The Curious Tale of Two Plowdens
- keepbristolmoving
- May 29
- 2 min read
And their powerful establishment forebears
HelenMay 11, 2025
Political shifts, if not yet earthquakes, are being felt viscerally in the South Gloucestershire, Bath and NE Somerset and Bristol area, just as in the rest of the country. On 1st May we saw the election of a new WECA metro mayor, with the Labour candidate Helen Godwin winning a fairly tight contest, despite a misleading YouGov poll showing Green candidate Mary Page (former Lib Dem: the Green Party in Bristol has a remarkable number of candidates and councillors who have jumped ship from other Parties since their star has been in ascendance ) being ahead by four points. The real news, though, is of course Reform taking second place (also not in YouGov’s tea leaves), with Arron Banks just two percent of the vote behind Godwin. This result was perhaps not as predictable in the Bristol area as Reform’s successes in other parts of the UK, and is therefore a significant indicator of just how many people are feeling frustrated at not being listened to - whether or not their consequent voting strategy is actually going to help them.
Interestingly, however, no-one appears to be talking about the man Godwin is replacing as mayor, with no more news having surfaced about Dan Norris and his arrest for child abuse, abduction and rape just weeks before this election. This is a man who voters elected not only as WECA mayor but also last year as MP for North East Somerset and Hanham, replacing Jacob Rees Mogg. Despite his arrest he is still representing his constituency in Parliament, as an independent.
Norris, according to Wikipedia,
…had an interest in child safety and regularly campaigned against paedophiles. In 1999 he launched a booklet in the House of Commons to educate parents about paedophiles, published by the charities Kidscape, Childline and the Lucy Faithful Foundation; it had a foreword written by Prime Minister Tony Blair.1
Looking at the grounds for his arrest together with his ardent advocacy for child safety, if he is found to be guilty then this is clearly yet another case of a person seeking power and influence in the public sphere audaciously concealing their corruption behind a semblance of ‘doing good’. If this is true of Norris, as we know it has been of many other politicians too, and if neither the public nor his political party knew anything about his history, how are we to know about the suitability of any of the candidates we are presented with in any election to public office? It’s a strange system where we simply put our trust in candidates because we feel we can trust the party they represent, without knowing anything about their background. What do we really know about their motivations and which deeper agendas they may be serving, whilst telling voters what they need to in order to get elected?
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