Anne-Marie Trevelyan's legacy should serve as a warning to others in parliament. The clock strikes 10 and the mighty doors to the polling stations close. A result is there and an MP is elected. But who? The answer is right there but nobody knows, yet. The ballot boxes tip their contents on to the tables and counters flick through the ballots, counting all 48,843 votes cast in North Northumberland. The night drags on and, eventually, the Presiding Officer announces the verdict. It is not a good night for Anne-Marie Trevelyan.
What happened in the polling stations?
Nearly a decade of Conservative representation was shattered. This was a seat that returned big majorities for Conservative councillors at local elections. A seat that had always, until 2017, been a Conservative/Liberal Democrat fight. A seat that produced whopping majorities for Anne-Marie Trevelyan three elections in a row, each bigger than the last. Yet, in an election that some said she expected to “walk”, the North Northumberland MP was removed from her seat in parliament by Labour candidate David Smith. She “walked” that night alright - walked right out of the door.
The election results were brutal. Trevelyan received 12,788 votes (26.2% of the votes cast), down from 23,94 in the last election. It was the lowest number of votes ever cast for her, including in her first election in 2010 where she came second to the then Liberal Democrat MP Alan Beith, achieving 14,116 votes (36.7% of the votes cast in that election). Labour candidate David Smith won the North Northumberland seat with 17,855 votes, 36.6% of the votes cast.
The BBC’s exit poll forecast a victory for her. It’s not the first time they’ve been wrong. But this wasn’t a simple case of mathematics, the poll didn’t take into account how the local feeling had turned against her. Why did it go so wrong for Anne-Marie?
Voters are not loyal, not in the slightest. If you scorn the electorate, they hit back - and hard. There is no such thing as a safe seat because, as we’ve seen in this past election both locally and nationally, the voters can turn on you in a shot. A 21.6% swing against Anne-Marie Trevelyan serves as proof.
You only need to scratch the surface of local opinion to see where it all went wrong. I spoke to voters in Berwick-upon-Tweed, voters of all parties and no party who all felt let down by her.
They cited how she “failed to get the A1 dualled, even as transport minister”. They cited how they “never saw her in the constituency for any reason other than a photo opportunity”. They said she was “out of touch”. Broken promises rang louder than a broken country and - using the nickname of Toom Tabard rather appropriately, Trevelyan's legacy was one of empty and broken promises to her constituents. As one floating voter put it “she made promises she didn’t keep whilst in power and it we ntnoticed in Berwick”.
Advice for the future.
Don’t ever assume your seat is safe. The winds of change are strong and if you allow yourself to become complacent, your constituents will simply adjust their sails. But how do you keep the voters on your side? Because politics is a relationship of give and take, a commitment between MP and voter, you need to put the effort in and give back to your constituency.
Always be present. In North Northumberland’s case, Westminster is over 300 miles away but that doesn’t matter, get up here as often as possible. Go the extra mile for people. If there’s one thing that disillusions voters, it’s being ignored and not listened to. They remember all the times they never saw you, the times they never got a reply to their email, all the times their issues went unresolved.
To listen and be there for your voters is the key to being a good MP and building good relationships in the constituency. Building these relationships and putting in the effort is the key to election success. So, a heads up to all the new MPs, and indeed the returning ones too: don’t end up like my former Conservative MP and alienate your communities. Put your back into it and go the extra mile, and you may just be rewarded with a seat in parliament at the next election. To not do so will risk the vengeance of the voters.
Header Image: Former North Northumberland MP Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Image: Chris McAndrew CC3.0)
