If I were Iain Dale, I’d be feeling either rather foolish or rather cross with Grant Shapps. Why? Well it’s because of the allegations about Liberal Democrats and election poster displays which Grant Shapps persuaded Iain Dale to run on his blog.

Iain wrote at the time:

There must be some rather compelling evidence for Grant Shapps to make this direct accusation.

However, no evidence has ever been provided - although numerous people personally involved in Lib Dem poster campaigns have denied the story (and, to be fair to Iain, several of these denails were published in comments on his blog).

But scratching under the surface the story gets murkier: one former Liberal Democrat poster person (Hywel Morgan) emailed Grant Shapps, pointing out possible future employers would know of his involvement in poster campaigns and that there could be serious repercussions for his employment prospects if allegations about illegally postering were left hanging in the air.

How did Mr Shapps respond? He emailed on 4 July admitting that, well, he didn’t have any decent evidence:

I do not have a list of the by-election contests which were alleged to be involved in this practice

Nor did he go on to provide any evidence at all for the claims. 

So, there are two possibilities here. Either (a) Iain published the story without asking Grant Shapps what the evidence was (which would be foolish, and surely not what a respected political commentator would do*) or (b) he asked and was assured that Grant Shapps did have good evidence, which would have been, err…, untrue.

Oh, and by the way - Grant Shapps did promise that an unnamed media organisation was researching a piece and was planning to run a “major package” in the next fourteen days. That deadline expired on July 19th, and no - no such package ever surfaced.

* If you are suffering apoplexy at this point, pause to consider that you may have missed a smattering of irony.

So says The Telegraph:

Much of the blame has been apportioned to campaign director Grant Shapps, the shadow housing minister, who was promptly stripped of his role running by-elections. It was Mr Shapps, and the then Tory chairman Francis Maude, who persuaded Mr Cameron to put his name on the Ealing ballot paper, something the Tory leader at first resisted.

Two good results for the Lib Dems on Thursday with swings against Labour and two embarrassing third places for David Cameron’s Conservatives. That’s our line - but what does the press think? Here’s a handy guide…

Daily Express, Saturday 21st
“Leading Britain is a grown-up job for a serious politician. Voters have had quite enough of windmills, bicycles, sledges and huskies. They do not care for the dilettante Notting Hill Set which surrounds Mr Cameron. Part-time spokesmen who prefer to make money moonlighting rather than mastering their briefs should be swept away.”

Simon Heffer, The Daily Telegraph, Saturday 21st
“Frankly, if you can’t even come second in by-elections halfway through the third term of another party’s time in power, things aren’t just wrong. They are catastrophically wrong. The worst mistake Dave can make now, though, is to imagine they can’t get worse. They can. They can get a lot worse.”

Tania Branigan, The Guardian, Saturday 21st
“The third-place finish is a personal blow to David Cameron, who toured the west London constituency five times with political newcomer Tony Lit. The Liberal Democrats also squeezed the Conservatives into third place in Sedgefield.”

Read more »

Over on other sites, both Stephen (Guardian) and myself (New Statesman) have pieces about the by-election results. I don’t think either of us are 100% keen on the headlines used

Commenting on Lib Dem Voice, Lib Dem chief executive and by-election supremo Lord Chris Rennard has posted the following assessment of how the party fared in the Ealing Southall and Sedgefield by-elections:

In Ealing Southall, our campaigns teams’ assesment of the state of play over the final weekend was not very far off the result. Of course, we hoped and thought that we could get even closer by polling day.

We published that assessment (inc on Lib Dem Voice). Our figures were Lab 37, LD 31, Con 22. The final result was Lab 41, LD 28 and Con 22.

In the end we won the Ealing end of the seat, but lost in Southall where Labour eventually managed to deliver some of their traditional votes in very large numbers.

“David Cameron’s Conservatives” did no better than “Michael Howard’s Conservatives” and less well than “William Hague’s Conservatives”. They managed to trash their reputation in this by-election.

Some people will be aware of Conservative claims in the last few days that the by-election was running at Lab 33, Con 33, LD 26. This was not generally reported in the press (apart from the Guardian) but some commentators may have been misled by them. BBC Newsnight and others had already wrongly asserted that we were in third place.

Journalists will at least be able in future to know that they can safely ignore Conservative “analysis” or “leaked figures”.

Overall we got two good results in very difficult circumstances and in very short campaigns.

In Sedgefield we pushed the Tories into third - again highlighting the lack of “Cameron’s Conservatives” appeal in the north of England.

In both cases, our campaign teams were brilliant and will be ready for whatever challenges come our way in future. See you there.

Chris

What to make of last night’s by-elections?

Well, for the Labour Party there is evident relief that they have held on to both Ealing Southall and Sedgefield, albeit with considerably reduced majorities, and swings to the Liberal Democrats of 6% and 11% respectively.

There is probably a nagging sense of disappointment among Lib Dems that our achievements were not more spectacular - but that is at least as much due to the very high expectations we set ourselves. No, neither Ealing Southall nor Sedgefield rank will alongside either Brent East or Dunfermline. But the circumstances were quite different, not least because Labour has learned a tactical lesson - that they fare badly in by-election campaigns where they give their opponents a chance to mobilize.

