Why do the Lib Dems do so well in Cornwall?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

in the constituency map Peter linked in the other thread, it appears almost all of Cornwall is Lib Dem Orange, except for a few red dots, which I assume are cities. The larger districts, which must be rural, are solidly Lib Dem. Why does rural Cornwall like them so much?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Tradition; Cornwall has been one of the best parts of the U.K for the Liberals since the 19th century. The solitary red blob in Cornwall is Falmouth & Cambourne which contains most of the old tin mining area.

[Platypus]

Cornwall has always been my favourite part of England.

It's as much as a hellhole as the rest of it, but I have heritage there ()

[minionofmidas]

Well...Independent traditions (as in, non-Anglican protestant) used to mean Liberal, way back before most regions with such traditions became Labour strongholds (for socioeconomic reasons). That would have the remaining such areas - and yes, the LDs (and Plaid Cymru) represent pretty much all remaining such areas in England and Wales - appear as holdovers from an earlier party system. It's not true of all LD areas, though, though it's certainly true of Cornwall (when people in Cornwall say "England", they tend to think of all of England except Cornwall, btw). The LDs aren't strong in all agricultural regions. Look at Suffolk.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Look at Suffolk.

Or most of Norfolk. Actually they aren't even strong in the agricultural parts of North Norfolk, they do well in the coastal retirement etc. places IIRC, while the rural areas are traditionally split between the Tories and Labour, although a lot of agricultural workers voted tactically for the LibDems in 2001 (and some others voted tactically for the *Tories*...)

I miss the old Norfolk though. Some horrible demographic changes have happend there in the past 50 odd years. Very very sad.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The LibDems seem to do well with agricultural labourers in areas where the main source of farm income is livestock, rather than intensive crop based agriculture. This seems to be because agricultural labourers in (say) Norfolk are usually unionised (I think they're in the TGWU nowadays) and have been for a long time, this isn't the case so much in livestock areas.