Socio-economic profiles of Cornwall’s (slightly) new constituencies

I have updated the socio-economic data for the six Cornish constituencies, all of which have very slight boundary changes. For the changes see here.

The data includes

• The proportion of older voters (traditionally most likely to vote Tory) and young voters (who may find that they can’t vote even if they’re on the electoral register as awareness of the new ID requirements among young people is shockingly low). The highest number of young voters is found in Truro and Falmouth, a Labour target, while older voters are most numerous in South East Cornwall, which is good news for the Tories’ Sheryll Murray.
• Cornish identity – Camborne and Redruth is the most subjectively ‘Cornish’; South East Cornwall the least.
• Religion – South East Cornwall again features as the most Christian constituency. Is this good or bad news for Sheryll? Camborne-Redruth is the least.
• Social class – It’s somewhat surprising to find that North Cornwall has a greater number of working class C2DE voters than Camborne-Redruth these days.
• Economic activity – Camborne-Redruth has the most people who are economically active and North Cornwall the least, possibly a reflection of the migration of early retirees to the latter constituency.
• Deprivation – despite having the highest number in work, Camborne-Redruth also has the highest proportion of severely deprived households.
• Second homes/holiday lets – the number of properties removed from the local housing stock by tourism is highest in St Ives, with none of the other five constituencies being particularly free of this blight.
• Owner-occupiers – the highest proportion owning their homes outright is found in South East Cornwall. They won’t be worried by higher interest rates. In contrast those paying off mortgages will and they are most likely to be found in Camborne and Redruth and St Austell and Newquay.
• Tenants – the constituency with the highest number having to rent from private landlords is St Austell and Newquay, while the highest proportion enjoying a social or ‘affordable’ rent is found in St Ives, although even there still well outnumbered by those who are forced to rely on a private landlord.

Caution! Zombie election approaching

On this site I dubbed the last election in 2019 as the ‘election of illusions’. The main illusions were that brexit and boris would be the answer to all our dreams. Instead, they became the stuff of our nightmares. Even the great English voter seems at last to have woken up to the scale of the disasters created or exacerbated by a hapless bunch of ever-changing toxic Tories since 2019. The sheer level of incompetence, moral sleaziness and corrupt greed displayed by the Conservatives has been difficult to credit.

With their ship utterly wrecked, the Government desperately clings on to the resulting flotsam and jetsam as it drifts helplessly towards the impending whirlpool of electoral doom, from which no amount of voter suppression looks capable of saving them. Meanwhile, thoughts turn to the coming general election.

This time around, it’s clearly going to be a zombie election.

The dictionaries tell us that a zombie ‘does not notice what is happening’. The political class, media and most voters wander around blithely ignorant of what’s actually going on. Or if not ignorant dangerously complacent. Or if not complacent, just dangerous. There will be a lot of things the politicians hope we won’t notice in this election. For example, the creeping privatisation by stealth of the NHS, the way the public estate is being quietly flogged off, the erosion of democracy or the deliberate creation of more inequality. But the major thing they trust we aren’t going to notice is what’s happening to the world outside our insulated little bubbles.

Since the 1950s the amount of carbon in the atmosphere has risen from just over 300 parts per million (ppm) to over 420 ppm to reach levels well beyond those of the last 800,000 years. The result is growing climate chaos and knock-on impacts on the planet and the other species that share it with us. Or in many cases used to. As carbon hangs around and takes centuries to dissipate the climate can only get warmer. And warmer. And …

Meanwhile, we’re stubbornly continuing to stoke the fire. At the time of COP 1 in 1995 six gigatons of carbon were being added to the atmosphere every year. By the time another document of well-meaning verbiage was being spewed out by COP 28 in 2023 carbon emissions were over 37 gigatons a year. There’s still no sign of carbon emissions falling, let alone getting anywhere near the rapidly receding ambition of ‘net zero’.

But let’s ignore this. Most politicians unite in soothing us with business as usual and mindless growth of our extinction economy. Voters yearn for normality and security, not realising that normality is undermined by the everyday lives they lead. But zombies have ‘no energy’. Few are left with the energy to confront our looming existential crisis. Or even discuss it. And certainly not during an election.

