis as he trailed in a very poor fourth with only 17% of the vote. I did not believe that the defending Conservative, Cllr. Peter Sheppard (elected for Carn Brae North), could hold onto this reorganised division and this proved right and he scraped second place with 20.6%.
The real surprise was that UKIP's Derek Elliott slipped through the middle to take the seat with 28.5%. As I noted at the time, Mr Elliott is not particularly local and I thought he would struggle against better organised local figures, but a very divided field let him through with a 66 vote majority. UKIP seems to have taken votes from all parties and, in the absence of a Liberal Democrat challenger this time, obviously, in the overall churn, picked up many votes from them too. The low turnout (24%) is not a good sign, mind.
For Labour, just edged into third place by 4 votes, it was an acceptable result and it was not a seat I really saw Labour taking, but 20.1% of the vote will be disappointing for their candidate, Matthew Brown.
MK-PC's Chris Lawrence was never likely to win here, despite the party once having a district council seat in this area, though he might have hoped to do better than 5th and 13.7% of the vote.
In the parts of Cornwall where they have had a fairly strong history (Penzance, east Cornwall), UKIP seems to have done worse than expected than in those Divisions where they have not really run before, such as around the Camborne and Redruth area.
A poor 24.5% turnout, with not a spoiled ballot paper, so at least every vote counted.
Illogan
Conservative Terry Wilkins would have been relieved to win in 2009 with 32.8% of the vote, he'll be even more surprised to have held on by 28.8% of the vote. Helped by a split field in 2009, he must have thought he couldn't be so lucky twice.
I had predicted that it would be a close three-horse race, but just thought the MK-PC's Stephen Richardson would squeak it with the support he had received from former Lib Dem stalwart (and former county, district and town councillor) Terry Rowe. He did receive a creditable 25.2% and was only 41 votes behind, but this is another disappointment to MK-PC's high hopes at this election.
I hadn't thought that the third horse would be UKIP's Don Armstrong who came a strong third with 22.5% of the votes cast and just 82 votes away from the top spot. He has undoubtedly picked up a lot of normally 'left of centre' voters.
For the Liberal Democrats and their candidate Davd Ekynsmith, this can be nothing but a very deep disappointment in one of the few wards they were contesting in this area. On the face of it, they have increased their vote in the old Illogan division in 2009 from 9.9% to 13.7%, but must have hoped that the absence of Liberal Party stalwart, Paul Holmes (standing in Four Lanes) would have boosted their vote share. It is worth pointing out that between them, Mr Holmes, Independent (former Lib Dem) David Ford and the Lib Dem's Amanda Mannion managed 60.6% of the vote in 2009. Things are not good for the Lib Dems in this part of Cornwall.
For Labour, equal disappointment in that Linda Moore could only manage to scrape in last with 9.9% of the vote, undoubtedly squeezed out by MK-PC.
a 30.4% turnout.
Pool and Tehidy
Now, this was an open-race in that the Liberal Democrat's defending councillor, Kim Willoughby, decided not to defend the seat - indeed, the Lib Dems didn't even put up a candidate this time round. The old Carn Brae South division was amazing in that it revealed Cornish political fissiparousness at its most remarkable. The seat was won with only 27.8% of the vote, 26 votes ahead of Independent candidate Diana Cousins and 78 votes ahead of the Conservative Pam Rowett.
In 2009, trailing in fifth behind a Liberal candidate, came Labour's Linda Moore (moved to Illogan this time).
Despite this, in a field reduced to just Labour, Conservative and UKIP, I predicted that Labour's Malcolm Moyle, a former district councillor and mayor, would take the seat, and he did so with 41.4% of the vote (from 12.6% in 2009), gaining most of the former Lib Dem and Liberal support. The Conservatives' Clive Bramley just took second place from UKIP's Christine Bleakley by two votes.
One of Labour's best results in Cornwall.
A 25.9% voter turnout.
Helston North
The seat of the former, and ousted, Conservative leader of the Council, Alec Robertson, was likely to be a tough call for him. Whilst I predicted he would hold his seat, I also said that if he fell much below 40% that he could be in trouble, and so it proved.
For Mr Robertson, it must have been a bitter blow to lose, especially as his vote only slipped by 4.6%. His downfall was due to Independent candidate Phil Martin, a distant second in 2009, managing to suck up the majority of the Lib Dem vote from 2009 (along with other votes) to take the Division with a swing of 12.8%. This is third time lucky for the redoubtable Mr Martin so congratulations.
For the Lib Dem's Molly Scrase, it was nothing short of a disaster, with her party's vote share slumping to 5.1% in an area where they held the county council seat in 2005 (with 46.3% of the vote).
UKIP's Leonie Gough was out of this race but managed to register a decent 13.8% of the vote.
A 35.6% turnout, similar to the old division in 2009.
Helston South
A fairly easy hold here for Independent councillor Judith Haycock, although her share of the vote (39.3%) was less than it was in the old Helston Central division. She'll be happy enough with a 212 majority, but this is slightly flattering in that she had a very divided opposition. Her main challenger proved to be Liberal Democrat John Martin with 19.8% of the vote, just edging out UKIP's Scott Blandford (19.3%) by 5 votes.
For the Conservatives, Tanya Dyer managed a disappointing 13% whilst, trailing in fifth place, with his wonderfully ambitious plans for the town, was Independent candidate James Buchanan with 8.6%.
A disappointing 27.7% turnout.
Porthleven and Helston West
Well, I place this among my absolute howlers of predictions, reminding those of us who are fascinated by politics that Cornish politics loves to ridicule.
Whilst I predicted a hold for Councillor Andrew Wallis, I suggested that the Lib Dem candidate, Richard Goedegebuur, would be close behind. Well - talk about stamping on one's expectations.
In my defence, Cllr Wallis only achieved 31.5% of the vote in the old Portleven and Helston South division (whose demographics are not too different from the present division), beating the Liberal Democrat candidate by only 17 votes. Also, who was to know just how disasterous things would be for the Liberal Democrats in this part of Cornwall where one had expected a bounceback since 2009.
Anyway, enough of the mea culpas, Mr Wallis took a stunning 65% of the vote and has a majority of 517 over the Conservatives lively candidate, Liz Lane. She managed to hold onto most of the Tory vote with 17.4%.
UKIP's Stephen Gough just bettered his wife Leonie's share of the vote in Helston North with 14.4% of the poll and third place.
For the Liberal Democrats - as with Helston North, a bloody disaster with a humiliating 3.2% of the vote and only 35 out of 1,086 valid votes cast. This in an area they are used to getting over 30% of the vote.
For completion, this was a swing from Liberal Democrat to Independent of 31.55% of the vote.
A 32.1% turnout.
Lanner and Stithians
A new Diivision, this was always going to be interesting, not least because the 'defending' councillor, Neil Plummer, had left the Independent Group to sit as an MK-PC councillor but then stood as an Independent again. I surmised that this was because being an Independent would be more likely to bring success and I did predict that he would win, but there was a question mark as some might question his 'independence' As it turned out, he was just edged out by 41 votes by another Independent candidate, John Thomas, at one time a Liberal Democrat councillor, but having stood as an Independent in recent years. He achieved 33.3% of the vote.
Mr Plummer took a 30.1% poll share whilst, in third place, another Independent candidate, James Biscoe, managed to claim 14.7%
For UKIP, model railway enthusiast Bob Mims's candidacy failed to gain much traction (I know, I'm sorry) and he came in 5th with 10.6%.
Labour's Laura Eyre, as predicted, didn't have much hope in an area not good for the party in recent years and will be very disappointed to have only achieved 6.4% of the votes cast.
At least she didn't trail in last, this honour falling to Independent candidate, Peter Tisdale, with 5%.
A 34.3% turnout.
Mabe, Perranarworthal and St. Gluvias
A split vote in 2009 in the old Mabe division saw Conservative Chris Ridgers take this seat with only 29.9% of the vote, and a similarly split vote this time gave a stunning victory to the UKIP candidate, Michal Keogh, who gained the seat with only 28.6% of the vote and a breathtakingly small majority of 3 votes over over the aforementioned Mr Ridgers.
Mr Ridgers must have seen his main threat as coming from former county councillor and political elections expert, John Ault, whom I predicted would take back the Division for the LiberalDemocrats.
Mr Ridgers did remarkably well to hold onto most of his vote and take 28.4% and must be shattered to have lost by so little a margin, but I had predicted that a good vote for UKIP would be poison for the Tories, I just hadn't realised it would mean victory for them.
For Mr Ault, I would guess a most unexpected defeat when the campaign began but he must have seen the way the political winds were going. Unlike many of his party colleagues in this area, he did at least manage to hold onto a decent share of his party's vote (22.9%).
The Independent candidate, Christopher Jackson, did not manage to unite anti-political party feeling in the area as that fell to UKIP, but he managed to take 11% of the vote.
For Labour, party veteran Betty Ross will be happy to have avoided a greater squeeze and increased the Labour share to 8.9%.
As I suggested above, UKIP seem to have taken much of the strong traditional Independent vote in the area, as well taking votes from the Liberal Democrats, Conservatives and, I assume, some normally non-voting people.
A quite unexpected result.
A decent 39.9% voter turnout, but sharply down on the turnout in the old division.
Mullion and Grade-Ruan
This seat was defended by the formerly Conservative (until March of 2013) and now Independent councillor and Cornwall Cabinet Member, Carolyn Rule. It was always likely to be held by her although now a 'technical' gain from the Conservatives, and so it proved. Taking 48% and a majority of 236 votes, Councillor Rule will be quite satisfied with the way that things turned out.
In the absence of a Liberal Democrat candidate (main challengers in 2009), UKIP's David Icke-liking Nina Sutherland took up the mantle of main opposition, coming in a very decent second place with 28.3% of the vote.
In a slightly forlorn third place, the Conservatives' Alfred Mesropians, a local hotelier, managed 23.7% of the vote.
The Liberal Democrats not fielding a candidate suprised me, as it did others, but giving some of the results they achieved in this area, I suppose they knew what was coming.
A 36.2% turnout, again sharply down on 2009.
Redruth Central
A solid result here for Councillor Mike Eddowes who, as predicted, held his seat. Taking 40.3% of the vote, up nearly 10% since 2009, Mr Eddowes will be pleased but it was with a shockingly low poll of only 21%, down by 30% from 2009. He actually has less votes than he had in 2009.
Coming surpringly close in second plce was UKIP's Wally Duncan, with 34.6% and 36 votes behind. With no history here, it is a very good result for UKIP and shows that they have picked up support from across the spectrum.
Coming in a decent third, but surely with an element of disappointment, is Labour's Raymond Webber, who, although he was never going to win this seat, might have hoped to be somewhat close. With 25.1%, it is a lot better than the 9.8% in 2009, but Labour really should do better in this sort of seat. I accept they will have concentrated elswhere in Redruth.
