Candidates & Elections are GO.

Monday 22nd October.

If you're a regular reader of the blog here at BackMac you'll already know about the various elections coming up during the next few months, specifically the PCC election in November; the Parish By-Election in December; or the County Council election in May 2013.

Frankly, the PCC election doesn't fill me with a great deal of excitement. I quite like the way that the Americans do law enforecment via elected Commissioners, Sheriffs etc, but suspect that our version will be somewhat botched, with voter apathy just making matters worse. For a good FAQ page on what the UK version is, go here to see what my friend at 'Left Of Lightwater' has to say about it.

While it really, really shouldn't be, the Lightwater Parish By-Election is somewhat more interesting to me given some of the 'beligerants' in this particular encounter. I've mentioned before about unfortunate it is that we'll have to go to the polls twice in as many weeks, but since we do, we might as well embrace it.
So on that basis I'm delighted to be able to confirm that standing with a blue rosette in December will be Mrs Katia Malcaus Cooper, local mum and stalwart of the Briar's Community Centre Committee.

Some might say that it's futile for any other party to stand a candidate here in Lightwater West given recent electoral history, but that to my mind is what makes this one quite interesting. With a collapse in the local Liberal support and a reinvigorated local Labour Party, I'm going to be interested to see whether its local or national polictics that dominates the next few weeks, and what effect that will have on the numbers.
(Don't worry though Katia - I'd hazard a calculated guess to say that the vacancy on the council will be yours come December).

And similarly so with the County Elections.
Both of the seats created by the demise of mine & Mrs Sealy's divisions are both similarly strong in terms of the forces of the conservative electors, so I would say that the Conservative Candidates, namely Mike Goodman (Windlesham, Bagshot & Chobham) & Adrian Page (Lightwater, West End & Bisley), both of whom I have worked with in the recent past and whom I can highly recommend as candidates, will have a pretty clear run in both of their respective divisions.
Thats not to say of course that the conclusion is forgone - both candidates still have considerable work ahead - but rather that previous electoral numbers tend to stand in the way of any other party political candidates proposing a serious challenge. While it will be interesting to see what political challenges & issues arise, I'd say that any risk to the existing status quo - in fact the only risk, itself relatively small - would probably be of strong independent candidates standing up for a local issue on a cross-party basis. Of course this part of the world isn't known for its revolutionary zeal, but that's exactly what they said in Chobham all those years ago.
I guess we'll see.

In the meantime, the various campaign machines will now be rumbling into action. Flyers printed; canvass cards prepared; party members mobilised; all the machinery that has been associated with democracy since the time of ancient Athens.
So, congratulations to the candidates

And good luck.