SOMEWHERE, in that Heaven she fervently believed in, Dame Cheryl Gillan will be looking down, nodding sagely, and saying “I told you so.”
The late MP would have been shocked to see her 16,223 majority overturned so dramatically into a 8,028 Lib Dem majority in her Chesham and Amersham constituency (which includes Penn). But she would understand the reasons.
Although a loyal Conservative she often had fierce and passionate arguments with her political colleagues behind the scenes. She fought tenaciously for the things her constituents cared about even if it meant upsetting big-wigs in her party who didn’t share her enthusiasm or her views.
Loyal support
She fought more than anyone else against HS2, but wasn’t listened to.
She campaigned relentlessly for the protection of the countryside, calling for the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) to become a national park. She was politely ignored.
She warned incessantly that following a policy of building thousands and thousands of houses on green fields without thinking through the impact on education, medical services and the local infrastructure would backfire. The powers-that-be shrugged their shoulders.
Because she fought so hard for her constituents over the 29 years she represented them she built up a loyal following. People voted for her even if they didn’t agree with everything she stood for and even though she lost most of her battles. She was a Brexit supporter in a constituency that voted 55 per cent for Remain yet she won elections comfortably.
When she died the electorate’s loyalty died with her. But the anger remained.
Bewitched, bothered and bewildered
As they knocked on doors, Liberal Democrat activists were told again and again that voters in the constituency felt taken for granted by the Government.
HS2 was devastating their countryside; depriving people of their land and homes without adequate compensation and didn’t bring a ha’porth of benefit to their area.
The Government, many alleged, is willing to bend over backwards to help housing developers build where they want without a thought for the environment, the countryside or the impact. The Government strongly deny this, but, like it or not, that’s the perception.
And when the Prime Minister appeared in Chesham High Street, clowning around and making vague promises about turning the Chilterns AONB into a national park it sounded disingenuous. “Boris’s fleeting appearance was a shot in the arm for us,” said one hungover Lib Dem .
Yesterday the Prime Minister told journalists there were “particular circumstances” in the Chesham and Amersham constituency that led to such a disastrous result for the Tories.
But Boris Johnson is far too wily a politician to believe this was an isolated one-off result. Even a casual observer of social media in recent months will have noticed how anti-Government sentiment is building up in neighbouring constituencies like Beaconsfield and, particularly, Wycombe.
Where do they go from here?
The Conservatives are smart political operators.They will take a long hard look at how things went so drastically wrong and try and find solutions. It won’t be easy.
HS2 is too far advanced now to be stopped, although they could pay proper attention to the concerns of residents while the thing is being built (including the genuine concerns that the current tunnelling will disrupt and pollute our drinking water supplies).
And they could consider what compensation should be given to the area’s population for being forced to digest an unwanted development that offers them no benefit whatsoever.
They will need to find a foolproof way of providing new housing while protecting existing open countryside. Interestingly, the proposed Gomm Valley development between Cock Lane and Hammersley Lane here in Tylers Green is going to provide an early test on that front for the equally shaken Tory controlled Buckinghamshire Council.
And Boris may well be held to his flippant aside to give the Chilterns AONB the full protection of a National Park, a move that would go some way to stopping uncontrolled development in what’s left of our untouched beautiful countryside.
Will the opposition bite the bullet?
Perhaps, though, the most interesting consequence of this landmark by-election will be the impact it has on the non-Conservative political parties and groupings.
According to the psephologists this was Labour’s worst ever by-election result anywhere. In 2017 they polled 11,374 votes. Four years later it was 622. Even the resurgent Green Party took just 1,480 votes this time compared to 3,042 in the last election.
Clearly, many Labour and Green supporters voted Lib Dem because they thought they had the best chance of winning.
More and more activists in Labour, Lib Dem and Green Party circles are calling on Tory opposition parties to agree on a single candidate when fighting “safe” Conservative seats.
As this blog reported last month, former Bucks Tory grandee David Shakespeare was defeated when the opposition parties employed just such a tactic in a “safe” Conservative seat in Sussex in the local elections.
In Buckinghamshire, the Conservatives have a lot of thinking and planning to do. So too do the opposition.