Yesterday local politics had its Cup Final, with the Tories left holding the Woking Cup. The scores were two all: they lost two, we gained two. One of our gains was Knaphill, a three-Councillor ward, where the Conservative was standing down and Liberal Democrat Ollie Wells won the seat back from the new Conservative candidate.

Olly is a young, energetic teacher who is going to be a great asset to the Liberal Democrat team on the Council. It’s also going to be an enormous help to me as the County Councillor covering that area to have another Liberal Democrat colleague on the Borough, alongside Ric Sharp.

I have always consulted with and passed on information to all Borough Colleagues about local issues such as roads, regardless of party. This is clearly in the best interest of the residents. The Borough Councillors have been elected to represent the residents, regardless of their political colour.

But it’s easier when their underlying assumptions about the right course of action is more likely to be in line with mine, because they share the same political ideals. (Even when in practical terms these ideals don’t diverge very far from each other - we all want to see the potholes in our own area filled in.)

Olly has been incredibly determined in getting out to talk to people, and interested in what they have to say and how Councillors can ‘make a difference’. I’m positively looking forward to working with him.

Voters turned off politics

The turnout in Knaphill was 39.48%. Yesterday, while I was knocking on the doors of people who we thought would want to vote, to remind them that it was election day, two said they were so fed up with the bickering, opportunistic arguments between political parties that they found none of them credible. They would not vote.

Our first-past-the-post electoral system does not help. We end up with two parties ritualistically locking antlers, bellowing and grunting. But neither of them dares stop, because if they do they’ll risk ending up badly gored.

Where it does work 

There is nothing like standing for election to keep Councillors working. At the end of your four years there’s no appeal, no industrial tribunal to go to. Like Sir Alan Sugar, the electorate can say without any come-back ‘You’re Fired!’.

Even with low turn-outs and a (wrong but inevitable) tendency to rely on the party faithful, it’s the votes at the margin that make the difference. In Liberal Democrat held areas in Woking, a town which at parliamentary level is currently overwhelmingly Conservative, if as a Councillor you’ve answered the ’phone calls, been out in the rain looking at trees and litter, then ‘phoning the relevant Officer to get  the problem sorted out, you may get the extra votes you need to win.

(Need I say more than ‘Rosie Sharpley’, with 1261 votes in Goldsworth East with her nearest rival at 654?)