Dragon Interview: Lessons to Learn from the SCC Election

Published on: 28 May, 2021
Updated on: 31 May, 2021

Dr Alia Middleton

Would the Surrey County Council Election result have been different if we had already heard the Dominic Cummings assertions made in a Parliamentary committee hearing?

This is one of the questions posed to Dr Alia Middleton, a psephologist and a lecturer on Politics at the University of Surrey by Dragon editor, Martin Giles.

SCC party representation 2021. The independent group are second only to the Conservatives whose representation was only worse in 1993.

Dr Middleton analyses the SCC election result and what it means: was planning the biggest issue as claimed by Guildford’s MP, will the pro-Independents trend continue and will we see more election pacts between parties?

Please watch…

Responses to Dragon Interview: Lessons to Learn from the SCC Election

George Potter Reply

May 28, 2021 at 8:34 pm

I’m afraid I don’t really recognise remarks about the low turnout at all. 39% turnout in Surrey (and over 40% in Guildford) is pretty high for a local election and actually puts us at one of the higher turnouts in the country.

In 2018 the lowest turnout was 24% and the highest was 51% so, 39% is a pretty decent showing especially considering the lack of media coverage for local elections (and for local government generally) and especially when one considers that the lowest general election turnout since the millennium was 59% in 2001.

All in all, while higher turnout would be fantastic, I don’t think it really makes sense to bemoan turnout in Surrey as being low when one considers how much worse the average local election turnout is.

George Potter is the Lib Dem county councillor for Guildford East