As it was, both by-elections campaigns were severely truncated, lasting little more than three weeks. Such haste may not be good for democracy, but it has served the Labour Party’s cause well.

The Lib Dems, it seems to me, can be quietly proud of the extremely professional campaigns we ran, the evident enthusiasm of the hundreds of activists who helped, and of results which display steady progress in this age of three-party politics. As the BBC Online report states, “Lib Dem leader Sir Menzies Campbell, who saw his party take second place in both seats, was the main beneficiary.”

And then there’s the Tories…

I suppose I could trawl through their gleeful predictions that they would top the poll, or at least give Labour a run for their money. I could observe that David Cameron’s personal selection of a candidate whose weak Tory credentials severely undermined their campaign has damaged his leadership. I could muse that the defections from Labour they trumpeted during the campaign may well turn out to be more trouble than they’re worth. I could note that the Tories did themselves no favours by allowing their campaign manager to get caught indulging in schoolboy internet pranks. And I could conclude that last night’s by-elections show quite how insipid is the Tory party’s mini-recovery under Mr Cameron.

I could do all that. But actually it’s much more fun to let Tory activists themselves point out these things over at ConservativeHome.

Schadenfreude: dontcha just love it?

Results just in:

Labour Party: 15,188 (41%) -8% compared to 2005
Nigel Bakhai, Liberal Democrats: 10,118 (28%) +4%
David Cameron’s Conservatives: 8,230 (23%)

Huge congratulations to Nigel Bakhai, the Ealing Southall Lib Dems, and all those who helped the campaign, on achieving a 6% swing from Labour, and keeping David Cameron’s Tories firmly back in third place.

And I’ve absolutely no idea what the night will bring. Feel free to make your guesses below…

Grant Shapps MP, the Tory by-election campaign manager in Ealing Southall, gained some level of infamy last week when he was caught red-handed pretending to be a Lib Dem member posting comments to YouTube.

Mr Shapps’ weak excuse - that his account password was set to ‘1234’, and hacked by opposition parties - was widely derided.

So it comes as some surprise to see this story in today’s Times:

The Conservatives claimed to have identified a woman who confronted Mr Cameron during a walkabout in the constituency as a Labour supporter involved in the party’s campaign. …

Referring to Mr Cameron’s heated exchange, Grant Schapps [sic], the Tory MP running his party’s campaign, said: “The Labour Party is resorting to dirty tricks by a party apparatchik posing as a member of the public to harangue David Cameron.”

It’s hard to top that, frankly.

***

GOOD LUCK to the Lib Dem campaign teams in both Ealing Southall and Sedgefield.

One delivery round down, many to go here in Ealing.

Number of illegally flyposted Labour posters spotted during the one delivery round: 19. This includes two sites where the illegal flyposting has clearly been twice cleared and has been done for the third time.

Now, remind me. Which is the party that loves talking so tough about anti-social behaviour? Perhaps Labour will apply for an ASBO against itself?

As if the Ealing Southall by-election needed another twist… news has broken tonight that police will be mounting an investigation following the leaking of alleged postal vote scores via the Telegraph’s Little and Large blog, authored by Daily Telegraph journalists Brendan Carlin and Jonathan Isaby.

As any fule kno, it’s a criminal offence to disclose the results of postal vote counts before polls close. The complaint to the police has come from Labour’s election agent, Ken Clarke (no, not him, a different one).

It is of course a complete mystery which party might have chosen to leak figures - which may be accurate, or may be designed to mislead, or may just be plain wrong - to their friends at the Telegraph. Hmmm.

For the moment - at least until the relevant comments are removed - the curious may wish to check out this thread on PoliticalBetting.com.

PS: Ironically, the Telegraph’s Little and Large blog splashed on Monday with ‘Lib Dems setting themselves up for fall’, a brazen attempt to spin anything other than a landslide Lib Dem victory in Ealing Southall as a disaster for the party and for Ming. As they prepare to help the police with their inquiries, Brendan and Jonathan might wish to reflect that pride comes before a fall.

Oh dear. Oh deary me. I think you can guess what’s coming… so without further ado, here’s the evidence.

Photograph A: illegally flyposted Conservative election posters.

Photograph B: illegally flyposted Conservative election posters removed by Ealing Council (insert outrage at hard-pressed local Council Tax payers having to fund the tidying up etc etc).

Photograph C and D: the people who erected the Conservative posters. (Doubtless they weren’t acting on behalf of Grant Shapps, but instead the number keypad code on the Conservative poster store was 1234 and someone sneaked in and stole the posters, etc etc).

(Click on the photos for a large size version.)

PS If you’re wondering how come I’ve got photographs of all of this, it’s because the site in question is just round the corner from the Liberal Democrat by-election HQ.

