Author Archives: Daniel Russell

Winning people around and winning here

By Daniel Russell | Wed 29th June 2016 - 12:10 pm

Amongst the post-apocalyptic Brexit debris, I have somehow managed to steel myself and pore over the depressing map of blue England in an attempt to seek out some positive signs of life and hope. The immediate signals are clear and well-documented, pretty much yellow ‘Remain’ for the large metropolitan areas and swathes of blue for the rural ‘Leave’ (although the blue is practically purple on the East Anglian fringes!).

Amongst all this there are some exceptions, some yellow remain anomalies that stand out amongst the sea of blue. On closer inspection, these areas are identified as Rushcliffe in Nottinghamshire, South Hams in Devon, and South Lakeland in Cumbria. By anyone’s standards that’s a pretty eclectic mix, so I sought to understand what might be the reason these particular areas bucked their regional trends. When I examined who was the MP for these areas, a possible explanation emerged.

The main town in South Hams is Totnes. The MP for Totnes is the independently-minded Tory GP Dr Sarah Wollaston. She was famous during the campaign for switching from ‘Leave’ to ‘Remain’ and helping to bust the £350m a week NHS myth that the Vote Leave side were peddling. The MP for Rushcliffe is Tory grandee and respected pro-European Ken Clarke. South Lakeland, of course, is the stamping ground of our leader, Tim Farron.