This crystal ball gazing has no hard evidence
✒ I READ with wry amusement the letter from Mr Laybourn which you published.
His argument as to who is best placed to unseat the local Conservative MP in Central Devon seems to run as follows: “The predictions from a polling company based on a result from four years ago says
Labour can win, so please vote Labour”.
Alas this is crystal ball gazing devoid of any hard evidence. Indeed, I can show Mr Laybourn a prediction from another polling site, favoured by Labour activists, that shows an unknown person without a political party beating an incumbent Conservative MP in a Devon constituency that will not exist!
The evidence is that the Liberal Democrats are best placed in the South West to beat the Conservatives. Look at the results in Tiverton & Honiton and Somerton & Frome.
Or, even more recent, the South Devon Primary picking Liberal Democrat Caroline Voaden as the unity candidate likely to beat the incumbent Conservative.
But if Mr Laybourn wants to rely on the ‘evidence’ of general elections it is worth pointing out that the best Labour has ever done in Central Devon is to win 27% of the vote, while the Liberal Democrats have polled 34%.
Putting to one side all the ‘numbers’ why would people choose Labour?
Any Labour MP from a Devon constituency will be little more than voting fodder for their party. Their influence minimal given the long distrust of rural communities by Labour. I’ve also not seen much evidence of interest by Labour in our rural communities.
Where were they when we oposed Conservative cuts to mobile libraires? Or lobbied to get potholes fixed? Or campaigned to reopen dormant hospital wards?
Why, one might also ask, support a party that will not put reform of our voting and parliamentary system, which is much needed, in its manifesto?
You may have the satisfaction of ousting a Conservative MP, but to what purpose?
Mr Laybourn failed to make any electoral impression on voters in the Crediton ward he contested last May. Why does he think fortunes will change for Labour just over a year later?
Mark Wooding, Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate,
Central Devon, Nymet Rowland