Monday, July 27, 2009

Chloe Smith MP

So, what's happened whilst I've been on holiday then?

Oh yes, the Labour Party in Norwich completely imploded, the LibDems fell flat on their faces and the Green bandwagon halted at the steps of Norwich North. And we have a new, excellent Conservative MP in the City.

Chloe took a lot of slings and arrows in the campaign for her age and lack of experience; I think that she will now turn these into virtues as she does a clean sweep of Westminster. Chloe will be a great advocate for the constituency and a superb MP. She is the only MP not tainted with the expenses row and has an outlook on life that I wish more MPs - let alone Conservatives MPs - had.

But for a moment let's think of the campaign. Chloe deserves a great deal of credit for the result (shock horror!) because it was her who set the whole tone for the campaign. The themes of honesty and a fresh approach to politics may have seemed like a slogan bought in for the campaign - but far from it. Chloe has been making these an issue for years and, together with myself in Norwich North, has been campaigning on the issues of honesty and expenses well before the media train arrived at Norwich station. Chloe set the tone, particularly on positive campaigning, and each of her votes is a tribute to this.

Luckily, I suppose, Labour chose this moment to implode and both they and the LibDems ran an ultra-negative campaign. I may come back to this in future but especially the LibDems ought to consider that the party who delivered most literature didn't win, the party with the dodgiest statistics didn't win and the party who played the man rather than the ball didn't win. This result is bad for Labour - but at least they can blame the government - but the real losers here are the LibDems and Clegg personally. I do feel for April Pond - what now for her? It would be churlish not to say well done to both the UKIP and Greens who, in real votes, were big winners in the campaign.

Chloe Smith has a big challenge in front of her - not least holding the newly redrawn seat at the next election. But I tell you, after this election there won't be a Labour candidate in the country who would want to face her on the ballot paper.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

dont be silly there will be plenty of labour candidates who would want to face her she won on the back on a wide range of issues- some of them not her making. The changes to boundaries in the next general election will make her campaign much harder.
i hear the tories through 100,000 at it will thy do the same at the general.. as far as who wins we will see

Anonymous said...

Which party did you think delivered the most literature? It was us, according to my collection...........an intentional campaign I understood to make it clear how much the party wanted the electorate to vote.

Your website and blog profile have a number of silly errors on them,e.g. reference to Norwich North in this posting when perhaps in third paragraph) you mean South......not as professional as it should be? You're a teacher? Hmmmm........