Redruth North
This really must be a deeply disappointing result for Labour. This is the Division that gave the party its highest vote in Cornwall in 2009 and it was long time former district and county councillor, Robert Stephen Barnes who was trying to regain the seat.
This seat was formerly a banker for Labour and not to be able to regain it will cause a certain amount of introspection, one would hope.
Councillor Lisa Dolly, one of the Standalone Independents and someone who has stood here unsuccessfully in the past, increased her vote share from 37.6% last time to 41.2% this and, although Mr Barnes managed to increase the Labour vote share to 34% (from 28.6% last time), a less than 1% swing to Labour is not good. Whilst it may be argued that the lack of a Conservative candidate harmed Labour's chances, as most of their vote probably went the way of UKIP, that is rather beside the point.
As Ms Dolly is a former Lib Dem district Councillor, maybe she gained from the lack of a party candidate this time.
UKIP's Ann Wood will be happy to have put the party on the map here with 24.8%.
Another very depressing voter turnout of only 23.1% here, but up on 2009.
Redruth South
With long term district and county councillor Graham Hicks stepping down, it was interesting to see how this Division would turn out. I predicted a possible game changer and it very nearly was. Independent candidate Ian Thomas managed to hold on to the Independent seat with 41.4%, a big drop from the former councillors 60.8% but he obviously had a massive personal vote of the vote. Mr Thomas managed to hold on by 31 votes over Labour's Will Tremayne.
I bet Labour wishes it had concentrated its attentions in Redruth on this Division as it saw a dramatic improvement in its vote, going from an appalling 4.6% and 55 votes in 2009 to 37.7% and 311 votes in 2013. In Will Tremayne, they obviously had a very popular and canny candidate.
The only other candidate this time was UKIP's Ray Wyse whose 20.9% of the vote from a standing start was pretty decent. Whilst it is daft to make sweeping statements, it would appear he took most of the Conservative vote (no candidate this time) as Labour seems to have swept up most of the Lib Dem and some Independent votes from last time.
The turnout here was again disappointing but, at 27.1%, considerably better than the other Redruth divisions. Down by over 30% on 2009.
St Keverne and Meneage
Having gained the St Keverne Division in a byelection in 2012 (following the sudden death of Independent councillor, Pamela Lyne), Conservative Walter Sanger (who came third as an Independent candidate in 2009 - do try to keep up), was certain to hold on. The surprise is how well the Green Party's Dominic Bradreth did, coming in only 129 votes behind on 32.2% of the vote.
Cllr. Sanger had achieved 52.8% of the vote in the byelection, with the Lib Dem's Nicholas Driver in second place. In the absence of a Lib Dem, I had speculated that Mr Brandreth could do well, and so it proved - somewhat better, I suspect, than the Liberal Democrats would have managed, given their votes in this area at this election.
For UKIP, Brian Bailey managed to significantly increase the UKIP vote from the byelection from 13.4% to 22.8%, and this would seem to explain much of the drop in Cllr. Sanger's vote share to 40.5%.
For Labour's Ann Round, a pretty dreadful result of only 4.4%, down from the byelection share of 4.9% but up from the awful 1.7% of 2009.
A 38.4% turnout, down by nearly a fifth on 2009.
The last time that local council elections took place in the now defunct (as of 2009) Kerrier District Council, these were the results:
Party Votes Percent Seats
Independent 8140 30.6% 22
Liberal Democrat 5377 20.2% 11
Conservative 5219 19.6% 5
Mebyon Kernow 2509 9.4% 3
Labour 2489 9.4% 2
UKIP 1656 6.2% 0
Liberal Party 1183 4.5% 1
Not much of a change on 2003's results for anybody but Labour, who lost 3 seats, only contested 8 of the wards and fell behind Mebyon Kernow. In an area which should be the stongest for them in Cornwall, they polled badly.
In 2009, the Unitary Council replaced the County and District/Borough Councils and the results for what would have been the old district were:
Party Votes Percent Seats
Independent 11150 37.2% 10
Conservative 8073 27.0% 10
Liberal Democrat 5493 18.3% 1
Labour 1984 6.6% 0
Mebyon Kernow 1938 6.5% 1
Liberal Party 700 2.3% 0
UKIP 493 1.6% 0
Green Party 117 0.4% 0
A big change from 2007 with the Liberal Democrats share of the vote apparently only slipping back a little but being reduced to on 1 seat out of 22, as opposed to 11 out of 44 on the old District council. The reason for the apparently small vote change is that they only had candidates for 24 of the 44 seats in 12 of the twenty wards in 2007, but 21 out of 22 in 2009. Their share of the vote can be better judged by the slip from over 29.1% in the Camborne wards in 2007 to just over 24% in the 2009 Camborne Divisions.
It was a very bad election for the Liberal Democrats in 2009.
It was an excellent one for the Conservatives whose increase in vote share is partly due to having 21 candidates in the 22 divisions as opposed to 21 out of 44 candidates and only standing in 11 of the twenty wards in 2007 but also to the fact that they managed to hold or increase their vote across the area. In Camborne, 4 out of the 5 Divisions (counting Troon and Beacon) against very split opposition.
The Independents continued to do very well across the old district, wirth candidates (sometimes more than one) in 20 out of 22 Divisions in 2009, having candidates in 18 out of 20 of the old wards in 2007 (only one in Camborne though). Their vote share was considerably improved even thought they faced party candidates in every Division this time.
For Labour, it was an unmitigated disaster, failing to win a single election in its traditionally strongest area of Cornwall. They had 17 candidates out of 22 divisions, having only fielded 8 candidates in 6 wards in 2007. Despite this, the Labour vote fell by almost a third. In Camborne, Labour came bottom, or next to bottom, in every division.
Mebyon Kernow had fielded only 8 candidates in the 2007 council elections in 5 wards. In the 2009 Unitary elections they put up candidates in 8 divisions. They slipped back quite considerably in terms of vote share, but managed to see a candidate elected in Camborne South (Stuart Cullimore) with only 28.4% of the votes cast and a 20 vote majority over the Tories.
The Liberal Party had 6 candidates in 5 wards in 2007, including the victorious Paul Holmes in Illogan North. They fought 6 divisions in 2009, falling back considerably in their normally strong Illogan base, with Mr Holmes losing out to the Conservative's Terry Wilkins.
For UKIP, from fielding 14 candidates in 7 wards in 2007, they only fielded candidates in 2 divisions in 2009, polling fairly decently in both.
The Greens only ran a candidate in 2009 in St Day and Lanner.
Coming to the 2013 Unitary Elections.
Party Votes Percent Seats
Independent 6609 26.0% 8
Conservative 6252 24.6% 7
UKIP 5530 21.8% 4
Labour 3389 13.3% 2
Mebyon Kernow 1889 7.4% 1
Liberal Democrat 867 3.4% 0
Green Party 725 2.9% 0
Liberal Party 143 0.6% 0
The real story of these elections in the old Kerrier district is the remarkable progress of UKIP who fielded 21 candidates in 22 divisions, managing to win in four and coming very close in several others. In Camborne, they took the Pendarves and Treswithian divisions by majorities of 21 and 12 votes, just missing out on Trelothan by 7 votes and Trelowarren by 18 votes. In low turnout elections, those wantng to vote UKIP were very motivated and nealy pulled off a remarkable near-clean sweep in Camborne (they were also-rans in Roskear, but still polled fairly well).
Whilst in other parts of Cornwall where there have been more disappointing results where UKIP have been firmly established, UKIP , with some history in Camborne, did remarkably and completely wrong footed the main parties.
In the absence on the Lib Dems as a traditional party of protest, Labour may have hoped to be the main beneficiaries, but UKIP has reached across to many people who felt disenfranchised or angry and they did well across the area, gaining Mabe, Perranarworthal and St. Gluvias division and Four Lanes division. They just missed out in Redruth North by 36 votes, were a fairly close third in Illogan and generally acquited themselves beyond, I suspect, even their own expectations.
As it traditional, Independent candidates continue to pull in the most votes in the area but, with Indepedent candidates only contesting half the divisions at this election, and votes turning to party candidates more and more, the vote share was well down from 2009 and the Independents no long hold close to half the seats.
The Conservatives had a mixed election, seeing their vote share fall back by 2.6% and only holding 7 divisions (as opposed to 10 in 2009), any disappointment will be tempered by how much worse it could have been. They will be worried by the UKIP advance, but so will the other parties as UKIP seems to had a big chunk out of everybody's potential voter base. They fielded 18 candidates (21 last time), which will explain much of the drop in their vote share. In terms of vote, they pretty much stood still, in terms of seats, they slipped back.
Labour should feel extremely disappointed with these election results; whilst they were coming back from the disaster of 2009, they really should have done better in terms of both votes gained and seats won. It will be very disappointing for them that Jude Robinson, the lone Labour UA councillor after a remarkable byelection win in the old Camborne North Division, failed to win in the new Roskear division, but she did manage to poll extremely well after the depths of 2009, but otherwise, they should have done better in Camborne (byelections had suggested they might), Redruth and Carn Brae and Illogan areas. They pulled off a great victory in Pool and Tehidy and almost grabbed an unexpected victory in Redruth South, but Labour's one victory in Camborne, with less than 20% of the vote (their poorest vote in Camborne), is not exactly a ringing endorsement or a good sign for the General Election. They can comfort themselves with the knowledge that the doubled their vote share whilst fielding the same number (17) of candidates as in 2009, but they have to hope that the UKIP surge is spent.
The real diaster was for the Liberal Democrats, who only fought six divisions which, given one would have assumed a bounceback after the bad results in 2009, was surprising. What was more surprising was how badly the those few candidates did:
Camborne Treslothan: 6.8%, 6th place
Illogan: 13.7%, 4th place
Helston North: 5.1%, 4th place
Helston South: 19.8%, 2nd place
Porthleven and Helston West: 3.2%, 4th place
Mabe, Perranarworthal and St. Gluvias: 22.9%, 3rd place
I had fully expected the Liberal Democrats to have good chances in Camborne Treslothan, Illogan, 'Porthleven and Helston West', and 'Mabe, Perranarworthal and St. Gluvias'. Any targeting done in fewer Divisions seems to have failed and one can only imagine the state of the local activist base in places like Camborne where the party was recently in a fairly strong position.
Mebyon Kernow-Party of Cornwall (the English appellation a conscious reference to the Plaid Cymru-Party of Wales nomenclature) will be happy to have seen the redoubtable Dr Loveday Jenkins easily elected in Crowan and Wendron after her earlier gaining of the Wnedron division in a byelection. They will be more disappointed with the loss of an elected councillor in Camborne where Treswithian was a notional MK-PC seat and Trelothan was a hope for them. With 8 candidates (same as 2009), they slightly improved their vote share and nearly pulled off a suprise victory in Illogan.
