Curiouser and curiouser: Has Ukip taken over the Liberal Party in Cornwall?

Although Paul Holmes has been spotted on election hustings at Camborne-Redruth, the other five Liberal Party candidates in Cornwall have so far preferred to keep a very low profile in this election. The most interesting of these mystery candidates is Robert Lee Smith at St Ives, with an undisclosed address in the constituency.

In the European elections of 2014 Robert Lee Smith was the candidate for Ukip with an address at Newmill, near Penzance. Under the matier name of Bob Smith he stood for Ukip at Camborne-Redruth in the 2015 general election. In 2012 he stood for Ukip in the first elections for a Police Commissioner for Devon and Cornwall. At that election he was described as an educational and child psychologist and given his proper title of Doctor. Further back, Bob had stood for Ukip in Falmouth and Camborne in 1997.

Bob Smith in 2014

Bob (67), who arrived from Coventry in the 1990s, was not just a fleeting member of Ukip, like many others having joined in a fit of enthusiasm and left in a cloud of disillusion. He was a founder member in 1993.

The last time it was heard from, the Liberal Party was supporting the Ukip candidate in Truro at the 2015 general election. Is Bob now just returning a favour? Or he has he ditched his Ukip principles after a long allegiance of more than 20 years and now labours for the left populism of the Liberals? Anyone can change their minds but, apart from both parties being pro-brexit, this seems to be a quite a jump. Or is the Liberal Party in Cornwall just a front for what’s left of Ukip? Like the alien in Alien are they sucking the life from their hosts as they prepare to burst forth again when the time is ripe?

And what effect will the few hundred votes they gather have? Will they be confused Lib Dems, unable to tell the difference between Liberal Democrat and Liberal? Or will they be brexiteers, unable to stomach voting for the mendacious Tories? Who knows? In this weirder by the moment election of illusions who actually cares?

Update: It appears that Bob Smith is not alone. Two other Liberal Party candidates – Paul Nicholson in Truro and Falmouth and Elmars Liepins in North Cornwall were also former Ukip members.

COMMENTS: To make a comment you must provide your full name, i.e. first name and surname and linked email address. Pseudonyms will not be accepted.

Candidate-spotting at Camborne-Redruth (oh, and Hayle)

In the constituency of Camborne, Redruth and Hayle things may look depressingly normal on the surface but the impression from social media is of a furious maelstrom of political activity. Even George Eustice has actually been spotted (twice!) scurrying around the back streets of Redruth with a little band of Conservative helpers. Strangely, despite this, there’s been no reports of him being seen knocking on any doors in this same area.

Anyway, he assures us he’s getting ‘a good reception’ and a ‘positive reaction’ from voters hysterically overjoyed at the latest news that they’ll be able to park their car for free at Treliske (small print – ‘for those who need it’) the next time they turn up for their cancelled operation. George says ‘a vote for the Lib Dems makes it more likely we’ll end up with Jeremy Corbyn in No.10’. Which satanic nightmare is a bit curious as in Camborne-Redruth a Lib Dem vote will help guarantee the exact opposite.

Another small band of enthusiasts driven to manic self-flagellating bliss by brexit might be spotted trailing through the sodden streets of the constituency. It’s the frighteningly optimistic Flossie MacDonald of the Lib Dems. She’s telling local voters that ‘your confidence in me is driving me to build a better future’. Who are these voters? Please, stop encouraging her. Flossie’s exhausting breeziness is inflamed by mysteriously anonymous and cryptic comments such as ‘the word on the streets is that even strong Labour supporters are voting for Florence instead’. The weak ones are presumably voting for George.

old politics

Flossie has the answer for those confused by the Lib Dems, a not inconsiderable number one has to assume. ‘Here is something to help‘, as she unveils the tablet from the mountain, aka Lib Dem manifesto. Unfortunately, Flossie hasn’t had time to digest it fully herself. Rightly castigating Labour for abandoning plans for zero carbon emissions by 2030, she doesn’t mention the inconvenient fact that Lib Dem policy is zero by 2045.

new politics

Meanwhile, last Saturday Labour’s Paul Farmer was hitting the streets in Redruth with a couple of hundred others on a March for the Arts. In Redruth? A bit like marching in Devon for jam on scones first, surely? Anyway, Paul thinks the ‘atmosphere is positive and the energy is building’ and ‘there’s a nameless, frameless anger towards the Tory regime’. Let’s hope they can identify a frame before December 12^th then. Paul wants ‘bespoke solutions’ for Cornwall which is ‘historically its own country’.

That’s one thing the Greens’ Karen La Borde agrees on, although the Greens go further than Labour, by committing to ‘give Cornwall it’s [sic] own Assembly’. Karen’s not quite sure what else to offer the people of the constituency however. She’s appealing to fellow Greens to help her answer a question she was asked – ‘what can the Green Party do for people in this constituency? Answer in two sentences please’ she says.

Here’s one sentence. Tell the dozy buggers to wake up, smell the coffee and stop living in the past.

Talking of which, in this constituency at least, there are signs that the Liberal Party is alive and well. Well, alive anyway. Paul Holmes (75) has been present on the hustings and memorably predicts ‘I think we’ll do quite well’. Famous last words, Paul, famous last words.

