General Election 2015: Tories and Lib Dems throw their star names west to grab votes

The heat is on to gather votes in crucial marginal seats

Simon Usborne
Thursday 23 April 2015 21:36 BST
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Prime Minister David Cameron speaks during a campaign visit to Chris Sedgeman Scaffolding in Penzance
Prime Minister David Cameron speaks during a campaign visit to Chris Sedgeman Scaffolding in Penzance

Rosemary White can’t remember the last time the Conservatives showed this much interest in Cornwall. “David Cameron comes down here on holiday and says he’s all for it,” the nurse says in the middle of St Austell. “But the only thing he wants to do is improve the mobile signal so he can phone his friends back in London.”

The Prime Minister revealed last year that he had twice abandoned family holidays to head back up the A30 in search of better phone reception, albeit for government matters. But he and his cabinet are now racing the other way as the Conservatives attempt to conquer a Lib Dem stronghold in a fierce battle for Cornwall – and the country. All six seats that make up the county are two-way, blue-and-yellow marginals, with three going to each coalition partner in 2010. But, as polling this week suggested Nick Clegg’s party could suffer losses across the South-west, and even fall into third place behind Labour in one Cornish constituency, the Tories have identified the region as a key battleground in its desperate search for a majority.

Cameron looked tired as he stepped off the sleeper train in Penzance for his second recent visit. Speaking inside a scaffolding warehouse within the St Ives constituency, one of the Lib Dem marginals that the Tories are targeting hard, he revealed his “plan for Cornwall”. He promised new jobs, a £10m stadium for the Cornish Pirates rugby team – and improvements to the sleeper service. Forty miles up the coast in St Austell and Newquay, the largest and most marginal Lib Dem Cornish seats, the Prime Minister is pinning his hopes on Steve Double. But after happily agreeing to meet The Independent on the morning of 21 April, the local businessman and Tory candidate has gone missing after an intervention by the party press office.


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“Maybe he’s got no signal,” Ms White, 46, suggests. The nurse is sitting with her partner, Stuart, at Speaker’s Corner on pedestrianised Fore Street. She badly broke her leg in a fall six months ago, and has been unable to work. She backs the other Steve – Steve Gilbert – who won the seat for the Lib Dems with a 3 per cent majority in 2010, and is on the defensive again.

Stephen Gilbert, Lib Dem candidate for St Austell and Newquay, campaigning with Baroness Shirley Williams

“He helped to reinstate my benefits and keep the bailiffs off my back after my accident,” she says. “He’s been brilliant. And I know so many people who’ve had their benefits taken off them. To pay off the national debt, the Conservatives have taken from the vulnerable and given to the rich.” After several calls and a social media appeal, Double becomes available again. He had earlier met the Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin, the latest cabinet minister to visit him. George Osborne, Theresa May and Liz Truss have already dropped in, and Cameron was here earlier this month for a rally in neighbouring North Cornwall, another Tory target.

“This is the only part of Cornwall that is going backwards economically,” Double says, citing a council report that showed wages had fallen here but risen across the county. But how might the former pastor, who was seven the last time the Conservatives were in charge here, convince White that his party can help Britain’s poorest county?

“It’s about opportunity and aspiration” he says, sounding every bit the polished MP he aspires to be. “It’s about having a strong economy with a plan, and creating jobs and growth. It’s not about keeping people on benefits, but giving them the dignity and security of a decent job.”

Tory candidate Steve Double’s campaign has seen boosted by visits from several ministers

The road to Newquay, on the other side of the Cornish peninsula, is plastered with posters and placards, with an even split between Tory blue and the Lib Dems’ orange rhombuses. “Winning Here”, the Gilbert signs claim, perhaps optimistically.

But at constituency HQ, a visiting dignitary is bullish about her party’s prospects.

“Cornwall is the cornerstone of the original Liberal Party,” Baroness Williams says. The Lib Dem peer, now 84, is enjoying her 11th general election and has campaigned in 45 constituencies in the past few weeks. “It’s the kind of county where, once you establish yourself, there is very strong loyalty. There is a strong sense of Cornwall being a different place.”

Has she not seen the polls? “I don’t deny it’s tight,” she says in the small yard outside the party’s industrial-looking office. “When you ask people which party will you support, we are strong but not dominant. But when you ask more about the candidates, we are much stronger.”

She dismisses a ComRes/ITV poll that last week predicted a devastating swing to the Conservatives in 14 Lib Dem seats in the South-west: “I will say very strongly that the theory of a Lib Dem wipeout in this region is completely ludicrous,” she says.

Gilbert is under pressure to resist the Conservative charge. “They’re pumping in huge amounts of money to unseat me,” the candidate says while knocking on doors near Treviglas Community College. “We know how much a glossy leaflet costs because we sometimes produce them, but nowhere near as many.”

The Lib Dems have reportedly focussed resources on winnable seats, effectively abandoning some marginals, but Gilbert says the support is “without parallel” compared to 2010. Nick Clegg was down the day before, and party president Baroness Sal Brinton has joined Baroness Williams today. “I really don’t think there’s any chance that the Conservatives will get the same level of vote they got last time,” Gilbert says.

Nigel Grace, a full-time carer to his elderly mother, agrees that Gilbert may be protected from the party’s national struggle. People here still remember Liberal giants of the region, John Pardoe and David Penhaligon, whose career was cut short by a fatal car accident in 1986.

“We’re isolated here, in a way, and I think people in the South-west have always had a tradition of supporting the individual rather than the party,” the former Job Centre manager says. “I hope that will come through this time but it is very close. You’re never really sure.”

The coast is unclear: State of play in Cornwall

1 St Ives

As David Cameron was going to St Ives yesterday, he met a man with a good chance of turning the tip of England blue for the first time since 1992. Tory candidate Derek Thomas is back to challenge the Liberal Democrat marginal after narrowly losing to Andrew George in 2010.

2 North Cornwall

Dan Rogerson has held off Tory challenges in the past two general elections in a seat once occupied by Liberal legend John Pardoe. Polling twice had the incumbent candidate neck and neck against Scott Mann, this year’s Tory contender, but Mr Rogerson has since opened a small gap.

3 Torbay

Torquay boy Adrian Sanders has occupied this Devon coastal seat since 1997, when he defeated the Tories by just 12 votes. He has enjoyed a relatively more comfortable cushion since, but Lord Ashcroft’s polling in March puts the party stalwart just 1 per cent ahead of rival Kevin Foster.

4 St Austell and Newquay

There wages a war of the Steves in a seat that crosses the Cornish peninsula, linking its biggest towns. Steve Gilbert nabbed it by 3 per cent for the Liberal Democrats in 2010 but faces a stiff challenge from St Austell businessman and former pastor Steve Double. Most polls indicate a Tory swing.

5 Camborne and Redruth

George Eustice won for the Conservatives by just 66 votes in 2010, making this Britain’s fourth-most marginal seat. Liberal Democrat Julia Goldsworthy, the narrow loser, is fighting to win it back, but the polls suggest she will do a lot worse as Labour threatens to leapfrog her into second place.

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