Right, let’s keep this brief. The Welwyn & Hatfield Times (his local newspaper) reports of Grant Shapps MP:
The Welwyn Hatfield MP said it [the Ealing Southall by-election result] was not a total whitewash as the Tories had slightly improved their share of the votes, something which the party had not been able to do for years in a by-election.
Cheadle, 2005; Blaenau Gwent 2006: can you guess what happened to the Conservative vote in both of those? I mean 2006 – that, oh, years and years ago isn’t it?
PS I offer very competitive rates for personal history tuition lessons. Do get in touch.
PPS I’ll leave it to other to pick up on Grant Shapps doing a u-turn and rewriting his online housing petition.
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10 Comments
Perhaps while you are having another rant you could explain why there was a by-election in Cheadle 2005? It may seem hard-faced to say it but there was absolutely no need for it … or at least the benefits did not accrue to the people of Cheadle.
I have blogged this story and a bit more about Cheadle here but not an explanation for the by-election taking place at all.
Don’t you always find that the people with the most offensice things to say are always anonymous ?
Simply pathetic. Come on “Name Withheld”, be brave enough to stand behind your own words.
Most of us are plagued by these anons NB. I had one over at my site at 2 am using two different names and just being plain rude. This one is at least making a point I suppose.
LDV could take it down. But Mark is in a glass house lobbing bricks.
So Labour were helping the Tory campaign in Cheadle then were they Chris…
Patsy’s health was hardly a secret at the 2005 election and her vote when up 6.5% so I don’t think it was an issue locally.
Don’t by-elections normally happen when an MP dies in office? Are you suggesting that Chris Rennard should just appoint MPs without the formality of an election?
Chris P, your post actually has nothing at all to do with Mark’s post or the anonymous comment.
So I’d just like to mention this random blog post which I made several months ago.
PS. Aren’t kittens lovely?
Chris Keating: Have you read my post? It is of course related to Mark’s post. It starts by crediting his exclusive vs Grant Schweppes and then discusses an aspect of the Cheadle campaign – which Mark raised. Have I linked to the wrong post?
And did you read my comment? I said above that my post DID NOT cover the need for the by-election line.
Hywel Morgan: I don’t think Labour did much in Cheadle for themselves never mind for other parties.
But I do think it is the case that the Tories had hold of some choice Labour attacking leaflets from another election P&P’d by Lib Dems and that they copied them. They’d have been able to get hold of them themselves though wouldn’t they??
I know I’ve got reams of opposition leaflets in my files and parroting lines back is old news really.
I’m even wondering now if I linked to the wrong post? But no. Chris Keating it seems cannot read. Mark has posted a comment that there was a Tory leaflet implying a rape which I did not know about. So I’ve added an update. And asked if it is archived. If so I’d like to blog about it.
Chris – you said (in your blog posting)
“The dirty, despicable etc Tories copied every word from dirty, despicable etc Lib Dem leaflets procured from Labour friends!”
Seems to suggest that Labour were passing Lib Dem leaflets onto the Tories with the hope/suggestion that they would use similar techniques.
Is it standard Labour party practice to advise the Tories on running better election campaigns now?
Chris Paul – I wouldn’t try to be so angelic about this. Labour’s record in running dirty campaigns is probably worse than most.
I have a copy of a document called ‘Beating the Liberals’ written by Labour campaign staff.
In it they give the following advice:
‘Find one flaw and smear them all. Go negative until swamped by complaints. Then do it again.’
Glass houses and all that eh?