Not long ago I posted on the open primary process selecting the Tory candidate for Totnes. Iain Dale has just posted on the result and I thought it was worth a quick update.
The first thing that strikes me s that the turnout was some 25%. I think that's rather impressive when you consider that's for the selection of a candidate the vast majority of voters do not belong to. Sometimes parties struggle to get 25% of their own members to vote in internal elections let alone the general public.
The election result saw a local GP, Sarah Wollaston (pictured), beat two leading regional politicians;
Sarah Wollaston (GP) 7,914
Sara Randall Johnson (East Devon council leader) 5,495
Nick Bye (Mayor of Torbay) 3,088
Apparently the Lib Dems had campaigned for the selection of Mr Bye, which probably explains his poor performance.
Tuesday, August 04, 2009
Update on Totnes open primary
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Annie Leonard and co. (
Adrienne Mayor (
Ed Howker and Shiv Malik
Floella Benjamin (
Mark Watson (
Tim Jackson (
David Wilson (
Clive Lord (
Nickie Roberts
3 comments:
Clearly, should the Tories be holding a primary in a town near you, it is your civic duty to identify the crappest candidate, and vote for him. Or her.
That certainly what happens in much of the US with a similar system.
The draw back in a place like Totnes is that it's a fairly safe Tory seat and so you'd be favouring the most racist/incompetent/whatever person who would actually make it into Parliament.
In a tight race that strategy might make it less likely for the Tories to win but in a safe seat it would help the worst Tory...
You can't win in this game.
We had one in London for the Tory Mayoral Candidate.
I didn't vote for the worst candidate but he still won!
Post a Comment