COMMENTS: To make a comment you must provide your full name, i.e. first name and surname and linked email address. Pseudonyms will not be accepted.

Polarisation at Pool: good versus evil in Camborne-Redruth

No need to rely on the fatuous falsehoods being flung out by Boris Johnson. In Camborne-Redruth Conservative George Eustice is beginning to adopt an altogether more Old Testament approach to campaigning. He’s now begun viewing this election through Manichean spectacles of good versus evil, good being Boris and brexit and evil being Momentum, Corbyn and his ‘marxist’ crew.

It seems George has become quite an expert on marxism. He can spot a mode of production from miles away while means of production, the extraction of surplus value and class consciousness are meat and drink to him. One trusts his knowledge of marxism extends further than his knowledge of fishing and the potential impact of brexit on it. But then, when he was grilled on that one, he was only the fishing minister in a Tory Government, so what can we expect?

Another whopper, Boris!

It’s good to see that George has recovered from the slight hiccup caused by his encounter with an actual voter while out canvassing in West Tolgus. Since then he’s been getting a ‘very positive response’ from voters, some of whose grandparents may even have voted for the Radical MP Charles Conybeare in 1885. Come back Charles, where are you when you’re needed?

George is in unstated alliance with the Lib Dems’ Flossie MacDonald, with both manically pushing the Great Brexit Distraction for all it’s worth. Makes one quite nostalgic for the good old days of the coalition government.  Flossie persists in the thankless task of trying to persuade voters that a vote for her isn’t identical to gifting the seat to George. In return George is nice to all those ‘Lib Dem stalwarts’ who are all ‘polite and friendly in the best Cornish tradition’. Not like those evil Corbyn supporters schooled by Momentum to spread havoc and confusion in secret training camps on Carn Brea.

Of course, ‘best Cornish tradition’ here means knowing their place and regularly returning people like George to Parliament. Strangely, for someone who stresses his local connections going back thousands of generations to the time the first living Cornish thing crawled out of the slime and demanded a pasty, he seems blissfully unaware that in Cornwall ‘polite and friendly’ on the doorstep translates into ‘two-faced and duplicitous’ in the polling booth. We can only hope.

A typical subversive idea from ‘marxist’
Labour

Meanwhile, Paul Farmer’s campaign for Labour is being fuelled by ‘people-powered effort’. None of that fossil-fuel power for Paul who’s stressing his green credentials even as his leader backs off from the urgent action necessary to combat climate chaos under pressure from the GMB. Labour certainly exudes confidence but how far it spills out into the mean streets of Camborne and Redruth is quite another matter.

We also have Karen La Borde for the Greens, who’s asking us to vote with our hearts. And face up to the consequences for the future of our actions in the present. Good luck with that one, Karen. And then there’s Paul Holmes for the Liberals, who’s yet been spotted on the hustings.

COMMENTS: To make a comment you must provide your full name, i.e. first name and surname and linked email address. Pseudonyms will not be accepted.

Election nominations in Cornwall: last minute surprises

Sadly, the Grand Old Duke of Farage’s deal with Johnson has denied us the spectacle of Brexit Party candidates making arses of themselves in Cornwall in this election. Never fear however as, in a final twist, we wake up today to find the baton has been picked up by another pro-brexit party.

Yes, it’s the re-emergence of the Liberal Party (official tendency), thought to have expired in 2005. They’ve risen like an angry phoenix and are standing candidates in all six Cornish constituencies, making it the only country in the UK with a full slate of Liberal Party candidates. Although it’s not the first time; they contested all five seats in 1992, winning a grand total of 2,837 votes.

The Liberal Party is basically the rump of Liberals who couldn’t stomach merging with the SDP back in 1988. They’re normally positioned to the left of the Lib Dems, standing up for the poor and vulnerable against the bankers and financiers, according to their website. They want to scrap Trident, put a land tax in place, bring water and rail into public ownership and the like. On brexit they were in favour of leaving, but wanted ‘all political parties to seek to create a unity of purpose’ around the departure, while rejecting a third referendum. They also respect the independence of their local associations.

And there’s the rub. While the Liberal Party in England looks to be a progressive party, the Liberal Party in Cornwall, led by long-time campaigner Paul Holmes of Camborne, in 2015 withdrew an equally secretive three candidates to throw its weight behind Ukip, going on to support them on the hustings. So in Cornwall is it a party of the right with a hard brexit stance, a Ukip-lite? Confusing.

Liberal Democrats in St Ives and North Cornwall, bitterly lamenting the loss of the Brexit party, will be in two minds about the re-emergence of the Liberals. On the one hand their hard brexit stance may be attractive to Tory voters; on the other there is a slight possibility of name confusion among the less politically educated.

There is yet another last-minute candidate in St Ives. John Harris is standing for The Common People. Unfortunately for Andrew George these are the common people who want ‘a moderate, just and fair socialist society’ rather than the common people who voted 55% for leave in St Ives.

COMMENTS: To make a comment you must provide your full name, i.e. first name and surname and linked email address. Pseudonyms will not be accepted.