The Green ran four candidates this time and polled surprisingly well in St. Keverne and Meneage, taking over 30% of the vote - their 2.9% of the poll is mostly the result of that result.
The Liberal Party only ran one candidate this time, former councillor Paul Holmes in Four Lanes, where he trailed in fourth.
Below are more detailed reflections on each division and the election results.
Breage, Germoe and Sithney
From a very close run election and evenly divided field in 2009 when there were 4 candidates, this one a two-horse race between defending Conservative Councillor John Keeling and UKIP's Michael Mahon, who came in last in 2009.
Elected as an Independent in 2009, Councillor Keeling joined the Conservatives and will be happy to have achieved 55.1% of the vote having only managed to take 31.4% and a 36 majority in 2009.
His majority of 104 here doesn't tell the whole story as UKIP polled very well here, almost trebling their vote share in the former Division in 2009. With another candidate standing, we might now have a UKIP councillor in this Division.
A 29.8% voter turnout, greatly down on 2009 and probably a reflection of unhappiness with the electoral choice as Independents usually poll well here. A relatively high number of spoiled ballots (57, 3.4% of the vote) seems to indicate some truth in this speculation.
Camborne Pendarves
Camborne proved to be happy hunting territory for UKIP and Harry Blakely pulled off a stunning victory, coming from nowhere to snatch this seat from the Conservatives, whose defending councillor David Biggs had stepped down and were now represented by David Atherfold.
Mr Blakely's 21 majority over Mr Atherfold was one of the great successes for UKIP in the old Kerrier area. I had predicted a Tory hold, or a Labour gain(!) but Labour's Trevor Chalker failed to emulate successes in local byelection's for Labour and trailed in 4th with 18.7% of the vote. UKIP pulled in a lot of support from working class voters in Camborne and, with a very divided field, managed to come through the middle.
MK-PC's John Gilllingham had a healthy vote share of 19.7% but this was one of the seats they thought they had a good chance of winning. For the Conservatives to lose by 2% must have been very galling but, with just under 30% of the vote, they did well.
The absence of a Liberal Democrat candidate is both surprising and, as with the rest of the Cmaborne Divisions, perhaps indicative of how far they have fallen from their once powerful position in Camborne.
An okay turnout for Camborne, but 32.2% is not exactly stellar.
Camborne Roskear
This was a very hard fought election and Labour received one of its highest vote shares in Cornwall, taking 35.8% of the vote. Defending the Division after her surprise byelection victory in mid-term, I really thought that Jude Robinson would prevail and go from being on her own to being part of a confortably sized Labour Group at County Hall. However, The Conservative victor, Paul White, had already proved himself a successful campaigner and he managed to take the seat by 40 votes with 39.1% - technically a Tory hold, Mr White's victory is impressive.
As consolation, Labour added 25.1% to their vote share, which would have given them the seat in any other Camborne division (and many other places besides).
UKIP's Tess Hulland pulled in a respectable 19.5% to take third place.
For John Rowe of MK-PC, a big drop in his poll from 2009 and bringing up the rear with just 6% of the vote, suffering from a squeeze by the two main parties.
Again, no Liberal Democrat candidate after coming second in 2009.
35.1% turnout, the best in Camborne with a very tough election battle increasing voter interest.
Camborne Trelowarren
I put this as too close to call, and that turned out to be spot on with defendiing Conservative councillor, John Stoneman, holding the seat by 18 votes from UKIP's Roger Laity and 46 from Labour's Adam Crickett. Whilst close, it was better then the 3 vote majority he achieved in the old Camborne Central division in 2009.
With no Liberal Democrat candidate (who just missed out in 2009), Labour must have hoped that they might take the seat and whilst they will be happy with the big increase in their vote share, they will have been very disappointed to not pick up former Lib Dem voters and to have lost out to UKIP in second place.
MK-PC saw a big drop in their vote share but they at least didn't come last as the Green candidate, David Everett, managed only 4.2%.
So split was the vote that Cllr Stoneman managed to hold on with only 30.3%, 3.1% less than when he just scraped in in 2009.
Only a 23.9% voter turnout.
Camborne Treslothan
Well, this was a pearler or a result. I struggled to decide who would win this seat, maybe MK-PC's Alan Sanders, or Labour's Robert Webber, but plumped for the only Liberal Democrat standing in Camborne, Anna Pascoe, on the mistaken belief that she would have the ground game. What I didn't doubt was that the defending Conservative councillor, Morwenna Williams, would lose her seat - she slipped to 5th place with her vote share in the old Troon and Beacon division in 2009 more than halved to 15.1%.
This election result shows this division to be the most fissiparous in Cornwall, Labour's Robert Webber winning with a only 19.8% of the vote, only 7 votes ahead of UKIP's Roy Appleton with Independent Nicholas heather in third place only another 20 votes behind. Mr Webber pulled off a town council byelection victory in this area and his team must be mightily relieved to have had that campaign as it is probably what enabled them to win through this time.
Deeply disappointed must have been MK-PC's Alan Sanders who surely should have been the favourite to win here with a solid vote to build on and only 41 votes off victory in 2009. I said it'd be a singular disaster if he didn't win and, with only 15.1% of the vote, I stand by that.
There were only 42 votes between fifth place and victory, with only Anna Pascoe (6.8%)in 6th, and the Green's Jacqueline Merrick (6.4%) in 7th, not coming close.
Mr Webber must still be thanking his lucky stars.
A disappointing 28.1% turnout.
Camborne Treswithian
Challenging Treslothan in the fissiparous stakes is this division, when a photo finish between the four candidates saw just 28 votes separating the victor from last place.
In my prediction, I said I honestly didn't know who would win. I certainly didn't think that UKIP's Viv Lewis would and there was no history to suggest otherwise. For Labour, stalwart Steve Richards came in a very creditable second place, raising the Labour vote from the old Camborne South division from 6% to 25.2%, the Conservatives' Jeff Collins will be disappointed to have come so close and lose with 24.8% and only 20 votes behind but they held on to their vote very well.
It would appear that the Lib Dem vote from 2009 mostly flowed to Labour and MK-PC candidate Mike Champion must be bitterly disappointed to have failed to hold the one seat in Camborne that Mebyon Kernow had held in 2009 with retired councillor Stuart Cullimore. This is an occasion when Mr Cullimore might have been able to pull across enough personal votes to hold it. Nonetheless, Mr Champion managed to hold onto most of the vote share with 23.4% of the poll.
UKIP proved to be a remarkable dark horse in most of Camborne and slipped through the middle here. Cllr Lewis has a tiny 12 vote majority here but that is enough for 4 years in County Hall.
A 28.6% voter turnout.
Carharrack, Gwennap and St Day
Never a seat likely to change hands, sitting councillor and Cabinet Mamber Mark Kaczmarek was alwys certain to keep hold of this redrawn division; that he did so with 62.4% of the vote is a credit to him and his 558 majority over UKIP's David Parker is a great achievement. His prominent role in the previous administration does not seem to have caused him any drop in popularity.
The only question was who would come second and UKIP should be satisfied with 18.5% of the poll from a standing start. With a smaller field than Cllr Kaczmarek faced in 2009 (including no Conservative or Liberal Democrat standing), both the Green's Geoff Garbett (10.3%) and Labour's Rosanna Phillips (8.8%) have reason to feel some satisfaction in their vote shares increasing.
Constantine, Mawnan and Budock
There was never any chance of an upset here with Conservative councillor Neil Hatton defending an near 1,000 majority over the (now absent) Lib Dems in 2009. The only real interest was whether the marvellously named Lomond Moonyean Handley of UKIP could eat into Cllr. Hatton's near 72% of the vote to create a decent second place and if Labour's Susan Webber could take advantage of the Liberal Democrat absence to significantly increase the 7.1% vote share in the Constantine Division in 2009.
Ms Lomond Moonyean Handley (sorry, an name this magnificent needs to be used in full at all times) received 29.1% of the vote and has every reason to feel happy about that with the Tory share down to a very decent 57.3% and a 442 vote cushion.
In the absence of a Liberal Democrat candidate, Susan Webber might have hoped to do better than 13.6% but will not be too unhappy.
32.9% turnout.
Crowan and Wendron
Unsurprisingly, MK-PC's Dr Loveday Jenkin firmly held onto her byelection gain in this Division, greatly increasing her vote-share to 54.9% and with a very comfy 461 majority. Conservative Linda taylor, who had slightly increased the Conservative vote from 2009 in the byelection, managed to do so again and, whilst in a distant second place, should not be too unhappy with 21.2% but, in the absence of a UKIP candidate this time, might have hoped to do better.
Won by the late Independent Councillor Mike Clayton on a low vote share of 31.7% in 2009, the Independent mantle was taken up this time by David Knight, but after the byelection victory of Dr Jenkin, it was always going to be a tough call and he only managed 3rd place and 16.6% of the poll.
Labour's Jackie Harding will be disppointed to have only managed a 7.3% vote share but at least she achieved my other target for her - treble figures (100) votes.
A good result for Mebyon Kernow-Party of Cornwall's former leader and she should be safe here for as long as she wishes.
32.3% turnout.
Four Lanes
Oh well, if you are going to get something wrong, get it very wrong - I had suprised a Liberal Party supporter by predicting a Paul Holmes victory. I should have changed my prediction on that basis as he trailed in a very poor fourth with only 17% of the vote. I did not believe that the defending Conservative, Cllr. Peter Sheppard (elected for Carn Brae North), could hold onto this reorganised division and this proved right and he scraped second place with 20.6%.
The real surprise was that UKIP's Derek Elliott slipped through the middle to take the seat with 28.5%. As I noted at the time, Mr Elliott is not particularly local and I thought he would struggle against better organised local figures, but a very divided field let him through with a 66 vote majority. UKIP seems to have taken votes from all parties and, in the absence of a Liberal Democrat challenger this time, obviously, in the overall churn, picked up many votes from them too. The low turnout (24%) is not a good sign, mind.
For Labour, just edged into third place by 4 votes, it was an acceptable result and it was not a seat I really saw Labour taking, but 20.1% of the vote will be disappointing for their candidate, Matthew Brown.
MK-PC's Chris Lawrence was never likely to win here, despite the party once having a district council seat in this area, though he might have hoped to do better than 5th and 13.7% of the vote.
In the parts of Cornwall where they have had a fairly strong history (Penzance, east Cornwall), UKIP seems to have done worse than expected than in those Divisions where they have not really run before, such as around the Camborne and Redruth area.
A poor 24.5% turnout, with not a spoiled ballot paper, so at least every vote counted.
Illogan
Conservative Terry Wilkins would have been relieved to win in 2009 with 32.8% of the vote, he'll be even more surprised to have held on by 28.8% of the vote. Helped by a split field in 2009, he must have thought he couldn't be so lucky twice.