In a quiet moment in Ealing (no sniggering at the back), I thought it would be interesting to see how much the various parties are using social networking site to support their efforts in the two parliamentary by-elections - and whether my sneaking suspicion that the Liberal Democrats are making the best use of it are true. It’s possible that the other parties have secret groups we don’t know about, but based on what we cansee, here are the stats* - represented for your viewing pleasure in traditional bar chart form, with exciting added 3-D perspective:

In the Ealing Southall by-election, four parties have publicly listed Facebook groups. Labour don’t appear to have one, but I thought it only fair to include them in the chart as they did previously hold the seat doesn’t have a publicly listed group, but there is one in existence (thanks James Graham for spotting it). Both the Greens and Respect have small groups, and the Conservatives appear to be making steadily more use of Facebook, but the Liberal Democrats’ largest group has more members than the rest of the groups put together - and is more than twice the size of the Tories’.

There is a similar story in Sedgefield, where the Liberal Democrat group again has more activists than the others put together. The Green Party doesn’t have a group (and Respect aren’t fielding a candidate), and the Conservatives group is very small. It looks like only Labour can beat the Liberal Democrats here.

*For ease of charting, I’ve based this on the size of the largest public group I could find, but the figures are similarly ordered if you add up all of the groups and events for each party.

Lib Dem chief executive and by-election supremo, Lord Chris Rennard, has posted his thoughts on Lib Dem Voice on the current state of play for Thursday’s by-elections in Ealing Southall and Sedgefield:

By-elections can be fast moving in the last two days. I will not issue “final forecasts” here but have often been accurate to within a handful of votes in the past !

What I will say is that over the weekend I think that Ealing Southall was something like Labour 37, Lib Dem 31, Con 22. From this position Lib Dems can win but it should be close. I believe that we could be into re-count territory on Thursday night.

I was also very impressed personally with our Sedgefield campaign last week and it seemed to me that we were certainly the challengers to Labour.

Chris

As Chris says, the last two days could prove vital - will we wake up on the 20th July to the triumph of another sensational Dunfermline, or to the what-could-have-been of the almost-as-sensational Bromley?

The campaign websites are at www.sedgefieldlibdems.org.uk and www.ealinglibdems.org.uk.

The Guardian reports on today’s BBC World at One interviews with former Lib Dem campaign manager, Lord Tim Razzall, and former head of communications, Mark Littlewood, here. Both suggest Ming Campbell’s future would come under the spotlight if the party were to under-perform in the Ealing Southall and Sedgefield by-elections this Thursday.

Read more »

What do you think will happen this Thursday, 19th July, in the crunch by-elections in Ealing Southall and Sedgefield?

Will Labour cling on in one, both or neither seats? And which of the two main opposition parties, the Lib Dems or the Tories, will fare best? The political blogosphere has been humming these past couple of weeks with pundits on all sides arguing the toss.

But now’s the moment to put your credibility on the line, online, and to say what you think will actually happen this Thursday. There are no prizes on offer - merely the respect and admiration of friend and foe.

For each by-election, please:

a) Predict the percentage turnout (you lose a point for each % you are out by);
b) Give the name of the party you think will win, and their margin of victory in % (lose 20 points for the wrong party, and a point for each % you are out by);
c) Predict the absolute number of votes the Lib Dems will get, and the party’s % vote (lose a point for each 100 votes you’re out by, and lose a point for each % you are out by).

For the record, please note the highest score wins.

The competition is open to all - I’d be especially interested in Lord Rennard’s prediction - so Tories are welcome to join in the fun. Though if you can remember to use your own name, rather than fake a Lib Dem member’s identity just ‘cos it’s the internet and you can, we’d be much obliged.

To help you along, here are the results from the 2005 general election:

Ealing Southall
Labour: 22,937 (48.8%)
Nigel Bakhai, Liberal Democrat: 11,497 (24.4)
Conservative: 10,147 (21.6)
Green: 2,175 (4.6)
Workers’ Revolutionary Party 289 (0.6)
Labour majority: 11,440
Turnout: 56.2 %

Sedgefield
Labour: 24,429 (58.9%)
Conservative 5,972 (14.4)
Robert Browne, Liberal Democrat: 4,935 (11.9)
Independent: 4,252 (10.2)
UK Independence Party: 646 (1.6)
National Front 253 (0.6)
Others: 996 (2.3)
Labour majority: 18,457
Turnout: 62.2 %

And remember: it’s just a bit of fun…

Now, this is either a rather sneaky attempt at a political smear or an honest mistake. Over on his blog Tom Watson posted up the following:

News has just reached me that there was a small incident involving the opposition parties earlier this afternoon. Apparently, their supporters were getting a little hot under the collar, so much so that the police were called. Don’t worry though, I think it was captured on camera by Channel 4 News.

Note the use of the plural “parties” and so the implication that the fracas involved Liberal Democrat and Tory activists, with the police therefore being called to make peace between them.

Only two problems with this version of events: (a) it’s not true, and (b) it’s not what Channel 4 News broadcast. What actually happened was a run in between Conservative activists and members of the public, with the police being called to sort it out, and by chance the Liberal Democrats turning up shortly afterwards to the same venue.

To be generous, maybe Tom blogged in haste and didn’t get his wording quite right? In which case I’m sure an apology and correction will by flying off his keyboard any moment now for implying the Liberal Democrats were involved in something they weren’t.