Lacklustre campaign starts for St Neots!

With the local polls just over a month away, I thought I would look at the prospects for each party. There are 3 District Council seats up for election, in St Neots, and these are: Eaton Socon, Eaton Ford and Eynesbury. There are County Council election due in May 2013.

These are in a defending position in all three seats and should hold all seat quite easily. The only problem is if Bob Farrer does go Independent or UKIP puts candidates up and leaflets.

These have an interesting election. The local party seems to be falling apart with Derek "Del-Boy" Giles standing as an "Independent" and Julia Hayward also resigning from the party. If, and it is a massive IF, Bob Farrer stands as an "Independent" in Eaton Ford, then the Liberal Democrats have a chance. If UKIP does put up candidates and does leaflet the Liberal Democrats stand a better chance in Eynesbury. Even so with the County Council election next year the Liberal Democrats need to put in a strong showing this year in Eynesbury and Eaton Socon to gear up for next year.

Why anyone votes for this party is beyond me. But people do and therefore they need to be taken into account. Labour did rather well in the 2011 local elections. This year they need to keep up these numbers to show progress. No leaflets so far and are unlikely to win anything in St Neots. Probably all the Labour activists will be in Huntingdon trying to win seats there.

If UKIP can get enough candidates up to stand in ever ward and get leaflets out, they stand a good chance of attracting any protest vote. This will give the Conservatives a bit of trouble in all the St Neots seats, but it won't mean UKIP winning any seats and could stop the Conservatives winning.

Independents

It would be good to see some truly Independent candidates stand if only to give the Conservatives a run for their money. So far there is Derek "Del-boy" Giles who led the Town Council into the "Shambles" headline and Bob Farrer, the perennial "I'm considering going Independent" candidate and then decides to stay Conservative. If others do stand then that is only for the good.