On Tuesday, another brace of candidates in Cornwall fell by the wayside. The Green Party’s Sharron Kelsey, fairly invisible in Truro & Falmouth, pulled out for ‘personal reasons‘. As did MK’s Orlando Kimber, who is no longer intending to stand in North Cornwall in order to devote more time to care for his wife, who is unwell.

MK will now need to restart its search for the 84 further candidates it needs in order to qualify for a party political broadcast. Or does it? Don’t these unwanted developments offer an unexpected opportunity for these two progressive parties to combine forces against the four conservative parties in Cornwall in these two constituencies?

In North Cornwall, the Green Party has had an excellent and energetic local candidate – Amanda Pennington – in the field for momnths. In Truro & Falmouth, MK’s Stephen Richardson is a commmitted socialist and sound on the critical issue of global warming, about which we’re hearing so much in the media in this campaign.

So here’s a modest suggestion. Instead of doing the predictably boring thing, why don’t the Greens and MK enter into a pact in these two seats and help to prevent splitting the progressive Cornish and environmentalist vote even further?

This article by Bernard Deacon was cross-posted from the Psephology from the Periphery blog