Results in Illogan

Terry Wilkins (Con) - 331
Stephen Richardson (MK) - 290
Don Armstrong (UKIP) - 259
David Ekinsmyth (LD) - 157
Linda Moore (Lab) - 113

So I came second!

Congratulations to Terry Wilkins - I will be pressing him to do good things for Illogan and Cornwall just as I am sure he would have been questioning me had I won.

The really big surprise, as elsewhere, was the UKIP vote. The UKIP candidate, as far as anyone seems to know, has never had anything to do with Illogan, did not deliver a single leaflet and did not knock a single door and yet he ended up with 23% of the vote. Fair play to UKIP they are getting votes everywhere despite having no local policies.

I just watched a television interview where the UKIP guy was asked what they stood for on local government issues. Basically he didn't have a clue. He said that UKIP councillors were going to ask what their constituents wanted and then represent that. Sounds good but the problem is that when it comes to voting for a UKIP candidate you don't know what they stand for because they don't know themselves until after they have been elected?

As for MK - we increased our representation by one councillor compared to 2009 - not a bad result given all the UKIP hype. It was also encouraging to see several MK candidates pushing up to second place and the party polling better percentages of the vote in the seats where we had candidates. We have a solid base from which to continue building. Special mention should be made of Matt Luke who has been elected for Penwithick and Boscoppa for the first time.

It also very interesting to note that Dick Cole received a massive 87% - I don't know if this is a record of some sort but it can't be far off. Andy Long and loveday Jenkin were also re-elected with very sizeable majorities. This shows that where MK people are elected they do an outstanding job for their constituents and are recognised and rewarded for this with a resounding mandate for what they are doing in their locality.