I had predicted that it would be a close three-horse race, but just thought the MK-PC's Stephen Richardson would squeak it with the support he had received from former Lib Dem stalwart (and former county, district and town councillor) Terry Rowe. He did receive a creditable 25.2% and was only 41 votes behind, but this is another disappointment to MK-PC's high hopes at this election.
I hadn't thought that the third horse would be UKIP's Don Armstrong who came a strong third with 22.5% of the votes cast and just 82 votes away from the top spot. He has undoubtedly picked up a lot of normally 'left of centre' voters.
For the Liberal Democrats and their candidate Davd Ekynsmith, this can be nothing but a very deep disappointment in one of the few wards they were contesting in this area. On the face of it, they have increased their vote in the old Illogan division in 2009 from 9.9% to 13.7%, but must have hoped that the absence of Liberal Party stalwart, Paul Holmes (standing in Four Lanes) would have boosted their vote share. It is worth pointing out that between them, Mr Holmes, Independent (former Lib Dem) David Ford and the Lib Dem's Amanda Mannion managed 60.6% of the vote in 2009. Things are not good for the Lib Dems in this part of Cornwall.
For Labour, equal disappointment in that Linda Moore could only manage to scrape in last with 9.9% of the vote, undoubtedly squeezed out by MK-PC.
a 30.4% turnout.
Pool and Tehidy
Now, this was an open-race in that the Liberal Democrat's defending councillor, Kim Willoughby, decided not to defend the seat - indeed, the Lib Dems didn't even put up a candidate this time round. The old Carn Brae South division was amazing in that it revealed Cornish political fissiparousness at its most remarkable. The seat was won with only 27.8% of the vote, 26 votes ahead of Independent candidate Diana Cousins and 78 votes ahead of the Conservative Pam Rowett.
In 2009, trailing in fifth behind a Liberal candidate, came Labour's Linda Moore (moved to Illogan this time).
Despite this, in a field reduced to just Labour, Conservative and UKIP, I predicted that Labour's Malcolm Moyle, a former district councillor and mayor, would take the seat, and he did so with 41.4% of the vote (from 12.6% in 2009), gaining most of the former Lib Dem and Liberal support. The Conservatives' Clive Bramley just took second place from UKIP's Christine Bleakley by two votes.
One of Labour's best results in Cornwall.
A 25.9% voter turnout.
Helston North
The seat of the former, and ousted, Conservative leader of the Council, Alec Robertson, was likely to be a tough call for him. Whilst I predicted he would hold his seat, I also said that if he fell much below 40% that he could be in trouble, and so it proved.
For Mr Robertson, it must have been a bitter blow to lose, especially as his vote only slipped by 4.6%. His downfall was due to Independent candidate Phil Martin, a distant second in 2009, managing to suck up the majority of the Lib Dem vote from 2009 (along with other votes) to take the Division with a swing of 12.8%. This is third time lucky for the redoubtable Mr Martin so congratulations.
For the Lib Dem's Molly Scrase, it was nothing short of a disaster, with her party's vote share slumping to 5.1% in an area where they held the county council seat in 2005 (with 46.3% of the vote).
UKIP's Leonie Gough was out of this race but managed to register a decent 13.8% of the vote.
A 35.6% turnout, similar to the old division in 2009.
Helston South
A fairly easy hold here for Independent councillor Judith Haycock, although her share of the vote (39.3%) was less than it was in the old Helston Central division. She'll be happy enough with a 212 majority, but this is slightly flattering in that she had a very divided opposition. Her main challenger proved to be Liberal Democrat John Martin with 19.8% of the vote, just edging out UKIP's Scott Blandford (19.3%) by 5 votes.
For the Conservatives, Tanya Dyer managed a disappointing 13% whilst, trailing in fifth place, with his wonderfully ambitious plans for the town, was Independent candidate James Buchanan with 8.6%.
A disappointing 27.7% turnout.
Porthleven and Helston West
Well, I place this among my absolute howlers of predictions, reminding those of us who are fascinated by politics that Cornish politics loves to ridicule.
Whilst I predicted a hold for Councillor Andrew Wallis, I suggested that the Lib Dem candidate, Richard Goedegebuur, would be close behind. Well - talk about stamping on one's expectations.
In my defence, Cllr Wallis only achieved 31.5% of the vote in the old Portleven and Helston South division (whose demographics are not too different from the present division), beating the Liberal Democrat candidate by only 17 votes. Also, who was to know just how disasterous things would be for the Liberal Democrats in this part of Cornwall where one had expected a bounceback since 2009.
Anyway, enough of the mea culpas, Mr Wallis took a stunning 65% of the vote and has a majority of 517 over the Conservatives lively candidate, Liz Lane. She managed to hold onto most of the Tory vote with 17.4%.
UKIP's Stephen Gough just bettered his wife Leonie's share of the vote in Helston North with 14.4% of the poll and third place.
For the Liberal Democrats - as with Helston North, a bloody disaster with a humiliating 3.2% of the vote and only 35 out of 1,086 valid votes cast. This in an area they are used to getting over 30% of the vote.
For completion, this was a swing from Liberal Democrat to Independent of 31.55% of the vote.
A 32.1% turnout.
Lanner and Stithians
A new Diivision, this was always going to be interesting, not least because the 'defending' councillor, Neil Plummer, had left the Independent Group to sit as an MK-PC councillor but then stood as an Independent again. I surmised that this was because being an Independent would be more likely to bring success and I did predict that he would win, but there was a question mark as some might question his 'independence' As it turned out, he was just edged out by 41 votes by another Independent candidate, John Thomas, at one time a Liberal Democrat councillor, but having stood as an Independent in recent years. He achieved 33.3% of the vote.
Mr Plummer took a 30.1% poll share whilst, in third place, another Independent candidate, James Biscoe, managed to claim 14.7%
For UKIP, model railway enthusiast Bob Mims's candidacy failed to gain much traction (I know, I'm sorry) and he came in 5th with 10.6%.
Labour's Laura Eyre, as predicted, didn't have much hope in an area not good for the party in recent years and will be very disappointed to have only achieved 6.4% of the votes cast.
At least she didn't trail in last, this honour falling to Independent candidate, Peter Tisdale, with 5%.
A 34.3% turnout.
Mabe, Perranarworthal and St. Gluvias
A split vote in 2009 in the old Mabe division saw Conservative Chris Ridgers take this seat with only 29.9% of the vote, and a similarly split vote this time gave a stunning victory to the UKIP candidate, Michal Keogh, who gained the seat with only 28.6% of the vote and a breathtakingly small majority of 3 votes over over the aforementioned Mr Ridgers.
Mr Ridgers must have seen his main threat as coming from former county councillor and political elections expert, John Ault, whom I predicted would take back the Division for the LiberalDemocrats.
Mr Ridgers did remarkably well to hold onto most of his vote and take 28.4% and must be shattered to have lost by so little a margin, but I had predicted that a good vote for UKIP would be poison for the Tories, I just hadn't realised it would mean victory for them.
For Mr Ault, I would guess a most unexpected defeat when the campaign began but he must have seen the way the political winds were going. Unlike many of his party colleagues in this area, he did at least manage to hold onto a decent share of his party's vote (22.9%).
The Independent candidate, Christopher Jackson, did not manage to unite anti-political party feeling in the area as that fell to UKIP, but he managed to take 11% of the vote.
For Labour, party veteran Betty Ross will be happy to have avoided a greater squeeze and increased the Labour share to 8.9%.
As I suggested above, UKIP seem to have taken much of the strong traditional Independent vote in the area, as well taking votes from the Liberal Democrats, Conservatives and, I assume, some normally non-voting people.
A quite unexpected result.
A decent 39.9% voter turnout, but sharply down on the turnout in the old division.
Mullion and Grade-Ruan
This seat was defended by the formerly Conservative (until March of 2013) and now Independent councillor and Cornwall Cabinet Member, Carolyn Rule. It was always likely to be held by her although now a 'technical' gain from the Conservatives, and so it proved. Taking 48% and a majority of 236 votes, Councillor Rule will be quite satisfied with the way that things turned out.
In the absence of a Liberal Democrat candidate (main challengers in 2009), UKIP's David Icke-liking Nina Sutherland took up the mantle of main opposition, coming in a very decent second place with 28.3% of the vote.
In a slightly forlorn third place, the Conservatives' Alfred Mesropians, a local hotelier, managed 23.7% of the vote.
The Liberal Democrats not fielding a candidate suprised me, as it did others, but giving some of the results they achieved in this area, I suppose they knew what was coming.
A 36.2% turnout, again sharply down on 2009.
Redruth Central
A solid result here for Councillor Mike Eddowes who, as predicted, held his seat. Taking 40.3% of the vote, up nearly 10% since 2009, Mr Eddowes will be pleased but it was with a shockingly low poll of only 21%, down by 30% from 2009. He actually has less votes than he had in 2009.
Coming surpringly close in second plce was UKIP's Wally Duncan, with 34.6% and 36 votes behind. With no history here, it is a very good result for UKIP and shows that they have picked up support from across the spectrum.
Coming in a decent third, but surely with an element of disappointment, is Labour's Raymond Webber, who, although he was never going to win this seat, might have hoped to be somewhat close. With 25.1%, it is a lot better than the 9.8% in 2009, but Labour really should do better in this sort of seat. I accept they will have concentrated elswhere in Redruth.
Redruth North
This really must be a deeply disappointing result for Labour. This is the Division that gave the party its highest vote in Cornwall in 2009 and it was long time former district and county councillor, Robert Stephen Barnes who was trying to regain the seat.
This seat was formerly a banker for Labour and not to be able to regain it will cause a certain amount of introspection, one would hope.
Councillor Lisa Dolly, one of the Standalone Independents and someone who has stood here unsuccessfully in the past, increased her vote share from 37.6% last time to 41.2% this and, although Mr Barnes managed to increase the Labour vote share to 34% (from 28.6% last time), a less than 1% swing to Labour is not good. Whilst it may be argued that the lack of a Conservative candidate harmed Labour's chances, as most of their vote probably went the way of UKIP, that is rather beside the point.
As Ms Dolly is a former Lib Dem district Councillor, maybe she gained from the lack of a party candidate this time.
UKIP's Ann Wood will be happy to have put the party on the map here with 24.8%.
Another very depressing voter turnout of only 23.1% here, but up on 2009.
Redruth South
With long term district and county councillor Graham Hicks stepping down, it was interesting to see how this Division would turn out. I predicted a possible game changer and it very nearly was. Independent candidate Ian Thomas managed to hold on to the Independent seat with 41.4%, a big drop from the former councillors 60.8% but he obviously had a massive personal vote of the vote. Mr Thomas managed to hold on by 31 votes over Labour's Will Tremayne.
I bet Labour wishes it had concentrated its attentions in Redruth on this Division as it saw a dramatic improvement in its vote, going from an appalling 4.6% and 55 votes in 2009 to 37.7% and 311 votes in 2013. In Will Tremayne, they obviously had a very popular and canny candidate.
