The Crewe and Nantwich by election result
Having mentioned the by election up the road in Crewe and Nantwich a couple of times, I suppose I’d better make a comment or two about the result! Yes, of course I’m disappointed that the Liberal Democrats didn’t do better - but it wasn’t the disaster some pundits were forecasting. I spent several days up there on the campaign and it was obvious that the Tories were going to win and that Labour were heading for a thrashing. Our hope had been to persuade disaffected Labour voters to vote Libdem but it appears they were so angry with Gordon Brown that they expressed their disgust by breaking lifetime habits by voting Tory.
I’m in no doubt that this was a protest vote of the highest order. No one voted Tory in the hope of influencing the result of the next General Election. I will wager now that Crewe will revert to Labour in two years time. And no one voted Tory because of their policies. They have none!
So the result will create acres of newsprint over the next few weeks, will scare the pants of Labour MP’s with marginal seats and may spark some debate about Labour ditching Brown. But who for? No, I think Brown’s strategists will spend the next few months trying to keep a steady hand on the tiller and trying to soften his image. And praying there are no more by elections in Labour held seats!
The next by election will be in Henley (Boris’ seat) where Labour hardly figured last time - a very poor third - so no more damage can be done there! It’s up to us Libdems to oppose the Tory bandwagon effect. We finished second last time and have already chosen our candidate and opened our campaign HQ. Let’s see whether we can clip Cameron’s wings! My son lives down that way so I can see a bit more campaigning coming up!
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