The Lights Are Going Out Across the County…..for the Tories

Of course it may just be the early nights but the feeling that the people are closing in on the Tories the nearer we get to Christmas the more the red banners of hope fly stronger. Today, as Boris Johnson was chased unceremoniously out of the county where every single MP is Tory-for the time being – the battle lines were drawn and the candidates revealed.

Somerton & Frome Labour Party launched their general election campaign at the Cheese and Grain with  Candidate Sean Dromgoole standing alongside Labour candidate for Wells, Kama McKenzie.

Sean Dromgoole started  with an attack on the LibDem leadership saying “we have to remember that a lot of people used to vote LibDem when it was the party of Shirley Williams, Paddy Ashdown and Charles Kennedy. Those voters haven’t changed. What has changed is the party under Jo Swinson….she served under David Cameron… voted for austerity…. the bedroom tax…you name it Jo Swinson voted for it.”

Sean then directed his fire against the Tories saying “What Johnson has done is take a lesson from Donald Trump, he’s fired all the sensible ones, the Ken Clarkes, Dominic Grieves and Amber Rudds are all out on their ears.  Now his party is in hock to the European Research Group the Mark Francoises, the Steve Bakers, Liam Foxes, Ian Duncan Smiths, Jacob Rees Moggs and yes – down at the bottom of the list, purely for alphabetical reasons, Mr David Warburton.”

Bridgwater-where Labour is in second place

Friday and Saturday will see the launch of the Bridgwater & West Somerset Labour campaign where Oliver Thornton sees himself up against the Tory incumbant plus not just one but 2 Liberals. Maybe the Libs feel twice as confident standing 2 people who both think they’re more liberal than the other and maybe now they’ll have to re-think their ridiculous bar chart campaign ‘Libdems winning here…against the Liberals!!’. And of course the Lib-Lib battle has been confounded even more by a late entry from the Greens. In a seat where they rarely get past 1% of the vote they’ve now joined the fray. Sadly, likely to sop up a few more anti Tory votes from where they’ll really be needed – on the piles of the frontrunner (read ‘Labour’) candidate. No wonder Greens across the country are feeling let down by the Lib led pact.

It’s hard to trust the Lib Dems when you know they’re simply going to put out a pile of bar charts showing they’re in second place no matter what he facts show you – and which is exactly what they did in Bridgwater and West Somerset, where in fact clearly Labour is in second place. In 2017 Labour had almost 17,000 votes whilst the Lib Dems barely had 6,000. A similar figure that they had  in the 2015 election and hadn’t moved on at all from. So they had to dig deep into their imagination and came up with a chart that showed the district council elections of 2019 and adding in 10 wards were Labour didn’t even stand candidates to provide a chart where they scraped into 2nd place. But..sadly for the Lib Dems….the votes cast still added up against them with Labour winning 11 council seats to the Lib Dems 5. Even being beaten by the 7 independents. In Bridgwater and West Somerset people know that the tactical vote is Labour and that the Libs trying to convince people otherwise is just helping the Tories. But of course, people also know that when the LibDems actually got elected back in 2010 the first thing they did was put the Tories in Government…and then helped them bring in Austerity. So sometimes, if you vote Lib Dem you get a Tory….but , worse, you might get a Lib Dem……

Making up the Numbers

In Taunton and in Wells the Green Party have stood down in order,presumably,  to lose themselves even more credibility by backing the Lib Dem candidates. While in Somerton and Frome it seems the duplicitous Lib led Remain alliance collapsed  in  mistrust…odd that….and the Libs and Greens are fighting it out amongst themselves at the ballot box of the counties most ‘Remain’ constituency.

An assortment of ‘alternatives’ are in there as well ranging from the ‘Motherworld’ Party, standing in Wells and fighting for last place against the ‘Independent’ (previously the ‘Birthday Party’ candidate). Meanwhile in Taunton and Yeovil there’s another couple of Independents who presumably think they can form a Government on their own, whilst finally in Yeovil there’s the ‘Constitution and Reform’ candidate who I tried to research the beliefs of but got as far as an article called “The desecration of the image of God and the arrival of the heresiarch” before  giving up.

A full list of Somerset Candidates

Bridgwater & West Somerset

Ian Liddell Grainger – The Conservative Party Candidate

Farès K Moussa – The Liberal Party

Bill Revans – Liberal Democrat

Mickie Ritchie – Green Party

Oliver Andrew Robert Thornton – Labour Party Candidate

Taunton Deane

Gideon Amos -Liberal Democrat

Liam Canham – Labour Party Candidate

John Hunt  -Independent

Rebecca Pow – The Conservative Party Candidate

Yeovil

Tony Capozzoli – Independent

Mick Clark – Liberal Democrat

Tom Fox – The Constitution and Reform Party

Marcus John Hudson Fysh – The Conservative Party Candidate

Terry Ledlie – Labour Party Candidate

Diane Catherine Wood – Green Party

Wells

Dave Dobbs – Independent

James Heappey – The Conservative Party Candidate

Kama McKenzie – Labour Party Candidate

Tessa Munt – Liberal Democrat

Susie Quartermass – The Motherworld Party .

Somerton & Frome

Adam Owen Matthew Boyden – Liberal Democrat

Andrea Dexter – Green Party

Sean Adam Dromgoole – Labour Party Candidate

David Warburton – The Conservative Party