Elections 2019
The politicians had a busy time in 2019 with no less than four elections, two local, one national and one international.
Details of all four appear below - listed in increasing importance?
The Election That Did Not Happen
The four yearly election of Denton's seven Parish Councillors was supposed to take place on May 2nd but, as has happened in the past, there was a shortage of nominated candidates.
The five people who had put their names forward were duly declared elected and, eventually, at the July and September meetings of the council, the two vacancies were filled by co-option.
Two New District Councillors
For the last 28 years Denton, as part of first the Valley and more recently the Earsham Wards, has been represented on South Norfolk Council by Dr Murray Gray from Wortwell.
However, this year Murray decided to stand down. Needless to say, his long and distinguished service was widely recognised and marked in Denton.
As a result a new District representative was required but a further complication was the reorganisation of the Council's warding system.
This placed Denton in the new, two-member, Ditchingham and Earsham Ward, so now two new representatives were required.
The Last EU Election
On May 23rd elections were held for the European Parliament. Denton lay in the East of England European Constituency which returned, under proportional representation, seven MEPs.
The election produced three Brexit Party winners, two Liberal Democrats, one Green and one Conservative.
However, of course, with the UK's exit from the EU on January 31st 2020, all seven soon lost their jobs.
The Brexit General Election
For much of the year national politics was dominated by the continuing debate about the UK's position in the EU. Eventually, after another change of Conservative Party Leader, the country went to the polls for a General Election on Thursday, December 12th. Not surprisingly, Brexit was the dominant issue and the Prime Minister's call to "Get Brexit Done" received a lot of support. This resulted in a large Conservative majority in the House of Commons including the return of our local member, South Norfolk's MP, Richard Bacon.