Is Ed my "William"?

I cannot stand Ed Miliband. There, I've said it. I cannot find anything personally or politically "likeable" about this (yet). I cannot even stand to watch him on TV; he is so useless as Leader of the Opposition it is actually quite worrying for democracy. I don't know quite why; certainly I dislike his re-writing of history, his blanket opposition to all cuts without saying what Labour would have done and the way in which we was elected by the Unions. But its more; there's something about him. He simply isn't Prime Minister material. And to that end I say "carry on, Ed".

No surprise, you might say, because I am a Conservative and I am sure that the Labour Leader doesn't want my kind thoughts or warm words. True enough. But tonight I began to wonder if this is how people saw William Hague, or even IDS and Howard. I liked Mr Hague enormously; but door after door in the 2001 campaign people expressed concern about him, asking if he was Prime Ministerial material. I couldn't see what the voters saw.

Tonight (yes, in the dark) I was out delivering leaflets in a pretty solid Labour voting area of the City and met a man, sat on his steps having a cigarette - impressively without a coat on. When I introduced myself and gave him the leaflet we chatted for a few minutes. He said to me "I can't see Ed Miliband ever being Prime Minister." Those exact words. And suddenly this blog post was born.

The last few days have seen Labour supporters waving and cheering getting very excited about Ed; his poll rating have edged up too. But maybe they don't see what the electorate does, in the same way I couldn't see it about William Hague.

And to round it off, the Oldham by-election made me think of the Uxbridge by-election. Both contests happened shortly after the general election, in seats where the former governing party had a three figures majority turned into a 3,000+ majority. The Tories went from 724 to 3766 in Uxbridge whilst Labour went from 103 to 3558 in Oldham East. The Tories hailed this result as their comback; so did Labour. The Tories went on to another election drubbing next time ... I'll let you fill in the rest.

So, what's the evidence that the Tories are on a go-slow in Old & Sad?

In my last post on this subject I have repeated a now oft-mentioned point that the Tories may not be taking this by-election in Oldham seriously. Seriously? We have a great candidate, lives in the constituency, local links all over the place and came within 2,400 votes of winning 7 months ago. It's a tough time to fight an election, especially given the time of the year and the weather. But ConHome have confirmed that cabinet ministers are ready to take the fight to the seat, the PM has committed to going there, I have been asked to help a few times (even given the distance), direct mail is flying out and the call centers are in operation.

OK, OK, I know that often we are not the fastest movers in by-election terms; I remember turning up in Norwich North in the first week or so to find myself pretty much alone amongst a pile of leaflets and look how that turned out!

But given the circumstances, how much more could we expect or do in this seat? Just where is the evidence that this isn't a go-er for us?

Would AV help solve Cameron's Old & Sad dilema?

Let me start this blog post back to front. I was chatting to a long standing member of the Conservatives here in Norwich South about the political situation and the conversation turned, as I suppose is inevitable, to the AV referendum. I explained that having flirted with AV I was now on the No side of the camp and would vote and campaign against the change. To my surprise, given this Tory member was in his 70s and very big-C conservative in his views, he said that he would in fact be voting Yes. I had to ask, why? Well, it's our best chance of winning in Norwich South he countered. Go on, I said ... His reasoning went like this. The Conservatives here lose a certain amount of support every election because there hasn't been a clear challenger to Labour and the LibDems have always pushed, and pushed, and pushed, the tactical vote message of "only the LibDems can beat Labour here" to the point where a lot of Conservative voters in places like Eaton, Thorpe Hamlet and Town Close do actually choose to support the yellow even though they are blue. If, my colleague said, they could vote Conservative 1 (which would be their actual choice) and then LibDem 2 (their tactical choice) then that would stop them having to vote LibDem X. And he is confident that if people in Norwich South actually voted the way they believed in as opposed to the way that the LibDem leaflets instructed them to, then the Tories would come second and it would in fact be LibDem votes that would be re-distributed in our favour. Image, he said, those Eaton Tory voters could now happily vote Tory 1 LibDem 2 in the knowledge they won't accidentally let Labour in. Hmmm, I said, I will have to think on that one. I mentioned this to a LibDem friend of mine and she agreed; AV could actually damage the LibDems in Norwich who get elected in large part on the tactical vote.

Anyway what does this have to do with the Oldham East by-election. Well the Tory grassroots are apparently up in arms that the Prime Minister seems happy for a LibDem to win, even though the Tory candidate is not far behind in a three-horse race (the results for Oldham East and Norwich South are very similar).

Although CCHQ kicking this into the long grass is unthinkable, I know what Mr Cameron must be imagining. What if Labour sneak back in and get another MP because the Tories win an extra 500 votes and the LibDem miss out by a small margin? For what its worth, given the state of the voluntary party and the reaction on websites like ConHome, I think CCHQ will have to fight hard in order o satisfy the lust of the membership for a good hard electoral battle.

This links back to my first point; CCHQ and the Prime Minister's life would be much easier if this by-election were fought under AV where we could happily throw the kitchen sink at a Con 1 vote (and hopefully win) but be satisfied with Con 1 LibDem 2.

I wonder, in fact, if Oldham East might make some Tories re-think their opposition to AV ... and maybe make some Labour members rethink their support?

Oldham East & Saddleworth by-election: First Dodgy Bar Chart Spotted!

... and I am thrilled to say that the LibDems have given us our first dodgy bar chart of the new "dodgy bar chart season" (i.e. a parliamentary by-election). Even though we haven't even got a date for the Oldham seat vacated by former Labour MP Phil Wollas, this gem has appeared on their website. Notice how the Conservatives don't even get a bar? Wow! They must be so far behind they don't even warrant the extra graphic or ink on the page. Surely those honest souls at the LibDems aren't trying to cover something up are they ...

Phil Woolas	Labour	14,186	31.9	-10.7
Elwyn Watkins	Liberal Democrat	14,083	31.6	-0.5
Kashif Ali	Conservative	11,773	26.4	+8.7

Gosh. Would you believe it - a three way marginal seat where the Tory vote rose considerably and the LibDem vote went down in 2010! I would never have been able to tell that from the bar chart ... thank goodness for Google. I'm sure the LibDems wouldn't want to mislead people either, so no doubt this little error will be cleared up soon ...

Come on LibDems, this election is being held in the interest of clean and fair elections. Maybe your campaign ought to reflect that too?