For the past few weeks I’ve not been allowed to have a newspaper column for fear that my scandalous political views (ie ‘the Tories might be a bit shit’) influence the readers of the Bridgwater Diogo, I mean ‘Mercury’. And of course realising that as a Godless Communist Catholic Anarchist, there might be some truth in that. So today, with only a few days until election day (and a few seconds until you remember you also have that postal vote form still hanging around un-filled in) I thought it was my duty to give a balanced and totally fair summary of the candidates and parties standing for the election in Bridgwater. And how to make sure the Tories don’t get in again.
So there’s an election on Thursday July 4th. That’s THIS Thursday. And this one will decide who runs the country and who represents YOU in your constituency.
And also we have a different constituency of course.
Gone are the blue remembered Tory Hills of Exmoor and the Brendons, gone are the deeply blue Poldens and the bluey green blue swampland of ancient Avalon and basically we’re back to the historically red towns of Bridgwater and Highbridge with Burnham, North Petherton and Woolavington all part of the picture with their latent labour leanings.
By which I mean Highbridge and Woolavington returned Labour councillors for decades and North Petherton definitely has at least 2 Labour members living there. And 3 on the Town Council. Which is weird…
‘All as bad as each other’. Wrong! Some are much worse….
The most common thing you hear is ‘they’re all as bad as each other’ , ‘no one represents me’. Or worse, ‘i don’t know anything about any of them‘ .
So if you simply want to work out your politics and then vote that way, then here’s an independent test for you to take produced by very clever people who know what they’re talking about. Here.
So, now you’ve discovered you’re Labour, and if voting was as simple as that we’d all be happy. You’d click on that test, find you were Labour, or Tory or a Green and then go vote for them.
But it isn’t. Because without an earthquake in the political scene, all parties are not equal. And with our voting system ‘First Past The Post’ then so many votes will just be wasted votes.
In simple terms, First Past the Post gives you just one vote and to make it count you have to do the maths and back the winner to get the closest to what you want.
In PR (Proportional Representation) you can put your real favourite first and your next choice second so when the votes are averaged out then everybodies opinions have to be considered proportionally. Or….’democratically’..
Make Votes Count
So, until we get ‘proportional representation‘ when every vote will count and people won’t be compromising in their votes, then the 2 main parties will be broadly shifting the furniture (their policies) to try to capture the current will of the voting public…or what they perceive it to be. If you look at the 2nd chart here, you’ll see the calculation made by the new Starmerite Labour Party to move rightwards into the ‘centre ground’ (the box) as the Sunak Tory party moves itself out of that box to the right therefore becoming ‘less electable’ to the centreground. That leaves voters with the choice to follow the Party that they usually support or to ditch it. The real battle will still be in that central square but build ups of votes outside could also influence which of the 2 main parties get in.
The Choice in Bridgwater
On the Right….
The big game changer is REFORMUK. A party that isn’t a party. It’s a business. A Franchise for the populist right wing opportunist Nigel Farage. Who had left politics to ‘spend more time with Donald Trump’ until he saw a ‘gap in the market’ and then simply took over the party ‘because he could‘. The ‘gap in the market’ was the iminent collapse of the Conservative Party– slumping 30% even here in Bridgwater, and the winding up of the public by ‘stop the small boats‘ rhetoric. To be fair, all parties have said they would try to deal with that, but it’s only ReFuk candidates that have suggested shooting them. Nigel Farage’s own reply, when asked how we would make France take them back….‘that’s what we’ve got the Royal Marines for‘. In Bridgwater the Reform Party with a totally unknown candidate (Bill Fagg) are climbing up the heap of discarded Tory rosettes and could be the big disruptor. If they win here they’ll win elsewhere and then we’ll know that the country really has gone off the rails. But most likely they’ll just destroy the Tory vote, as their real plan is to be the ‘Replacement Tory Bus Service’ for the next next election.
On the Left…
The GREENS are working hard to make that key breakthrough they need across the country. But it’s tough for them. A lot of people kind of like what they say and there’s a few seats they have their eye on. Possibly, even they say, 4 at most. They’re not going to form a Government. Again the voting system is against them. So a Green vote in Bridgwater won’t help them and certainly won’t harm the Tories. The Greens are building ward by ward across the country. They don’t have a class base, union financers or big business backers -even Ecotricity boss Dale Vince is urgeing a Labour vote. They concentrate their activists in a few areas. This is why Bristol Central will be an interesting one to watch as every single council ward there now is Green.
