Kernow Matters To Us Statement - The Recent Elections in Cornwall

We have always prided ourselves on not being particularly aligned to one party here, leaving us free to be critical friends of any and all parties. However, we were proud to support Mebyon Kernow in the recent elections because we felt that they provided the voice for Cornwall that is so sadly lacking in political debate. We are pleased, then, in Thursday's election that not only did Mebyon Kernow retain the four seats they had before the total number of seats available was reduced from 123 to 87, but they even increased the seats they held by one. So with fewer seats available, Mebyon Kernow was able to increase their share of seats. We would offer our congratulations to Michael Bunney who becomes the newest MK councillor for St Mewan & Grampound. His campaign, like many of the others who were campaigning for the first time, was like a breath of fresh air.

We are also pleased to see many Councillors intent on concreting over Cornwall lose their seats on Thursday as well, but some few, sadly do remain. We offer congratulations to everyone who stood for election, everyone who voted, and everyone who won their seat. We offer our congratulations to Dick Cole for winning with the highest number of votes of any candidate!

We now have a Conservative government, and a Conservative council elected to prioritise housing for local people. How will they do this? Will they increase stamp duty on second homes to reduce that demand? Will they increase interest rates (2% increase is calculated to reduce house prices by 20%). We have seen their claim, and now we are waiting for the action!

We also see our council tax bills always increasing, as our MPs vote to cut funding to local government. So now with both Westminster and local government in one party, will they keep raising our taxes, like Conservative controlled Devon? Or will they cut our essential services? Or will our MPs stop keeping our taxes for themselves, and start funding local government like they belong to? 

Strangely, the turn out is unavailable. Perhaps the size of electorate in each ward remains unclear? At the last election in 2017 there were 419020 registered electors. We are often told share of "the vote" but we rarely get to see the share of the electorate, and when you look at how voting has changed among the electorate, the dramatic change in the number of seats reflects a dramatic change in the share in the vote, but when compared to the electorate there are two points to make. Firstly - the Conservative's did not win this election - the Liberal Democrats lost it. The Liberal Democrat share of the vote dropped by 10%, but the second point is that even this change is more moderate when we consider changes in voting behaviour of the electorate as a whole. Here is the changes in voting compared to the electorate as a whole:

Independent -1.0%

Conservative 1.2%

Labour 1.4%

Green 2.9%

Lib Dem -3.8%

MK 0.8%

Others -0.4%

So the blue wave we see crashing over Cornwall Council is the result of a modest increase of just 1.2% of voters choosing a Conservative candidate, conversely, the Liberal Democrat collapse was the result of just 3.8% of the electorate choosing to stay home. Why do such modest differences make such massive impacts? Well, for much of its history, turn out at Cornwall Council elections has been about 40% and it looks like this election was no different. When turn out is low, a few votes can make a huge difference to the outcome, and small changes can have a huge result. Effectively we are now controlled by a council that only 15.2% of the electorate chose while 59.1% of the electorate did not turn up to vote at all. We long for the heady days before the Unitary Authority when 70% of the electorate voted in Cornwall Council elections!

Meanwhile, the nearly 3% increase in voters choosing the Green party translated into only one seat. Why does such a relatively large increase have so little impact? This is the antiquated First Past the Post (FPTP) system. There are many things "wrong" with democracy right now; hijacked by populists abetted by a compliant media, but FPTP is one of them. It is antiquated, and it means that the parties in seats do not reflect their share of the vote. So the 68 Green candidates attracted about 228 votes each, about 9% of the vote, but that translated into just one seat. Meanwhile, Mebyon Kernow only fielded 19 candidates, attracting 5.1% of the whole vote, but that translated into five seats. Perhaps if they had fielded more candidates (and if there is no other candidate in your area, then that candidate is you) then perhaps they may have attracted a larger share of the vote, but as it stands, there are more Mebyon Kernow Councillors than Green Councillors even though they received fewer votes. Is this a fair system?