Peter Walker has been to Somerton and Frome for the Guardian and talked to the Liberal Democrat candidate:
Sarah Dyke sometimes feels as if she gets treated like the de facto local MP already.
"I've been dealing with a lot of David Warburton’s casework over the last year because people haven’t known where to go," Dyke says of the Conservative incumbent, who resigned last month after a parliamentary investigation into allegations of harassment and drug use. ...
"Everybody that I’ve spoken to has said they've tried to email him, they've tried to write to him, they've tried to knock on his office door, and every single route came up with a blank," Dyke says. "So they turned to me."
Meanwhile the Conservative candidate Faye Purbick claims that Warburton and his record are not a prime concern for voters:
"It’s not a conversation I’ve been having with people.”
This reminds me of Peter May's time as chairman of the England cricket selectors. A journalist put it to him that some people thought he was out of touch. His reply?
"I've not heard that."
There's still plenty of work to do in Somerton and Frome before the polls close on Thursday night. The Lib Dems' by-election headquarters is at Unit 3, Station Approach, Frome BA11 1RE.
Helpers coming from west of Frome are asked to go to Hilton's, Duck's Hill, Huish Episcopi, TA10 9EN.
the Tory candidate may be right in the narrowest sense -- by-election campaigns are hardly ever about the event that caused the by-election. So voters don't generally vote either for or against a previous incumbent who has left the stage. This is why we were able to win Eastbourne in 1990 -- and it's worth noting that the turnouts in the two recent fake by-elections caused by terrorism were low even for by-elections, suggesting that only the core supporters of the winning party bothered to turn up (there was no real "sympathy vote") and it seems strikingly paternalistic on the part of the political classes to deny voters a meaningful choice on the basis of the reason for the by-election.
ReplyDeleteOr take the recent City of Chester by-election, caused by the sitting Labour MP resigning over allegations of sexual misconduct (admittedly not as lewd as Warburton is accused of), which Labour won with an increased majority on a similar swing to the other Labour defences at around the same time. The Tories will lose Somerton & Frome not so much because of Warburton himnself as the unpopularity of his party, and the positive profile of our candidate. I note that Sarah Dyke has been holding 'shadow surgeries' --- this was a winning strategy adopted by Paddy Ashdown after his first unsuccessful attempt at Yeovil.
You're right that people vote about the future not the past, but I find it hard to believe no one has mentioned Warburton to the Conservative candidate.
ReplyDeleteMainly, I wanted to include that Peter May story.
'Meanwhile the Conservative candidate Faye Purbick claims that Warburton and his record are not a prime concern for voters:
ReplyDelete"It’s not a conversation I’ve been having with people.” '
Perhaps, like all good (Tory) politicians, she runs away when something awkward is raised, fingers in ears, shouting "I can't hear you". Hopefully she will hear sometime Friday morning that she lost.