Tories hold Coombe Vale with increased majority

In an election they really should have lost, the Tories have held both their seats in Coombe Vale with much increased majorities.

Con 1340 & 1308
Lib Dem 908 & 778
Lab 526 & 502
Green 122 & 108
CPA 94 & 76
UKIP 70

This breaks a 24 year duck for Kingston Conservatives who have failed to win any by-election in Kingston Borough since 1987. Hopefully it will shake the complacency of the local Lib Dems - particularly among the now long in the tooth council group whose presence on the doorstep in this and previous elections has apparently been somewhat intermittent.

Coombe Vale voters go to the polls

It's polling day in the other London by-election that will get no media coverage regardless of the result. With the media trained on Feltham and Heston - a seat Labour won comfortably in one of their worst years, with a scandal ridden candidate - the only question can be the scale of their majority.

Coombe Vale should be far more interesting, a by-election caused by the resignation of an absentee Tory councillor who was working in the states while claiming thousands in local taxpayers' money and the swift resignation of his colleague a few days later. A double vacancy in a marginal ward in a marginal constituency.

It was an opportunity - apparently so far unfulfilled - for MP Zac Goldsmith to make good his implied commitment to the Electoral Commission about reuse of general election campaign material that his agent claimed could be used for other elections.

All in all about as interesting set of circumstances you could imagine. So good luck to Lib Dem candidates Kamala Kugan and Rupert Nichol. The result should be known this side of midnight, given the expected low turnout.

Coombe Vale Conservatives - an apology...

In a post I wrote last month I published a figure that an absent Conservative councillor in Coombe Vale ward in Kingston had claimed in expenses while working in the USA and not attending any meetings.

Sadly, I appear to have been misinformed about the amount claimed and feel duty bound to publish the correct figure, as confirmed by the council.

Former Conservative councillor Robert-John Tasker claimed £4,440.04 from the public purse between July and October 2011 - not the £2,500 I orginally claimed.

Will Coombe Vale see Zac's jackets and scooters reappear?

Coombe Vale is the first electoral contest in the Richmond Park constituency since the general election when Zac Goldsmith narrowly defeated Lib Dem Susan Kramer.

Goldsmith immediately got into to trouble over his election expenses, with an official Electoral Commission investigation concluding:

"...we consider that the way in which some election costs were apportioned between Mr Goldsmith's Parliamentary campaign and the concurrent local government election campaign was not consistent with the Commission's guidance or good practice. Had the costs been apportioned in a way more consistent with our guidance, Mr Goldsmith would have exceeded the spending limit..."

The Commission estimated that Goldsmith overspent by nearly £1,000 in the so called 'short campaign' - the period from the dissolution of Parliament to polling day. However as they they felt it was due to incompetence rather than intent and it wasn't suffciently serious they somewhat bizarrely did not refer his case to the police for prosecution.

In their investigation the Commission somewhat controversially excluded two high profile campaign accessories - a large number of bright blue jackets emblazoned with 'I back Zac' and four electric delivery scooters. Their rationale was that these had been purchased by the Conservative association, with the jackets having removable stickers and the scooters being hired by the campaign on a daily basis. The report can be found here.

Zac's jackets and scooters on display outside his then HQ. Photo by Kingston Guardian.










So, given Richmond Park Conservative Association has invested several thousand pounds in these jackets and scooters, one can assume they will play a prominent part in the Coombe Vale by-election. We'll see...

Are Coombe Vale Conservatives treating voters?

A suspiciously shiny website promoting the virtues of the Conservatives in the Coombe Vale area has come to my attention. From what I can gather it was launched on Wednesday. The news section for example has no news of the reasons for the resignations of two thirds of the councillors for the ward, but you can adopt a tree instead - if it makes you feel better.

Most interestingly the local Conservatives - according to their twitter feed - appear to be bribing voters with coffee and cake - known in the archaic jargon of elections as 'treating'. Treating is an offence under the Representation of the People Act 1983 which carries a punishment of six months’ imprisonment, or a £5,000 fine or both.

Is this a record for the fastest ever commiting of an election offence?

The curious case of the Coombe Vale by-election...

Last week Coombe Vale Ward in Kingston Borough had three Conservative councillors. Then one was exposed by the local paper - the wonderfully named Surrey Comet - for working full time in the USA and not attending any council meetings since 14th July. Yet Cllr Tasker still found time to claim £2,500 allowances from the taxpayer.

But instead of taking action - the Tories backed errant councillor Tasker explaining 'he had been carrying out constituency work while he was away, via email and telephone.' That was 8am on Friday 28th October.

By 5.11pm on Tuesday 1st November the paper reported he'd resigned.

Their report said a Conservative spokesman refused to confirm the resignation of Counc Tasker, but the councillor’s photograph and contact details have now been removed from the council website.

Well that seemed to be that then - a botched resignation for a politician whose position had become untenable.

However that wasn't that and on Monday afternoon a second Conservative councillor - James Whyte - in the same ward mysteriously resigned.

There will now be a double by-election for their replacements on 15th December. That is assuming there are no more resignations in the next few days. And one can only sympathise with Coombe Vale voters who may just wonder what exactly is going on behind the scenes in Kingston Conservatives that have lead to this bizarre turn of events.