Falmouth Packet: Packet Skipper

Not long to go now. On Thursday, May 2 you can wander in to your local polling station and cast a vote in the elections for Cornwall Council.

Your pal the Skipper has no idea who is going to win, but I do know that everyone is going to spin.

By the end of play on Friday, May 3, defeated candidates and the party faithful will be telling us that abymsal results are actually spectacular triumphs - but given the paralysis that has gripped New County Hall in recent years, almost any result will come as a welcome relief.

History tells us, however, to take a longer-term view and to measure the 2013 results against what happened last time, in 2009.

It seems such a long time ago now - Gordon Brown was Prime Minister and the American banks had just run off with all our money - the economy was the background against which the elections were fought.

Defections and by-elections over four years have changed the arithmetic, but 2009 gives us a clear point of reference.

  • Back then, the Conservatives fielded a full slate of 123 candidates and they did well, polling 34 per cent of the vote and taking 50 of the 123 council seats.
  • The Liberal Democrats, as traditional recipients of any protest vote, had to balance their anti-government rhetoric with their own record as the party that had been in charge of Cornwall for the previous four years. They were disappointed with their 28 per cent share and their subsequent transfer to the Opposition benches.

(Strangely, neither the Conservatives nor Liberal Democrats is able to field a full slate of candidates in 2013.)

  • The Independents, who dislike being referred to as a political party at all, polled 23 per cent of the vote in 2009 and ended up in coalition with the Conservatives.
  • UKIP meanwhile fielded just 27 candidates at the last election, but is able to enter 76 this time around.

There is some prospect of exciting contest in individual wards - in 2009, high flying Conservative Fiona Ferguson won her Truro seat with a majority of only six votes. Andrew Wallis won in Porthleven and Helston South by 17.

  • Labour, in 2009, expected to get a kicking and the voters duly obliged. The party got just three per cent of the vote and not one of its 58 candidates got elected.
  • Mebyon Kernow, by contrast, did well. Despite fielding only 32 candidates, the party polled four per cent and got three councillors. 

Both MK and Labour can expect to improve this time around.

What happens when Cornwall goes to the polls in a few weeks is anyone's guess. The Lib Dems, traditional rivals of the Conservatives in Cornwall, now find themselves supporting a minority Conservative government in Westminster. Meanwhile, a few weeks ago, Cornwall's Conservatives backed a Lib Dem cuts budget that could cost jobs and services.

Who wins? You decide.