Zombies ‘act without thinking’. Don’t expect to see much thinking in our zombie election as TV, press and social media do their job to busily distract us with trivia. Zombies also ‘attack and eat humans’. The Tories have been doing a pretty good job of this since 2010, at first aided and abetted by the Lib Dems, funnelling huge wads of cash into the hands of the super-rich, which often includes themselves.

Zombies act ‘as if unconscious’. This presumably includes those Labour tribalists who persist in their endearing belief that the authoritarian centralists who now run British Labour will reverse the process of looting the public sector, immiserating the poor and destroying the natural world. LOL is the appropriate response, I believe.

Zombies move around ‘as if  …  controlled by someone else’. The political class has long been captured by fossil fuel interests and the other beneficiaries of the extinction economy. But all of us zombies stumble around while being controlled by capital and the logic of profit-making, the real conspiracy that hides in plain sight.

But hey, let’s just party on, parrot profound statements quarried from two minutes ‘research’ on Google and make our decision on who to vote for based on how they eat a bacon sandwich or some other equally important criteria. Elections these days are just a branch of entertainment so settle back and enjoy the coming idiocies.

how to spot a zombie – they have a flag fetish

Another one

From Westwealas to West Sussex: the election in retrospect

Thankfully the election of illusions is over and we can settle down to another five wasted years of political incompetence from the English ruling class. Looking at the election results Cornwall has now converged with rural south-east England, with a very large block of Tory voters and Labour and the Lib Dems trailing far behind vying for second place. In fact, politically Cornwall now resembles West Sussex. This embarrassing outcome was probably inevitable ever since local government in Cornwall adopted its high population growth strategy in the 1970s. Their plan to suburbanise Cornwall has worked.

The Conservative vote is now at a record high at over 54%. The next best performance was in 1979 and then then it fell (just) short of 50%.

Yet Cornwall still managed to differ from southern England in one way. Virtually everywhere east of the Tamar the Liberal Democrat vote rose. In Cornwall it fell again, to a record low. Are the Lib Dems paying the price for the failures of the Lib Dem/indie run Cornwall Council in the same way that northern English voters have punished Labour in Labour-led council areas?

Cornwall may still be exceptional, but this is an exception that is now the diametric opposite of the (albeit exaggerated) radical tradition of the late 1800s and early 1900s. In the meantime, as the old political parties revert to the 1950s and resolutely ignore the need for fundamental and far-reaching reforms, it’s imperative that the Green Party, MK and others begin to discuss an agreement in advance of the elections to a truncated Cornwall Council in 2021. The luxury of continuing to split the progressive vote is madness in the current climate.

Cornish election results 2019

St Ives

Derek Thomas	Conservative	25,365	49.3%
Andrew George	Liberal Democrat	21,081	41.0%
Alana Bates	Labour	3,553	6.9%
Ian Flindall	Green	954	1.9%
Robert Smith	Liberal	314	0.6%
John Harris	The Common People	132	0.3%

Camborne-Redruth-Hayle

George Eustice	Conservative	26,764	53.1%
Paul Farmer	Labour	18,064	35.9%
Florence MacDonald	Liberal Democrat	3,504	7.0%
Karen La Borde	Green	1,359	2.7%
Paul Holmes	Liberal	676	1.3%

Truro & Falmouth

Cherilyn Mackrory	Conservative	27,237	46.0%
Jenn Forbes	Labour	22,676	38.3%
Ruth Gripper	Liberal Democrat	7,150	12.1%
Tom Scott	Green	1,714	2.9%
Paul Nicholson	Liberal	413	0.7%

St Austell & Newquay

Steve Double	Conservative	31,273	56.1%
Felicity Owen	Labour	14,747	26.4%
Tim Styles	Liberal Democrat	5,861	10.5%
Dick Cole	MK	1,660	3.0%
Collin Harker	Green	1,609	2.9%
Richard Byrne	Liberal	626	1.1%

North Cornwall

Scott Mann	Conservative	30,671	59.4%
Danny Chambers	Liberal Democrat	15,919	30.8%
Joy Bassett	Labour	4,516	8.7%
Elmars Liepins	Liberal	572	1.1%

South East Cornwall

Sheryll Murray	Conservative	31,807	59.3%
Gareth Derrick	Labour	10,836	20.2%
Colin Martin	Liberal Democrat	8,650	16.1%
Martha Green	Green	1,493	2.8%
Jay Latham	Liberal	869	1.6%

The election of illusions

This has been an election largely fought in an unreal parallel universe, a fantasy land of nostalgia, fond illusions and political sleight of hand.

