Have you seen the latest news from the Labour Party, as the whole country starts getting ready for the next general election?   And that election cannot come too soon, we would add….

The Labour Party is getting its last candidates in place. As part of the process, they have published a list of seats where they are not expecting to be in a challenging position.   These seats include our own Central Devon.   (ref…)

This is not surprising.   In the most recent round of local elections last May, the Tories took just 16 seats in the Central Devon constituency, while the Liberal Democrats took 19 seats.  The Labour Party ended up with no seats at all in Central Devon, and the Green Party did the same – no seats at all.

So the Labour Party’s decision to do less in Central Devon makes good sense.  Firstly in terms of resources.  The Tories have almost unlimited wealth at their disposal given them by their unsavoury cronies.  It is no coincidence that they have raised the limits on what can now be spent in an election campaign.  Meanwhile, the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats have a bit of a struggle, with much more limited resources.  It makes sense for both of them to concentrate where they have the most realistic expectations of winning.

But also there is tue question of strategy.  A Labour victory is not in the bag.   Labour needs to end up with  more seats than the Tories, to have the first choice of forming a government.   Therefore every seat that the Tories lose is positive for Labour.  

They cannot say it openly, but the hidden message behind this announcement from Labour seems clear enough. Please do everything you can to rally support behind the main challenger to the Tories in Central Devon – the Lib Dem candidate.   Then at least we shall have a good chance of getting our own “Portillo moment” here in Devon.

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