The Big Yawn: Devonwall Police Chief election stirs up apathy

Corbynistas in Cornwall were busy this weekend tweeting away, urging us to vote Labour in Thursday’s elections. Even if we stretch credibility and accept that a Labour vote is a vote for ‘fairness’ and other stuff, there’s still a tiny problem with this. There are no elections in Cornwall on Thursday.

Well, no proper elections. If local elections are second order elections, then we have a fifth order one, the election of a Devon & Cornwall Police Commissioner.

Now let’s see who’s standing.

• The Tory candidate lives in Torbay, in Devon.
• The Labour candidate lives in Ivybridge, which is in Devon.
• The Ukip candidate lives in Loxbeare; that’s somewhere in Devon as well.
• The Lib Dem candidate lives in Teignouth. Devon again then.
• There’s an Independent who lives in Exmouth. Bugger it, that’s also in Devon.

Oh, and another Independent from Ludgvan.

I’ll freely admit I know nothing about the local guy, along with 98% of the rest of the voters. Maybe he’s a fiery Cornish radical. If not then what can any self-respecting Cornish nationalist do?

We could stay at home and watch Eastenders. Or here’s another option. We could be bothered to get off our arses and stroll along to the polling station, where we could join the rest of the hardworking Cornish masses and use this Devonwall election to send them a message by spoiling our ballot papers.

It’s not as if we don’t have enough issues. But surely the main one on the horizon is the looming parliamentary constituency redistribution. This will create a cross-border Devonwall constituency, for the first time since the House of Commons was created in the 13th century.

Remember, this crowning insult to Cornish status was voted for by the Tories and Liberal Democrats back in 2011. That included all three Cornish Tory MPs and two of the three Lib Dems.

A Devonwall election therefore seems the perfect opportunity to send them a message on Thursday and write something on our ballot papers rather than waste our votes.

No to Devonwall? Respect Cornish Rights? No border-blurring? Cornwall: England’s first and last colony? Stop Cameron holidaying in Cornwall?

Be creative. Use your imaginations. Let a thousand flowers bloom to illuminate the election that no-one cares a pasty-crust about.