Illusion #1 is the conceit that somehow voting in the Tories, or anyone else for that matter, will ‘get Brexit done’. It won’t. Brexit is not an event; it’s a process. It’s a show that’s will run. And run. And run. As interminable trade negotiations drag on and the UK again teeters on the brink of a no-deal brexit, even leave voters may wake up to that. Or more likely not.

Illusion #2 is that this is some sort of old-fashioned exercise in democracy. It’s not. This has been the first really effective post-truth election in Britain, with the Tories in particular ruthlessly manipulating the media (not that difficult in the case of the BBC I admit.) Fake stories, doctored videos, false tweets, misleading ads, outright lies. All’s fair in their quest to buy votes and keep the rusting old wreck on the road for a few years more. Although hardly enthused, voters take refuge in the familiar as they vote back the most incompetent ruling class in British history, kings and queens of the royal cock-up.

Illusion #3 is that this is basically an election just like previous ones. It’s not. This illusion is deeply entrenched in the media and lapped up by the sheepocracy being herded, trance-like, to the polls. But occasionally, despite the soothing distractions and noise of the media, people can sense something looming just out of sight. Like a half-forgotten nightmare or a fleeting ghostly presence glimpsed out of the corner of the eye, there lurks the oncoming climate emergency.

Rather ironically, storms are set to batter the UK just as the final votes are being cast this evening. Meanwhile, global politicians meeting in Madrid carry on failing to take the urgent action necessary to reduce carbon emissions and stave off planetary disaster. All the grand promises of £billions for the NHS or other infrastructure, all the hopes for continuing profit-making as another round of carbon-capitalism is ‘unleashed’, all the good intentions to build a better society, all these will inevitably founder on the rocks of the colossal sums required to cope with the consequences of climate breakdown. Every day we go on blithely spewing out carbon is another day lost.

This election shouldn’t have been about who gets brexit done or who patches up the NHS. In a rational or sane world, it would have been first and foremost about who takes the climate emergency seriously and who hasn’t got a clue. This is actually the election to lose. As the implications belatedly dawn, as the Arctic ice melts, as the weather gets ever more unpredictable, two things are likely to happen. Governments will be forced into radical and unpopular action, having complacently ignored the science for at least 20 years, and/or they’ll get the blame for an unravelling environment and overheating planet as they sit back and watch as nature takes its revenge on our greed.

Labour has at least woken up to the scale of the climate emergency but persists in fooling itself and others that action on climate change can be combined with expanding aviation or massive infrastructure schemes or more and more ‘growth’. It can’t. Instead, what’s required, and more so with every day that passes, is the precautionary principle. Declare a moratorium on all carbon-costly projects. Institute carbon rationing. Start to build a zero-growth society.

Why vote for more climate hypocrisy in this election of illusions? In the absence of an MK or extinction rebellion candidate I’ll be voting Green.

Tactical voting. Who to vote for in Cornwall

The second and final YouGov MRP poll provides no shocks but merely reiterates the conclusions of the static polling of the previous fortnight. There’s been a narrowing of the Tory lead, but too small to make any difference. Here’s the predicted vote. (Warning: there is a margin of error)

	Conservative	Labour	Lib Dem	other
St Ives	47	8	41	4
Camborne-Redruth	49	39	7	5
Truro-Falmouth	46	38	11	4
St Austell-Newquay	53	24	18	5
North Cornwall	54	8	37	2
South East Cornwall	55	20	20	5

In Cornwall the Tories are so far ahead in the eastern three constituencies that there’s no point at all there in voting ‘tactically’. The battle is for second place, with an eye on the next election.

