Trio of Cornish seats ‘ones to watch’ in election

Ahead of Thursday’s general election, BBC South West’s Political Editor Martyn Oates has been on a whistle-stop tour of the three southernmost seats in the UK – which have frequently been close contests in recent elections.

Standing at the top of Cape Cornwall at the county’s far western tip you see a microcosm of Cornish history spread out before you.

Reminders of Cornwall’s rich mining heritage are all around you, while nestled in the little fold between the cape and the mainland is a ruined chapel – a link to the much more distant past of Cornwall’s Celtic saints.

Boats on the slipway to one side hint at the age-old exploitation of the sea, whether for profit or pleasure.

The St Ives constituency, in which this landscape lies, is a large rural seat encompassing Penzance and the great fishing port of Newlyn – but also stretching across to Helston and the Lizard peninsula beyond.

Some of Cornwall’s finest sea, sand and natural beauty sits side-by-side with profound deprivation and a desperate shortage of affordable housing.

Conservative since 2015, it was previously represented by a Liberal Democrat MP from 1997 onwards, and is hotly contested by the two parties.

Full list of candidates for St Ives constituency:

• Filson Ali – Labour
• Ian Flindall – Green
• Andrew George – Liberal Democrat
• John Harris – The Common People
• Dave Laity – Independent
• Giane Mortimer – Reform UK
• Paul Nicholson – Liberal Party
• Jason Saunders – UK Independence Party
• Derek Thomas – Conservative

Next door is the Camborne and Redruth seat – at one time that rare political beast, a three-way marginal.

A Conservative seat since 2010, the area also has a long history of Labour MPs and is one of the party’s handful of South West targets in this election.

I stopped off in the town of Hayle, moved from the St Ives constituency ahead of the 2010 election.

Standing at the end of North Quay, you’re confronted with another – more contemporary – distillation of Cornish life.

On one side the River Hayle flows out to meet the Atlantic: a reminder that you are within a few steps of some Cornwall’s magnificent beaches.

Turning inland, the crumbling remnants of Hayle’s gritty industrial past come into view.

And beside you is the construction site for the town’s new North Quay residential development which stalled earlier this year when the company involved went into administration.

Work is due to restart soon but the whole enterprise has been controversial from the outset: is it much-needed regeneration or unwelcome gentrification?

The twin towns of Camborne and Redruth gives the constituency its name and share Hayle’s struggle to replace the lost riches of their industrial past.

Full list of candidates for Camborne and Redruth constituency:

• Connor Donnithorne – Conservative
• Robert Hawkins – Socialist Labour Party
• Catherine Hayes – Green
• Paul Holmes – Liberal Party
• Thalia Marrington – Liberal Democrat
• Perran Moon – Labour
• Roger Tarrant – Reform UK

A short distance up the A30 and you’re in the Truro and Falmouth seat.

The cathedral city of Truro is Cornwall’s county town and administrative centre while Falmouth boasts one of the world’s largest natural deep water harbours and a university campus.

The river system linking the two makes them natural partners in geography but they’ve only been in the same constituency since 2010.

The present seat is another Labour target but its brief electoral history is complicated.

The four elections since its creation have seen both Labour and the Liberal Democrats come second – though Labour has done so in the two most recent.

Were Labour to win both here and in neighbouring Camborne and Redruth it would be the first time it had ever won two Cornish seats.

Full list of candidates for Truro and Falmouth:

• Ruth Gripper – Liberal Democrat
• Jayne Kirkham – Labour
• Karen La Borde – Green
• Peter Lawrence – Independent
• Cherilyn Mackrory – Conservative
• Steve Rubidge – Reform UK
• Peter White – Liberal Party