The only other candidate this time was UKIP's Ray Wyse whose 20.9% of the vote from a standing start was pretty decent. Whilst it is daft to make sweeping statements, it would appear he took most of the Conservative vote (no candidate this time) as Labour seems to have swept up most of the Lib Dem and some Independent votes from last time.
The turnout here was again disappointing but, at 27.1%, considerably better than the other Redruth divisions. Down by over 30% on 2009.
St Keverne and Meneage
Having gained the St Keverne Division in a byelection in 2012 (following the sudden death of Independent councillor, Pamela Lyne), Conservative Walter Sanger (who came third as an Independent candidate in 2009 - do try to keep up), was certain to hold on. The surprise is how well the Green Party's Dominic Bradreth did, coming in only 129 votes behind on 32.2% of the vote.
Cllr. Sanger had achieved 52.8% of the vote in the byelection, with the Lib Dem's Nicholas Driver in second place. In the absence of a Lib Dem, I had speculated that Mr Brandreth could do well, and so it proved - somewhat better, I suspect, than the Liberal Democrats would have managed, given their votes in this area at this election.
For UKIP, Brian Bailey managed to significantly increase the UKIP vote from the byelection from 13.4% to 22.8%, and this would seem to explain much of the drop in Cllr. Sanger's vote share to 40.5%.
For Labour's Ann Round, a pretty dreadful result of only 4.4%, down from the byelection share of 4.9% but up from the awful 1.7% of 2009.
A 38.4% turnout, down by nearly a fifth on 2009.
Cornwall Unitary Election Results, 2013: Caradon
As with my overview of the (at that time) forthcoming elections last April, I decided it would be fun to follow (as far as possible) the old district and borough boundaries.
The last time that local council elections took place in the now defunct (as of 2009) Caradon District Council, these were the results:
Party Votes Percent Seats
Liberal Democrat 11167 37.8% 23
Conservative 10062 34.0% 9
Independent 5413 18.3% 9
Mebyon Kernow 939 3.2% 1
UKIP 860 2.9% 0
Labour 825 2.8% 0
Green Party 294 1.0% 0
The Liberal Democrats had a very good election in 2007 and stood for every seat in the 22 wards. The Conservatives stood in every ward, but only had 36 candidates (a mix of 1-, 2- and 3-member wards). Despite polling well, they did not manage their vote as well as the Liberal Democrats.
Their were 16 assorted Independent candidates in 12 wards, and 9 victories for the various candidates was pretty good.
Mebyon Kernow only won 1 seat (Andrew Long in Callington) and fought only 2 in total.
UKIP fielded seven candidates in 6 wards, by far their best result being in Menheniot and St.Ive where Stephanie McWilliam took 18.3% of the vote (pointing to her future success in 2013).
Labour only had a candidate in Calstock where the late Thomas Smale took 30.2% of the vote and lost his seat by 57 votes.
The Green Party only stood a candidate in Landrake and St. Dominick, taking 19.5% of the vote.
In 2009, the Unitary Council replaced the County and District/Borough Councils and the results for what would have been the old district were:
Party Votes Percent Seats
Conservative 11436 40.4% 9
Liberal Democrat 9898 35.0% 9
UKIP 2701 9.5% 0
Independent 2206 7.8% 1
Mebyon Kernow 1253 4.4% 1
Green Party 708 2.5% 0
BNP 115 0.4% 0
Something of a disappointment for the Liberal Democrats to slip behind the Tories in vote share but winning pretty much where they would expect to.
For the Conservatives, a great result in taking 9 divisions. Winning the plurality of votes was excellent for them.
UKIP made good progress in the 9 divisions in which they stood, better than UKIP did countrywide.
There were only 6 Independent candidates standing in 5 divisions, one of whom was Dorothy Kirk in Gunnislake who was, in reality, the Labour candidate. The only victor was in Saltash Pill where Derek Hooley won the day.
Coming to the 2013 Unitary Elections.
Party Votes Percent Seats
Liberal Democrat 7372 30.2% 7
Conservative 6463 26.5% 4
UKIP 5171 21.2% 1
Independent 3920 16.1% 6
Mebyon Kernow-PC 851 3.5% 1
Labour Party 477 2.0% 1
Green Party 140 0.6% 0
A mixed result for the Liberal Democrats here as, although they have 2 less councillors than in the old Divisions from 2009, they retained most of their vote share, much more difficult when facing a stronger challenge from Independent candidates who hardly figured at the last Unitary Elections. They suffered some appalling collapses in vote share in some of the divisions (Callington, Looe East, Saltash East, Torpoint West) but topped the poll and had the most seats.Nonetheless, continuing to slip back in vote share is a worry for them.
On a reduced turnout across the district, the real losers were the Conservatives, who saw a big drop in their share of the vote from 44.4% to 26.5% and slipping to second place in terms of votes cast. They appear to have been particularly hit by sitting councillors having defected and standing under new labels and by the strong vote for UKIP and Independent candidates.
For UKIP, this was a good election, with the increase in their vote share only being partly explained by having fifteen candidates this time, as opposed to nine last. Coming third with 21.1% of the vote is a solid advance and they will be very disappointed to have only gained one seat, but in the formidable form of Stephanie McWilliam, now the UKIP group leader on the council. They came very close in Rame Peninsular, just 12 votes from the Independent in a close third place and were only 41 votes behind the Conservative victor in St Germans and Landulph, and 99 behind in Menheniot.
The Independent candidates did very well, given that they are not so dominant in this area, taking 5 more divisions than in 2009. It helped that two sitting councillors had defected from the Tories and Councillor Armand Toms in Looe East brought a big chunk of votes with him. More unexpected was the victory of 'off again/on again' candidate George Trubody who, having quit as a Conservative councillor, returned and was elected (by 3 votes) as an Independent. There were other impressive victories (see below) and, given that they only stood in 10 divisions, there were some very well executed personal campaigns on what was only a 16.5% share of the old district-wide vote.
Mebyon Kernow-Party of Cornwall (as they are now named), stood in two wards and won a safe victory in Callington. Only fielding 2 candidates this time (the other in St Dominick, Harrowbarrow and Kelly Bray division), they improved their vote share from last time when they fielded 4 candidates.
Labour only stood in one division, Gunnislake and Calstock, and gained it which, given the history of the palae, should have been expected. Labour had no candidates in 2009 but Labour's victorious Dorothy Kirk had stood as an Independent in the old Gunnislake division and come second (I assume there was a registration error given her long Labour pedigree). One could argue that they had a 100% success rate but, given the level of poverty and low wages in the area, they should really be fighting in more places.
For the Green Party, two candidates with no real success.
Callington
As predicted, this was an easy hold for MK-PC Councillor Andrew Long over the second-placed UKIP challenger, Dave Williams. UKIP's 27.4% is a good result for them and is no doubt due to the party's high-profile campaign and visit by UKIP's leader, Nigel Farage.
For the Conservative's Sue Nicholson, it was little short of a disaster with their vote share falling by two thirds since 2009 and coming in third with only 9.1% of the poll.
The Lib Dem's flag-bearer, Muriel Merrett-Jones, saw her party's vote collapse to a miserable 2.9%.
Gunnislake and Calstock
I am pleased with myself with this Division, correctly predicting a narrow win for Labour's Dorothy Kirk. Defending Conservative Councillor Russell Barlett had taking the Division in 2009 with less than 30% of the vote and it is not the most obvious Conservative area. As it turned out, he could only manage 30.1% of the poll this time and that was never going to be enough.
Cllr Kirk had been second as an Independent in 2009, which I assume was due to a mistake in the nomination papers and is a well-known Labour activist; her 34.4% is almost double what she managed in 2009.
UKIP's Sam Gardner will be disappointed not to have increased his vote by more since 2009 but he did claim third place from the Liberal Democrat's Martin Emery. Labour only contested this Division in the old Caradon area. All in all, a satisfactory result for Labour.
Liskeard East
I predicted a Lib Dem hold here but speculated that Independent Sally Hawken might eat into their vote. Well, she did more than that and gained the seat with a 51 vote majority and pushing the hapless Lib Dem, Tony Powell, into second place. I had wondered why the youthful sitting Lib Dem Councillor Jay Schofield had decided not to stand again; he might have known this was coming.
The Conservatives had a very disappointing result with only 14.5% of the vote and a dismal 4th place, not helped by the intervention of UKIP's Oliver Challis who took 23.5% of the vote.
Liskeard North
This was a strange one with the defending councillor, Jan Powell, having defected from Conservative to Liberal Democrat and her main challenger from 2009, Mebyon Kernow's Roger Holmes, now standing as an Independent. I predicted that it could be close but that Ms Powell would hold on and be a technical Lib Dem gain. Well, it was close, but Mr Holmes won by 6 votes over Ms Powell. Indeed, there were only 41 votes between Mr Holmes and the 4th placed UKIP challenger, Jenifer Lucas, who was pushed out of third place by 5 votes by the Tory standard bearer, Thusha Balalojanan.
Liskeard West and Dobwalls
I predicted an easy hold here for sitting Councillor Michael George, and so it proved, with him reaping 68% of the vote over UKIP's Patricia Kareen Mary Marris and achieving a comfortable 421 majority. Nothing to see here is the best reflection on this result.
Looe East
This beautiful division was being defended by the long-time Conservative councillor Armand Toms who defected to the Independent group on the Authrity just 2 months before the election. A Cabinet Member, it might have been thought that Cllr Toms might suffer from local dissatisfaction with the administration, but he easily held this Division with 58.6% of the vote. I predicted he would win but thought he might suffer some more vote slippage so congratualtions to him. The Conservatives hopes of reclaiming this division rested on the shoulders of financial advisor James Gowing who managed only 19.2% of the vote although he had the small comfort of being in (a distant) second place.
UKIP's Les Richmond might have hoped to do better than the 15.6% and third place he achieved. It seems, as with many seats where UKIP has some history of standing, they did somewhat worse than where they hadn't stood before.
Rick Harmes of the Greens won't have been shouting from the rooftops about his 4th place and 4% of the poll, but he will be happier than the dismal placing achieved by the Liberal Democrat's Sandra Preston, whose vote seems to have gone to Cllr Toms under his new Independent flag - 2.6% is pretty awful.
Looe West, Lansallos and Lanteglos
This repeat, in terms of candidates and parties, of the 2009 election was always likely to be a somewhat safer hold for defending councillor, Lib Dem Edwina Hanniford, and so it proved with her garnering 51% of the vote and a majority of 440 over the Conservative's Brian Galipeau. It couldn't be a more different picture from Looe East for the Liberal Democrats.
Mr Gallipeau saw his vote share fall by 12.3% whilst Cllr Hanniford saw her's rise by 9.3%, a 10.8% swing - one of the few occasions in this election when one can look at a straightforward swing between parties.