With a 10% lead in Camborne-Redruth, George Eustice also looks safely beyond the margin of polling error. Even if all those intending to vote Lib Dem switched to Labour’s Paul Farmer, he’ll still lose. So don’t bother voting ‘tactically’ there either.

The gap in St Ives has hardly shifted since the Tories’ Derek Thomas established a lead two or three weeks ago when the Brexit Party ran away. The polls are suggesting an easier win for the Tories than in 2017. Nonetheless, the Conservative lead is still within the margin of error so it’s worth considering a Lib Dem vote here.

A second place where tactical voting is arguably worth even more serious consideration is Truro and Falmouth. Although the Tory lead here is wider than in St Ives, according to the polls it’s narrowing, and relatively quickly. Moreover, there’s still a residual Lib Dem vote here for Labour’s Jenn Forbes to sweep up.

If Lib Dems want to stop the Tory in Truro and Falmouth they must call for a Labour vote. In return Labour could call for a Lib Dem vote in St Ives if they’re really serious about getting rid of  Thomas. But are they?

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Does Steve Double have a double?

Steve Double is the Conservative MP for St Austell and Newquay. Steve’s a bit of an enigma. Earlier this year he was an enthusiastic no-deal brexiteer who thought May’s deal was a ‘betrayal’. But now Steve’s a loyal supporter of Johnson’s deal.

Steve has ‘consistently voted for a reduction of spending on welfare benefits’ but apparently there’s another altogether kindlier Steve who’s ‘compassionate and liberal-minded’, at least according to his own twitter account.

Then we have the Steve who ‘consistently voted for a stricter asylum system’. This Steve mustn’t be confused with the Steve who works closely with a campaign to help refugees settle in Britain and promotes humanitarian responses to immigration.

One Steve said brexit was ‘an opportunity for the UK to recover some of its diluted heritage’; the other Steve stated ‘Britain is more multi-cultural than ever before and this is something to be proud of’. (These two statements were made at the same meeting!)

Meet the Steve who spurns no opportunity to wrap himself in the St Piran’s flag. This must be a different Steve from the one who’s keen to promote the Great South West.

Steve and others at first meeting of Great South West parliamentary group

One Steve thinks it’s ‘time to truly decentralise Britain.’ This can’t be the same Steve who has ‘almost always voted against transferring more powers to the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly or to local councils’, can it?

Then there’s the Steve who was horrified at the weak jokes tweeted by Lib Dem candidate Danny Chambers in North Cornwall. That Steve wasn’t at all shocked by the other Steve, who happily retweeted doctored Tory videos of an interview with Labour’s Keir Starmer at the beginning of this election campaign.

The only explanation has to be the existence of two Steve Doubles. This explains how he has found the time since February 2018 to take on another half-time job in addition to his parliamentary duties. Not to mention tweeting to all and sundry. Either that or he’s an alien or robot that doesn’t need to sleep.

Neither Steve seems to worry over-much about the climate emergency

The Steve, it’s a bit unclear which one it is, that describes himself as a ‘Christian Cornish Conservative’, has been spending three days of his time since February 2018 as a ‘policy advisor’ to the Good Faith Partnership (GFP). It’s not clear where its funding comes from, but this looks like a bona-fide faith-based charity that works to encourage humanitarian responses to immigration, welcomes resettled refugees, wishes to improve financial inclusion and publicise the challenges Christians face in the Middle East. Although it’s not exactly clear who’s advising whom. While Steve says he’s a ‘policy advisor’ to the GFP, the GFP claims it’s placed advisors with Steve and two other parliamentarians.

Advice doesn’t come free. For this Steve is paid £20,500 a year, not to mention the £500 the GFP handed over to help pay for Steve’s trip to Brussels in November 2018 to discuss UK immigration policy after brexit. Since June this year the number of days Steve has been doing this has been cut from three days a week to two and a half, although the daily rate rose from £133 to £144. This is, of course, in addition to his £79,000 annual MP’s salary.

Amazing how one man can find time to do both these jobs, although one might have thought providing policy advice couldn’t possibly take up three whole days a week. You’d think a meeting every month or so would be quite sufficient.

However does he fit it all in? There’s only one possible explanation. Sorry to break the news to the voters of St Austell and Newquay but there just has to be two Steve Doubles.

which Steve is this?

