I was a Labour member for a long time – and even a general election candidate back in 1987 – but I have never voted blindly for the party. In 2010, when I lived in Brighton, I helped elect Britain’s first Green MP, the great Caroline Lucas. I have been part of East Devon’s Independent movement, being Seaton and Colyton’s only non-Conservative county councillor in recent years, and supported Claire Wright in her bids for Parliament. But now I am backing the Liberal Democrats.
This is partly a tactical decision – it is essential to defeat the Tories, and the Lib Dems are best placed to win in both the Honiton & Sidmouth and Exmouth & Exeter East constituencies. It helps hugely that Richard Foord and Paul Arnott are both excellent candidates – doughty, dedicated and experienced campaigners and genuinely decent human beings to boot (now you can’t say that about all of the candidates on the anti-Tory side).
But there are also political reasons. Labour is tacking to the right, not prepared even to end the terrible two-child child benefit rule, and showing its authoritarian face in brutally removing some excellent candidates. The Lib Dems actually have some better policies, for example on social care, Europe and Palestine.
Perhaps most important, electing a large number of Lib Dems in this election could make them the official opposition in place of the Conservatives. We would then have a constructive opposition, helping push the Labour government to better places on some issues, and consigning the far-right Tory party to history. And East Devon could be part of this, not part of a discredited and irrelevant Conservative rump. What’s not to like?
East Devon Watch 