The 'other' in this election was UKIP's Tony Winter, who will be disppointed to have remained in third place and only raised the vote share 3% to 21.3%
Lynher
I predicted that this would be a UKIP gain for the redoubtable Stephanie McWilliam in a very divided field, and so it proved. Ms McWilliam achieved 35% of the vote and a comfortable-ish majority of 78 over the second-placed Conservative candidate, Finbar Heeley, who managed a respectable 29.2% of the vote. Christine Hordley for the Lib Dems must be very disappointed to have been just pushed into third place by three votes whilst Independent Alan Neal never really had a chance of a look in in this election.
Not surprising to note that Cllr McWilliam is the UKIP Group leader on the Council.
Menheniot
I incorrectly predicted a UKIP gain here as I believed that the growth in UKIP would build on the strong performance for 2009 but, as is the case in many areas, where UKIP have been previously quite strong, the swing to them was disappointing (from their point of view) at this set of elections.
Sitting councillor Bernie Ellis held on with a much reduced majority of 99 over UKIP's David Clue. The Conservative vote share was reduced by 9.6% to 38% but this was enough. I believed that this was UKIP's best hope of a gain and I cannot see anything but disappointment for Mr Clue in this result, even though he managed to snatch 2nd place and 31.2% of the vote a rise of 6.5%.
Charles Boney will be relieved that the Lib Dem share of the vote held up quite well although he might have hoped to slip through the middle but instead saw his party slip into third place.
For the Greens, Richard Sedgeley had to settle with a distant last place and 6.4% of the vote.
Rame Peninsula
I predicted that this might be very close and I was right, but also wrong as I thought that the Lib Dem's Becky Lingard might take this seat. This was a weird election as the former Conservative councillor, George Trubody, resigned on the 25th January 2013 to "pursue a personal career opportunity", leaving the area unrepresented until the May elections. Well, Mr Trubody returned as an Independent candidate and, showing how forgiving the local voters are, he held his seat by only 3 votes over local farmer and Conservative candidate, Chris Wilton.
I surmised that a good result for the UKIP candidate Peter McLaren would be to double the vote share which, in a split vote, might see him close to victory. I wasn't far off there either as he came within 12 votes of Mr Trubody.
It was the the unfortunate Ms Lingard who was the distant also-ran on only 16.4% of the vote - 12.6% less than the Lib Dems got last time. She should have stayed an Independent as she was the main challenger under that flag in 2009.
St Cleer
Successfully defending this Division, Liberal Democrat Councillor Derris Watson will be relieved that a divided opposition makes her victory seem fairly comfortable at 115 votes despite slipping to 32.2%. UKIP's David Lucas will be disappointed to have failed to capitalise on the fall in the Lib Dem and Conservative votes as, despite taking second place, he only managed to slightly increase the vote from 2009 to 24.2%. This pattern of UKIP not doing as well as one would think in seats they have done well before is somewhat suprising but shows that where they are not a novelty, they are less likely to attract votes. The fly in the ointment was Independent challenger, Len Clark, who came within 7 votes of UKIP to take a creditable 23.7% of the vote, reflecting a strong tradition of votes for Independent candidates in this area.
St Cleer has continued to move away from the Conservatives with this result, with their candidate Lisa Sargeant slipping into fourth place with 20% of the vote.
I am fairly satisfied with my predictions with this result, I thought that UKIP might have been a bit closer though.
St Dominick, Harrowbarrow and Kelly Bray
A tough battle here saw Conservative Jim Flashman manage to safely hold the Division against a strong challenge by UKIP's Dave Lawson, who must be disappointed not to have managed to close the gap more on Cllr Flashman from a strong base in the old Kelly Bray division in 2009.
Equally disappointed will have been MK-PC's Maria Coakley, who might have assumed that she would have got better than 10.5%, although she managed to push the Lib Dem's Charles Merrett Jones into a very disappointing 4th place by just 1 vote. They must have been affected by the challenge of Independent Phillip Harriman who split the parties with a 3rd placed 15.4% of the poll.
The result was pretty much as I predicted but I thought that UKIP might have had a stronger voter share behind Mr Flashman.
St Germans and Landulph
I saw this as being a three-way split and a very close contest but, assuming as in several other predictions that the Lib Dem recovery from 2009 would be stronger in what used to be a bit of a banker for them, just gave it to their candidate, Jesse Foot. In the event, the Conservative's Daniel Pugh held the seat on a much reduced vote share of 31.5%.
UKIP have a strong electoral history in this area (they took 28% of the vote in the old Caradon district ward of St Germans in 2003) and their candidate Joseph Cummins might have hoped to snatch the seat, but they failed by 41 votes, managing to garner 28.4% of the poll. In the event, Mr Foot came in a close third with a poll share of 27.4%, just 55 votes from victory.
Mervyn Ellis's Independent run achieved a last place with 12.7%, which may well have robbed Mr Foot (or, possibly, Mr Cummins) of victory if he picked up the strong Green vote of 2009.
Saltash East
An absolute slamdunk of a victory for defending Independent councillor Derek Holley, who took 80.5% of the vote and a 731 majority over the Conservative's David Ward who managed only 12.9%. A huge swing in the order of 26.7% from Tories to Cllr Holley.
The Liberal Democrats were crushed under Mr Holley's steamroller seeing a big drop in their vote share with their candidate, James Shepherd, only managing 6.7%.
I predicted Mr Holley would win, never expected him to do this well.
Saltash North
I predicted that this would be a Lib Dem hold for their candidate, Denise Watkins, but that the high-profile local Independent Joe Ellison would run her close. I was wrong, he ran her over.
With 45.6% of the vote, Mr Ellison pulled off a good victory with a majority of 102. I hadn't realised that the new councillor formerly ran in a neighbouring Division as a Conservative candidate so he is no neophyte when it comes to party campaigning.
A very disappointing result for Ms Watkins with 33.1% of the vote.
Bringing up the rear, Independent candidate John Joseph Brady achieved a respectable 21.3%
Saltash South
As I predicted, an easy victory here for the Liberal Democrat's Hilary Frank in a straight fight with Beryl Rosekilly for the Conservatives. Taking 70.3% of the vote, Ms Frank has one of the more encouraging results which have eluded the Liberal Democrats in much of the old Caradon council area. I am sure her 396 majority will keep her warm at night.
Saltash West
Very like the result in Saltash South, in a straight fight with the Tories, the Lib Dems have done very well here. Defending councillor Bob Austin took 62.5% of the vote and has a majority of 251 over the Conservative candidate, Gloria Challen.
Torpoint East
It was always going to be interesting to see who would suffer most from the intervention of the UKIP candidacy of Rob White, and it was certainly more painful for Conservative John Drago whose vote share fell by almost 15%, but defending Lib Dem Councillor Brian Hobbs also saw his vote fall by around 11%, revealing that UKIP can eat into Liberal Democrat support as well. As I opined at the time, defence cuts might well have played a part in UKIP's aupport as the only non-Coalition party standing in an area with a strong Naval connection.
I never saw the Lib Dem's losing here but they will have some food for thought.
Torpoint West
Well, no excuses here, the Lib Dem's were blown out of the water by sitting Councillor Michael Pearn, who, on a much reduced poll turnout, had a swing 20.1% from the Liberal Democrats. I can only assume that the Liberal Democrats did just about no campaigning in this Division and much of their vote stayed at home as well as some switching across to Cllr Pearn. Given that the Lib Dem candidate, Adam Killeya, is an Oxford graduate in Politics and Philosophy and Head of Politics at the interestingly-named Saltash.net Community School, an Academy Trust comprehensive school, he must only just be getting over the ribbing from his pupils and colleagues.
Cllr Pearn was always going to win, but this was stellar.
Trelawny
Losing the old Pelynt division had been a real blow to the Liberal Democrats in what was a tough electoral cycle in 2009, so gaining it was a must. As predicted, former county councillor Jim Candy comfortably regained this seat from Conservative Peter Hunt by 43.4% to 32.1%, and as the Division is the same except in name we are able to calculate a straight Tory to Lib Dem swing of 10.4%, a comfortable swing much exacerbated by the growth in the UKIP vote from 14.4% to 24.5%, which appears to have eaten heavily into the former Cllr Hunt's vote.
This is one of the Lib Dem's better results in what was a pretty disappointing set of results in this part of east Cornwall.
The last time that local council elections took place in the now defunct (as of 2009) Caradon District Council, these were the results:
Party Votes Percent Seats
Liberal Democrat 11167 37.8% 23
Conservative 10062 34.0% 9
Independent 5413 18.3% 9
Mebyon Kernow 939 3.2% 1
UKIP 860 2.9% 0
Labour 825 2.8% 0
Green Party 294 1.0% 0
The Liberal Democrats had a very good election in 2007 and stood for every seat in the 22 wards. The Conservatives stood in every ward, but only had 36 candidates (a mix of 1-, 2- and 3-member wards). Despite polling well, they did not manage their vote as well as the Liberal Democrats.
Their were 16 assorted Independent candidates in 12 wards, and 9 victories for the various candidates was pretty good.
Mebyon Kernow only won 1 seat (Andrew Long in Callington) and fought only 2 in total.
UKIP fielded seven candidates in 6 wards, by far their best result being in Menheniot and St.Ive where Stephanie McWilliam took 18.3% of the vote (pointing to her future success in 2013).
Labour only had a candidate in Calstock where the late Thomas Smale took 30.2% of the vote and lost his seat by 57 votes.
The Green Party only stood a candidate in Landrake and St. Dominick, taking 19.5% of the vote.
In 2009, the Unitary Council replaced the County and District/Borough Councils and the results for what would have been the old district were:
Party Votes Percent Seats
Conservative 11436 40.4% 9
Liberal Democrat 9898 35.0% 9
UKIP 2701 9.5% 0
Independent 2206 7.8% 1
Mebyon Kernow 1253 4.4% 1
Green Party 708 2.5% 0
BNP 115 0.4% 0
Something of a disappointment for the Liberal Democrats to slip behind the Tories in vote share but winning pretty much where they would expect to.
For the Conservatives, a great result in taking 9 divisions. Winning the plurality of votes was excellent for them.
UKIP made good progress in the 9 divisions in which they stood, better than UKIP did countrywide.
There were only 6 Independent candidates standing in 5 divisions, one of whom was Dorothy Kirk in Gunnislake who was, in reality, the Labour candidate. The only victor was in Saltash Pill where Derek Hooley won the day.
Coming to the 2013 Unitary Elections.