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Labour stalls: Tories eye up landslide

Last weekend’s polls shows the Labour ‘surge’, or more accurately ‘creep’, stalling, or even falling back a little. Meanwhile, the Johnson juggernaut continues to inch its way upwards. This close to the election it looks like curtains for Corbyn, who seems to have become strangely subdued over the past few days as his lieutenants begin to manoeuvre to avoid the oncoming blame.

based on an aggregate of seven polling companies

The rock-solid block of support for the Tories from the elderly and the uneducated, the complacent and the couldn’t care less looks immoveable. They’ve been promised the biggest illusion of all in this election of illusions – a post-brexit nirvana of everlasting prosperity amidst a return to the 1950s – and by God they’re determined to get it.

but only if coming a distant 3rd is defined as ‘winning here’

Labour has been unable to squeeze the Liberal Democrats to the same extent as they did in 2017 or as clinically as the Tories disposed with the threat of Farage’s Brexit party. Their only hope now is massive tactical voting. But this looks increasingly unlikely as Lib Dem and Labour tribalists run amok confusing voters for short-term party gain. The other is a dramatic, last-minute announcement by Jeremy that he’ll resign in the New Year if he wins the election. Come on, Jezza, your final act will be a heroic sacrifice for British socialism. Not too much to ask for, is it?

Here in Cornwall it’s looking more and more like a clean sweep for the Tories. The suspicious lack of constituency polling in this election makes it more difficult to predict, but the only place where a tactical vote looks possibly worth it is St Ives. Anywhere else, it won’t make any difference. So don’t bother.

That advice might change after the YouGov MRP prediction is belatedly released late tomorrow. I’ll update on Wednesday.

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The mystery of the missing polling data

In 2017 the most accurate prediction for the election came from YouGov’s MRP (multilevel regression and post-stratification) model. This, based on a massive set of ongoing interviews, was updated daily in the week or ten days before polling day and indicated a gradually closing gap between Tories and Labour.

This time around YouGov produced its first estimate on November 27^th, eleven days ago. This showed a very healthy Tory lead. Since then, they’ve chosen to remain silent, unlike last time. YouGov now says it will publish its second, and presumably final, prediction at 10pm on Tuesday.

Why is this of more than passing interest to psephological anoraks like myself? Because of tactical voting.

In Britain we have 450 seats that are safe and, outside by-elections, will very rarely change hands. In those places you could vote for Lord Buckethead, spoil your paper, let the dog eat your postal vote or not bother at all, knowing that you’ll still be lumbered with a Tory or Labour MP. The other 200 seats could potentially change hands. However, it’s not easy to predict which will switch.

Tactical voting is a basically conservative strategy that merely delays the long overdue junking of a voting system designed for a two-party system that’s still being used in a multi-party system. However, until that reform arrives, if ever, we’re stuck with the necessity of voting tactically in some seats.

But which seats? Here, knowledge is the key. It’s no good relying on the simplistic assumption that just because a party came close last time, they will this time. Even worse, we can’t believe a word the parties themselves actually tell us. So we need polling data – and preferably data at a constituency level.

This is what YouGov’s MRP polling provided in 2017, when it regularly updated its findings on a daily basis. Knowing which way the trends were moving helped us more easily make a sensible and measured decision on whether to vote tactically and who for.

Take the last election in Camborne-Redruth. Here’s what the YouGov poll was predicting, updated every other day and appearing on this website. In the final week of the campaign Labour was steadily closing the gap – by 7 points – and almost stole the seat.

But this time, YouGov’s decision not to update their poll means there’s no way of knowing whether voters are swinging to Labour in this constituency more or less than elsewhere and whether Labour’s Paul Farmer is in with a realistic shot of taking the seat. Therefore, potential tactical voters like myself are unable to make a proper decision. I shall therefore stick with my preferred choice and not waste it on a tactical vote.

We could of course rely on the regular snapshot polls. However, these are not at constituency level and it’s difficult to extrapolate trends from polls that all use slightly different methodologies. The absence of the YouGov data means that in this election we have much less reliable information on which to base our decision.

