GE2017 provided a shock result not just for the Conservative Party as a whole, but also for our local Tory candidate, David Burrowes, who has represented Enfield Southgate for the last twelve years and, like most people, was probably expecting that the widely anticipated swing to the Tories would make his position more secure. In the event, of course, the swing to the Conservatives, which did materialise, was accompanied by a larger swing to Labour - it was the smaller parties that felt the squeeze.
The successful candidate, Bambos Charalambous, like Mr Burrowes, was born and bred locally. This was his third try at unseating Mr Burrowes, and he achieved a remarkably high swing of more than 12 per cent, wining an absolute majority of the votes.
So, the same two candidates, but a strikingly different outcome from both previous elections and a change in voter behaviour that was much more marked than the changes nationally. Why so? Perhaps it was down to the respective efforts put into campaigning by the two candidates and their supporters? Quite possibly. But there are other factors where local issues come into play.
As well as being divided in terms of their political parties, Messrs Burrowes and Charalambous are on different sides of the Brexit debate (Bambos Charalambous is a Remain supporter. while David Burrowes, despite representing a constituency that came out strongly against Brexit, was a leading advocate of Leave) and also on opposite sides of the debate about Cycle Enfield - David Burrowes was using opposition to cycle lanes as part of his campaign (rather out of order, I thought, since this is a local council issue and there is a separate democratic process whereby local voters can pass judgement - next year's council elections.).