Party Votes Percent Seats
Liberal Democrat 7372 30.2% 7
Conservative 6463 26.5% 4
UKIP 5171 21.2% 1
Independent 3920 16.1% 6
Mebyon Kernow-PC 851 3.5% 1
Labour Party 477 2.0% 1
Green Party 140 0.6% 0
A mixed result for the Liberal Democrats here as, although they have 2 less councillors than in the old Divisions from 2009, they retained most of their vote share, much more difficult when facing a stronger challenge from Independent candidates who hardly figured at the last Unitary Elections. They suffered some appalling collapses in vote share in some of the divisions (Callington, Looe East, Saltash East, Torpoint West) but topped the poll and had the most seats.Nonetheless, continuing to slip back in vote share is a worry for them.
On a reduced turnout across the district, the real losers were the Conservatives, who saw a big drop in their share of the vote from 44.4% to 26.5% and slipping to second place in terms of votes cast. They appear to have been particularly hit by sitting councillors having defected and standing under new labels and by the strong vote for UKIP and Independent candidates.
For UKIP, this was a good election, with the increase in their vote share only being partly explained by having fifteen candidates this time, as opposed to nine last. Coming third with 21.1% of the vote is a solid advance and they will be very disappointed to have only gained one seat, but in the formidable form of Stephanie McWilliam, now the UKIP group leader on the council. They came very close in Rame Peninsular, just 12 votes from the Independent in a close third place and were only 41 votes behind the Conservative victor in St Germans and Landulph, and 99 behind in Menheniot.
The Independent candidates did very well, given that they are not so dominant in this area, taking 5 more divisions than in 2009. It helped that two sitting councillors had defected from the Tories and Councillor Armand Toms in Looe East brought a big chunk of votes with him. More unexpected was the victory of 'off again/on again' candidate George Trubody who, having quit as a Conservative councillor, returned and was elected (by 3 votes) as an Independent. There were other impressive victories (see below) and, given that they only stood in 10 divisions, there were some very well executed personal campaigns on what was only a 16.5% share of the old district-wide vote.
Mebyon Kernow-Party of Cornwall (as they are now named), stood in two wards and won a safe victory in Callington. Only fielding 2 candidates this time (the other in St Dominick, Harrowbarrow and Kelly Bray division), they improved their vote share from last time when they fielded 4 candidates.
Labour only stood in one division, Gunnislake and Calstock, and gained it which, given the history of the palae, should have been expected. Labour had no candidates in 2009 but Labour's victorious Dorothy Kirk had stood as an Independent in the old Gunnislake division and come second (I assume there was a registration error given her long Labour pedigree). One could argue that they had a 100% success rate but, given the level of poverty and low wages in the area, they should really be fighting in more places.
For the Green Party, two candidates with no real success.
Callington
As predicted, this was an easy hold for MK-PC Councillor Andrew Long over the second-placed UKIP challenger, Dave Williams. UKIP's 27.4% is a good result for them and is no doubt due to the party's high-profile campaign and visit by UKIP's leader, Nigel Farage.
For the Conservative's Sue Nicholson, it was little short of a disaster with their vote share falling by two thirds since 2009 and coming in third with only 9.1% of the poll.
The Lib Dem's flag-bearer, Muriel Merrett-Jones, saw her party's vote collapse to a miserable 2.9%.
Gunnislake and Calstock
I am pleased with myself with this Division, correctly predicting a narrow win for Labour's Dorothy Kirk. Defending Conservative Councillor Russell Barlett had taking the Division in 2009 with less than 30% of the vote and it is not the most obvious Conservative area. As it turned out, he could only manage 30.1% of the poll this time and that was never going to be enough.
Cllr Kirk had been second as an Independent in 2009, which I assume was due to a mistake in the nomination papers and is a well-known Labour activist; her 34.4% is almost double what she managed in 2009.
UKIP's Sam Gardner will be disappointed not to have increased his vote by more since 2009 but he did claim third place from the Liberal Democrat's Martin Emery. Labour only contested this Division in the old Caradon area. All in all, a satisfactory result for Labour.
Liskeard East
I predicted a Lib Dem hold here but speculated that Independent Sally Hawken might eat into their vote. Well, she did more than that and gained the seat with a 51 vote majority and pushing the hapless Lib Dem, Tony Powell, into second place. I had wondered why the youthful sitting Lib Dem Councillor Jay Schofield had decided not to stand again; he might have known this was coming.
The Conservatives had a very disappointing result with only 14.5% of the vote and a dismal 4th place, not helped by the intervention of UKIP's Oliver Challis who took 23.5% of the vote.
Liskeard North
This was a strange one with the defending councillor, Jan Powell, having defected from Conservative to Liberal Democrat and her main challenger from 2009, Mebyon Kernow's Roger Holmes, now standing as an Independent. I predicted that it could be close but that Ms Powell would hold on and be a technical Lib Dem gain. Well, it was close, but Mr Holmes won by 6 votes over Ms Powell. Indeed, there were only 41 votes between Mr Holmes and the 4th placed UKIP challenger, Jenifer Lucas, who was pushed out of third place by 5 votes by the Tory standard bearer, Thusha Balalojanan.
Liskeard West and Dobwalls
I predicted an easy hold here for sitting Councillor Michael George, and so it proved, with him reaping 68% of the vote over UKIP's Patricia Kareen Mary Marris and achieving a comfortable 421 majority. Nothing to see here is the best reflection on this result.
Looe East
This beautiful division was being defended by the long-time Conservative councillor Armand Toms who defected to the Independent group on the Authrity just 2 months before the election. A Cabinet Member, it might have been thought that Cllr Toms might suffer from local dissatisfaction with the administration, but he easily held this Division with 58.6% of the vote. I predicted he would win but thought he might suffer some more vote slippage so congratualtions to him. The Conservatives hopes of reclaiming this division rested on the shoulders of financial advisor James Gowing who managed only 19.2% of the vote although he had the small comfort of being in (a distant) second place.
UKIP's Les Richmond might have hoped to do better than the 15.6% and third place he achieved. It seems, as with many seats where UKIP has some history of standing, they did somewhat worse than where they hadn't stood before.
Rick Harmes of the Greens won't have been shouting from the rooftops about his 4th place and 4% of the poll, but he will be happier than the dismal placing achieved by the Liberal Democrat's Sandra Preston, whose vote seems to have gone to Cllr Toms under his new Independent flag - 2.6% is pretty awful.
Looe West, Lansallos and Lanteglos
This repeat, in terms of candidates and parties, of the 2009 election was always likely to be a somewhat safer hold for defending councillor, Lib Dem Edwina Hanniford, and so it proved with her garnering 51% of the vote and a majority of 440 over the Conservative's Brian Galipeau. It couldn't be a more different picture from Looe East for the Liberal Democrats.
Mr Gallipeau saw his vote share fall by 12.3% whilst Cllr Hanniford saw her's rise by 9.3%, a 10.8% swing - one of the few occasions in this election when one can look at a straightforward swing between parties.
The 'other' in this election was UKIP's Tony Winter, who will be disppointed to have remained in third place and only raised the vote share 3% to 21.3%
Lynher
I predicted that this would be a UKIP gain for the redoubtable Stephanie McWilliam in a very divided field, and so it proved. Ms McWilliam achieved 35% of the vote and a comfortable-ish majority of 78 over the second-placed Conservative candidate, Finbar Heeley, who managed a respectable 29.2% of the vote. Christine Hordley for the Lib Dems must be very disappointed to have been just pushed into third place by three votes whilst Independent Alan Neal never really had a chance of a look in in this election.
Not surprising to note that Cllr McWilliam is the UKIP Group leader on the Council.
Menheniot
I incorrectly predicted a UKIP gain here as I believed that the growth in UKIP would build on the strong performance for 2009 but, as is the case in many areas, where UKIP have been previously quite strong, the swing to them was disappointing (from their point of view) at this set of elections.
Sitting councillor Bernie Ellis held on with a much reduced majority of 99 over UKIP's David Clue. The Conservative vote share was reduced by 9.6% to 38% but this was enough. I believed that this was UKIP's best hope of a gain and I cannot see anything but disappointment for Mr Clue in this result, even though he managed to snatch 2nd place and 31.2% of the vote a rise of 6.5%.
Charles Boney will be relieved that the Lib Dem share of the vote held up quite well although he might have hoped to slip through the middle but instead saw his party slip into third place.
For the Greens, Richard Sedgeley had to settle with a distant last place and 6.4% of the vote.
Rame Peninsula
I predicted that this might be very close and I was right, but also wrong as I thought that the Lib Dem's Becky Lingard might take this seat. This was a weird election as the former Conservative councillor, George Trubody, resigned on the 25th January 2013 to "pursue a personal career opportunity", leaving the area unrepresented until the May elections. Well, Mr Trubody returned as an Independent candidate and, showing how forgiving the local voters are, he held his seat by only 3 votes over local farmer and Conservative candidate, Chris Wilton.
I surmised that a good result for the UKIP candidate Peter McLaren would be to double the vote share which, in a split vote, might see him close to victory. I wasn't far off there either as he came within 12 votes of Mr Trubody.
It was the the unfortunate Ms Lingard who was the distant also-ran on only 16.4% of the vote - 12.6% less than the Lib Dems got last time. She should have stayed an Independent as she was the main challenger under that flag in 2009.
St Cleer
Successfully defending this Division, Liberal Democrat Councillor Derris Watson will be relieved that a divided opposition makes her victory seem fairly comfortable at 115 votes despite slipping to 32.2%. UKIP's David Lucas will be disappointed to have failed to capitalise on the fall in the Lib Dem and Conservative votes as, despite taking second place, he only managed to slightly increase the vote from 2009 to 24.2%. This pattern of UKIP not doing as well as one would think in seats they have done well before is somewhat suprising but shows that where they are not a novelty, they are less likely to attract votes. The fly in the ointment was Independent challenger, Len Clark, who came within 7 votes of UKIP to take a creditable 23.7% of the vote, reflecting a strong tradition of votes for Independent candidates in this area.
St Cleer has continued to move away from the Conservatives with this result, with their candidate Lisa Sargeant slipping into fourth place with 20% of the vote.
I am fairly satisfied with my predictions with this result, I thought that UKIP might have been a bit closer though.
St Dominick, Harrowbarrow and Kelly Bray
A tough battle here saw Conservative Jim Flashman manage to safely hold the Division against a strong challenge by UKIP's Dave Lawson, who must be disappointed not to have managed to close the gap more on Cllr Flashman from a strong base in the old Kelly Bray division in 2009.
Equally disappointed will have been MK-PC's Maria Coakley, who might have assumed that she would have got better than 10.5%, although she managed to push the Lib Dem's Charles Merrett Jones into a very disappointing 4th place by just 1 vote. They must have been affected by the challenge of Independent Phillip Harriman who split the parties with a 3rd placed 15.4% of the poll.
The result was pretty much as I predicted but I thought that UKIP might have had a stronger voter share behind Mr Flashman.