Polls can of course influence voting behaviour as much as reflect it. The absence of regular YouGov updates last week when it appears Labour was (slowly) closing the gap, operated to dampen any surge that may have been occurring under the radar.

I don’t usually buy into conspiracy theories that claim opinion polls are designed to help the Tories. Yes, the usual polls underestimated the Labour vote in 2017 by almost 6%. But in 2015 they underestimated the Conservative vote by 4%. Opinion polling has become less accurate as voter volatility has increased.

But I cannot understand why YouGov has this time refused to release its data. Who does this benefit? Clearly, if information on trends is not out there, then any movement to Labour becomes less certain. People become confused on whether it’s best to vote tactically for Labour or for the Lib Dems or for others. Moreover, they are more likely to rely on the inaccurate and false findings peddled by the political parties. And the Tories therefore breath much more easily.

In addition, by 10pm on Tuesday at least one in five voters will have already voted by post, so news of any swing towards Labour that late will have absolutely no effect. Convenient, to say the least.

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Sheryll Murray and the Armenian connection

Voters in South East Cornwall are no doubt aware of marmite Conservative MP Sheryll Murray’s enthusiasm for a no-deal Brexit. They may also have fond memories of ex-councillor Sheryll’s colourful tired and emotional debut in the Houses of Parliament back in 2010. Some may be worried that her voting record makes the DUP look kind and caring. Others will know of her love of food banks or that she was one of 72 Tory MPs who voted against requiring private landlords to make houses ‘fit for habitation’ in 2016. (She should know as she rents out a house). They may even care about her role in removing financial support for the Cornish language from Cornwall Council’s devolution ‘deal’ with the Government.

But do many of them know anything about her connections with a conservative right wing political and business network, centred on the eastern Mediterranean?

They’re not so keen

They love her

Amusingly identifying one of her policy interests as ‘the environment’, Sheryll has made nine expenses-paid flights since the 2017 election. One of these was in 2018 to the States with an all-party group, paid for by a consortium of Heathrow and other airports. There she met with American politicians and ‘aviation stakeholders’. It’s safe to assume they didn’t discuss the urgent need to cut down on flying.

Most of the other flights on parliamentary ‘business’ were to the Mediterranean and middle East, where Sheryll appears to have a special interest. ‘Fact-finding’ visits to Cyprus were interspersed with a trip to Israel in 2018, paid for by the Conservative Friends of Israel and the Israeli Government. This was followed by a trip to Turkey, courtesy of the Conservative Friends of Turkey, to meet with ‘business people and politicians’.

In August this year she was back in Turkey again. This time the trip was funded by the Yunus Emre Institute and another Turkish cultural organisation. The Yunus Emre Institute is a Turkish-government funded soft-power institution with close links to the President Recep Erdogan. During that visit she met with ‘key officials’ and saw the condition of Syrian refugees. It’s fair to say these probably did not include any Kurdish refugees from secular and socialist Rojava, branded ‘terrorists’ and fleeing Turkish tanks.

As well as these visits to right-wing regimes Sheryll has a particular fondness for Armenia. In 2017 she joined other Tory brexiteers in attending a conference on ‘Progressivism and Conservatism’, hosted by the Prosperous Armenia Party. This is a pro-Russian, eurosceptic, socially conservative and economically liberal party led by tycoon Gagik Tsakuryan, described by some as an Armenian version of Trump.

Sheryll wasn’t the only Cornish Tory MP to attend the 2017 conference

There’s a very comprehensive account here of the way Tsakuryan has been courting Conservative MPs and other European politicians. Sheryll returned to Armenia in late 2018, again paid for by the Prosperous Armenia Party, to attend an ‘investment and trade round table’. What exactly is her fascination with Armenia? Is she helping broker a trade deal that will replace the UK’s trading relations with the EU? Or is she being used, wittingly or unwittingly, to shore up the reputation and credibility of an Armenian politician?

Voters in South East Cornwall, who are preparing to give Sheryll a massive majority next week, should be asking themselves who else she represents. Her connections with ideological soulmates in the middle east is rarely, if ever, questioned in the mainstream media here. It ought to be. Instead, let’s get back to Jeremy Corbyn’s anti-semitism. Now there’s a real issue.

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