The WORKERS PARTY, sadly, look a bit like a vehicle for George Galloway’s massive ego. They might have some interesting left policies but they are definitely socially conservative and opportunistically a mirror image of Refuk with their Brexity positioning. And whilst their local candidate Greg Tanner might well be a decent bloke – in fact a local doctor -nevertheless the party wouldn’t have the presence it does without the Galloway. However, they don’t even register on the opinion polls around here.
The wooly centre…
The LIB DEMS are a more dangerous party because they do look so soft and fluffy. But then so does a badger until you try to pick it up and cuddle it. The Lib Dems have form. They have become the alternative to the Tories in much of Somerset, mainly where there’s very weak Labour parties, and have been so since Paddy Ashdown-Factor (sic). From that point on (the 80s) much of Somerset saw Labour towns and councils wiped out or collapse in the face of Thatcherism (and the rise of the LibDems-SDP-SaLaDs etc all split the vote and kept her in power) and people in those areas thereafter saw Libdem as the only way to beat the Tories.
But in Bridgwater that was never the case. And through all the Lib Dem ‘winning here’ propaganda they fail to mention that Bridgwater never once went Lib Dem and they were in fact wiped out in the town shortly after their collapse at District in 2001, never to be seen since. The Lib Dem vote is lolling about in 4th place but their tactic is to attack Labour and try to trick people into thinking they are the tactical vote. They really aren’t. Labour is. So a Lib Dem vote round these parts is a Tory enabling vote…much like the actual Lib Dems when they get in power. Most people still remember their promises that led to the Coalition of 2010 which saw them let the Tories back into power and then the years of ‘Austerity’ which that coalition brought in. And an EU promise mountain left in their wake.
To be reminded of the actual tactical vote against the Tories in Bridgwater click here and enter your post code.
In some parts of the country INDEPENDENTS have been taking on the big parties. In Bridgwater Pele Barnes is a bit mixed message in saying he’s an independent but also that he’s formed his own party (SUP – Somerset Unionist Party). The former Tory is a pleasant and good natured guy who no longer likes the Tories. Nor any other party. I asked him to do one of the tests so I could add him to the political graph. But he hasn’t. So I simply can’t tell you what his politics are. I only hope he’s fully aware that to stand as candidate for MP you have to pay a deposit of £500 and if you don’t get 5% of the votes then you lose that deposit.
So…are you suggesting voting Labour?
Which really leaves LABOUR. In simple terms if you want the Tories out here you vote Labour -that is unless the Lib Dems manage to convince you that they are the tactical vote. Which they aren’t. Some people think the Lib Dem candidate is a councillor from the Burnham area. She’s a councillor for sure, but from the other side of the Mendips, an hour drive away. But she’s playing on the fact that the new Bridgwater (and Burnham) (but it’s not called that) Constituency is a joining of 2 former ones. The Labour part of the old Bridgwater one (Bridgwater & West Somerset) and the coastal part of the old Wells one (which the Lib Dems indeed did have once) (but just once).
The Labour candidate IS a local Councillor. Leigh Redman is the leader of the Labour group on Somerset Council,a former Sedgemoor councillor and a current Bridgwater Town Councillor. He lives locally. And was born locally. He’s not the only local candidate, but he’s the only local candidate who has a realistic chance of winning.
So where does this leave us?
Sadly, the most likely result will be that the slide to ReformUK is checked when people realise that they’re the biggest tricksters going and the ammount of RefUKers turning out to be racists becomes beyond a coincidence, and that will mean the slide away from the Tories is stemmed and Bristol based Tory grandee Ashley Fox squeezes in by a few votes. And that will only be helped by Bridgwater’s problem as old as the day of Labour and Liberals splitting each others votes -a problem resolved only once in the last 100 years when Vernon Bartlett won the seat on the moral issue of fighting fascism. Read this for more info on that.
So do the test above. Here it is again.
Do the maths.
Vote for who you like (it’s secret after all)
Roll on PR.
I’ve already voted (by post) and I’ve voted Labour.
Just saying…
It’s the least I could do for the generations before us here in Bridgwater who built up the party here, and who might not be terribly impressed by Keir Starmer, but who would be absolutely overjoyed that Bridgwater finally elected a Labour MP.