Interesting Elections 1: Warboys and Upwood

In a series of about the Cambridgeshire County Elections I thought I would look at coming and goings at some of the more interesting election battles. Warboys and Upwood is an interesting battle. This is a Conservative seat.

At the 2009 County Council elections the results was the following:

Warboys and Upwood electoral division
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Conservative	Victor Lucas	1,408	49.8	−5.5
	UKIP	Robert Brown	803	28.4	N/A
	Liberal Democrat	Robert Johnson	504	17.8	−14.6
	Labour	Margaret Cochrane	98	3.5	−8.8
Rejected ballots			10	0.4
Turnout			2,826	39.0
	Conservative hold		Swing

A good Conservative hold with UKIP second.

Victor Lucas having stood down there is now a vacancy which has been taken up by Cllr Jason Ablewhite who is standing as the Conservative candidate. The candidates for May 2013 are:

Name of Candidate      Home Address
The Conservative Party Candidate
ABLEWHITE Jason    Churchill House, 3 Pettis Rd, St Ives, PE27 6SR
Labour Party Candidate
GODDARD Kevin Roy 20 Worthington Close, Stilton, Peterborough, PE7 3XF
UK Independence Party (UKIP)
TEW Michael Russell     8 High Meadow, Bury, Hunts, PE26 2LD
Liberal Democrat
WILLS Christine Susan   28 The Paddock, Somersham, PE28 3JU

The only candidate to live in the division is Mike Tew standing for UKIP. All the other candidates live outside the division. What makes this an interesting seat is Cllr Ablewhite is currently Leader of Huntingdonshire District Council and is also a Town Councillor on St Ives Town Council. As leader, Cllr Ablewhite, upped Council Tax for HDC for 3.7% this year and upped the Council Tax last year.

The problem for Cllr Ablewhite is he needs to win and needs to win well to be able to stand up and say the electorate are with me on upping Council Tax. If Cllr Ablewhite loses then he will have a far tougher time when he proposes more increases in the years to come as this strategy would have been thrown out by the electorate.

What I do find a bit disconcerting is Cllr Ablewhite's address. Churchill House? Sounds as though he is wrapping himself in the Union Flag to fend off his tax rises. If his house is named after Winston Churchill and not disgraced Ken Churchill (standing as an Independent in St Neots) Cllr Abelwhite should take note of a quote from Winston:

“I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.”