St Germans and Landulph
I saw this as being a three-way split and a very close contest but, assuming as in several other predictions that the Lib Dem recovery from 2009 would be stronger in what used to be a bit of a banker for them, just gave it to their candidate, Jesse Foot. In the event, the Conservative's Daniel Pugh held the seat on a much reduced vote share of 31.5%.
UKIP have a strong electoral history in this area (they took 28% of the vote in the old Caradon district ward of St Germans in 2003) and their candidate Joseph Cummins might have hoped to snatch the seat, but they failed by 41 votes, managing to garner 28.4% of the poll. In the event, Mr Foot came in a close third with a poll share of 27.4%, just 55 votes from victory.
Mervyn Ellis's Independent run achieved a last place with 12.7%, which may well have robbed Mr Foot (or, possibly, Mr Cummins) of victory if he picked up the strong Green vote of 2009.
Saltash East
An absolute slamdunk of a victory for defending Independent councillor Derek Holley, who took 80.5% of the vote and a 731 majority over the Conservative's David Ward who managed only 12.9%. A huge swing in the order of 26.7% from Tories to Cllr Holley.
The Liberal Democrats were crushed under Mr Holley's steamroller seeing a big drop in their vote share with their candidate, James Shepherd, only managing 6.7%.
I predicted Mr Holley would win, never expected him to do this well.
Saltash North
I predicted that this would be a Lib Dem hold for their candidate, Denise Watkins, but that the high-profile local Independent Joe Ellison would run her close. I was wrong, he ran her over.
With 45.6% of the vote, Mr Ellison pulled off a good victory with a majority of 102. I hadn't realised that the new councillor formerly ran in a neighbouring Division as a Conservative candidate so he is no neophyte when it comes to party campaigning.
A very disappointing result for Ms Watkins with 33.1% of the vote.
Bringing up the rear, Independent candidate John Joseph Brady achieved a respectable 21.3%
Saltash South
As I predicted, an easy victory here for the Liberal Democrat's Hilary Frank in a straight fight with Beryl Rosekilly for the Conservatives. Taking 70.3% of the vote, Ms Frank has one of the more encouraging results which have eluded the Liberal Democrats in much of the old Caradon council area. I am sure her 396 majority will keep her warm at night.
Saltash West
Very like the result in Saltash South, in a straight fight with the Tories, the Lib Dems have done very well here. Defending councillor Bob Austin took 62.5% of the vote and has a majority of 251 over the Conservative candidate, Gloria Challen.
Torpoint East
It was always going to be interesting to see who would suffer most from the intervention of the UKIP candidacy of Rob White, and it was certainly more painful for Conservative John Drago whose vote share fell by almost 15%, but defending Lib Dem Councillor Brian Hobbs also saw his vote fall by around 11%, revealing that UKIP can eat into Liberal Democrat support as well. As I opined at the time, defence cuts might well have played a part in UKIP's aupport as the only non-Coalition party standing in an area with a strong Naval connection.
I never saw the Lib Dem's losing here but they will have some food for thought.
Torpoint West
Well, no excuses here, the Lib Dem's were blown out of the water by sitting Councillor Michael Pearn, who, on a much reduced poll turnout, had a swing 20.1% from the Liberal Democrats. I can only assume that the Liberal Democrats did just about no campaigning in this Division and much of their vote stayed at home as well as some switching across to Cllr Pearn. Given that the Lib Dem candidate, Adam Killeya, is an Oxford graduate in Politics and Philosophy and Head of Politics at the interestingly-named Saltash.net Community School, an Academy Trust comprehensive school, he must only just be getting over the ribbing from his pupils and colleagues.
Cllr Pearn was always going to win, but this was stellar.
Trelawny
Losing the old Pelynt division had been a real blow to the Liberal Democrats in what was a tough electoral cycle in 2009, so gaining it was a must. As predicted, former county councillor Jim Candy comfortably regained this seat from Conservative Peter Hunt by 43.4% to 32.1%, and as the Division is the same except in name we are able to calculate a straight Tory to Lib Dem swing of 10.4%, a comfortable swing much exacerbated by the growth in the UKIP vote from 14.4% to 24.5%, which appears to have eaten heavily into the former Cllr Hunt's vote.
This is one of the Lib Dem's better results in what was a pretty disappointing set of results in this part of east Cornwall.
Monday, 10 March 2014
An interesting journey in Sweden
I am busy on an overview of last year's Cornwall Unitary elections (promised last year but put aside due to big life upheavals). I will be posting it shortly but, in the meantime, I thought those more interested in faith than politics may be interested in this:
http://www.charismamag.com/spirit/church-ministry/19936-ulf-ekman-converts-to-roman-catholicism
I wonder how many (if any) of his congregation will follow?
http://www.charismamag.com/spirit/church-ministry/19936-ulf-ekman-converts-to-roman-catholicism
I wonder how many (if any) of his congregation will follow?
Sunday, 16 February 2014
Not so much a hiatus, more of a complicated hernia.
I have been away from regular posting for sometime now; it isn't unusual for me to take a bit of a break, but a change of circumstances and suddenly finding myself extremely busy has prevented me from finding the time to sit down and share a few thoughts, opinions, reflections, etc.
I am now in a position to at least have a bit of a return to the fray and will be posting on a fairly regular basis again. Politics is very interesting at the moment, the religious world is forever full of fascination and it is only football that presently leaves me depressed.
I will doubtless be sharing some overviews and thoughts on the forthcoming local elections, which have been delayed by two weeks to coincide with the European Parliamentary elections. I will again be visiting the politics of Stockport, Portsmouth, Manchester and Rochdale, as well as my new home of Blackburn.
The Personal Ordinariates have continued to progress in the UK, Australia and North America and it will be interesting to see what, if any, effect that decisions in the Church of England will have on the growth of the Ordinariate the UK.
The Pope continues to confound people with his approach to his ministry and it is worth having a look at the following link for this perceptive article (don't be put off by the title): http://www.faithstreet.com/onfaith/2014/02/13/beware-of-pope-francis/30949
As for football, for the love of all the is holy - David Moyes, get a grip!!!!!!
I am now in a position to at least have a bit of a return to the fray and will be posting on a fairly regular basis again. Politics is very interesting at the moment, the religious world is forever full of fascination and it is only football that presently leaves me depressed.
I will doubtless be sharing some overviews and thoughts on the forthcoming local elections, which have been delayed by two weeks to coincide with the European Parliamentary elections. I will again be visiting the politics of Stockport, Portsmouth, Manchester and Rochdale, as well as my new home of Blackburn.
The Personal Ordinariates have continued to progress in the UK, Australia and North America and it will be interesting to see what, if any, effect that decisions in the Church of England will have on the growth of the Ordinariate the UK.
The Pope continues to confound people with his approach to his ministry and it is worth having a look at the following link for this perceptive article (don't be put off by the title): http://www.faithstreet.com/onfaith/2014/02/13/beware-of-pope-francis/30949
As for football, for the love of all the is holy - David Moyes, get a grip!!!!!!
Thursday, 24 October 2013
Mary Flannery O'Connor's "Mean Grace".
I found this quite a moving article about one of the most remarkable writers of the last century:
http://acatholicthinker.wordpress.com/2013/10/17/the-mean-grace-of-flannery-oconnor/comment-page-1/#comment-263
http://acatholicthinker.wordpress.com/2013/10/17/the-mean-grace-of-flannery-oconnor/comment-page-1/#comment-263
Sunday, 15 September 2013
What now for Credo Cymru?
After the vote by General Synod of the Church in Wales to ordain women to the Episcopate, I have been left wondering what effect that might have upon some friends of mine who are members of (or sympathetic to) Credo Cymru (Forward in Faith in Wales) who have expressed dismay at this decision.
In July 2010, Forward in Faith in England had predicted that "thousands" of its members may join the Catholic Church through the provisions of the Ordinariate (http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2010/07/14/synod-vote-pushes-anglo-catholics-towards-ordinariate/) but that failed to happen.
Whilst I am not sure about the exact figures for those who, as clergy and laity, joined the Church, either by going directly to the local RC parish of via the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, it did not include many more than 100 clergy and, at most, a couple of thousand laity (I include those who did not join the Personal Ordinariate in this number).
Whilst I know there is still a hope to maintain a dignified position in the Church of England, I would be surprised if there was not soon a move by more clergy and laity, mostly in the direction of the RC Church.
Part of the problem, I surmise from my reading of what many have written and from conversations I have had, would be the deep emotional connection to the Church of England and its special place in the Establishment and close connection to a much loved monarch.
That is not the same in Wales. A long disestablished Church, it does not occupy the same position in society as the C of E. It has a heavily liberal House of Bishops, no 'flying bishops' (since the retirement of Bishop David Thomas in 2008) to provide for those who could not accept the ordination of women, and has not agonised over making provisions for those who struggle with the idea of women bishops in the manner of the C of E General Synod.
I do not doubt the deep emotional connection to the Anglican Church that so many have but I do wonder at what point their oft-stated intentions to become Roman Catholics will come to pass?
From a theological point of view, the pass on the Ordination of women to the Episcopate was sold when it was agreed to admit women to the Diaconate so I have always been a bit confused about the ongoing debate but have accepted that it was an issue for others and their sense of belonging within their own church community.
I will continue to pray for my friends as I know they are really struggling and I wish them the best. I wonder whether things are going to change soon though.
In July 2010, Forward in Faith in England had predicted that "thousands" of its members may join the Catholic Church through the provisions of the Ordinariate (http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2010/07/14/synod-vote-pushes-anglo-catholics-towards-ordinariate/) but that failed to happen.
Whilst I am not sure about the exact figures for those who, as clergy and laity, joined the Church, either by going directly to the local RC parish of via the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, it did not include many more than 100 clergy and, at most, a couple of thousand laity (I include those who did not join the Personal Ordinariate in this number).
Whilst I know there is still a hope to maintain a dignified position in the Church of England, I would be surprised if there was not soon a move by more clergy and laity, mostly in the direction of the RC Church.
Part of the problem, I surmise from my reading of what many have written and from conversations I have had, would be the deep emotional connection to the Church of England and its special place in the Establishment and close connection to a much loved monarch.
That is not the same in Wales. A long disestablished Church, it does not occupy the same position in society as the C of E. It has a heavily liberal House of Bishops, no 'flying bishops' (since the retirement of Bishop David Thomas in 2008) to provide for those who could not accept the ordination of women, and has not agonised over making provisions for those who struggle with the idea of women bishops in the manner of the C of E General Synod.
I do not doubt the deep emotional connection to the Anglican Church that so many have but I do wonder at what point their oft-stated intentions to become Roman Catholics will come to pass?
From a theological point of view, the pass on the Ordination of women to the Episcopate was sold when it was agreed to admit women to the Diaconate so I have always been a bit confused about the ongoing debate but have accepted that it was an issue for others and their sense of belonging within their own church community.
I will continue to pray for my friends as I know they are really struggling and I wish them the best. I wonder whether things are going to change soon though.
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