Dave's New Blue Crewe

I've been pondering why it is raining so much seeing as it is a Bank holiday week and half-term for the schools. C'est la vie, probably. I've had to think of alternatives for days out. Days in with two small children are not necessarily as easy, at least for me! Gordon Brown must be thinking along similar lines. "Why is it raining, politically that is, such dire stuff all the time?", he contemplates. It could be called a deep depression. Or stormy weather.

David Cameron is basking in the sunshine! Crewe and Nantwich saw to that. It must have been terrible having to play down the prospects of the Conservative candidate, all the while knowing it was going to be a big win. "We're with you, Mr.Cameron" - "It's time for a change!" - "This lot's lost the plot" and so on. Walkabouts in Crewe were never like this, at least not for 25 years! That's when the last by-election win from Labour happened for the Tories.

The BBC seemed to get in a muddle. Was it the Ilford North by-election or the Mitcham and Morden one? There is a subtle difference, but the BBC failed to elaborate, switching from whichever one seemed best. At Ilford in 1978, the Conservative candidate, Vivian Bendall beat someone called Tessa Jowell! That was a gain from Labour. It was also won despite a challenge from Tom Iremonger, the former Conservative MP for the seat who had been unseated by the electorate and deposed by his association in 1974. The Mitcham and Morden seat, in 1982, was different in that the sitting Labour MP, Bruce Douglas-Mann, had defected to the SDP, resigned, and then came second to the Tory, Angela Rumbold. It has always been seen as a gain from Labour. However, the Ilford result probably sits better with the commentators as it is 30 years ago and was the by-election that signalled the end of the Callaghan government.

So David Cameron is chirpy and upbeat. Now he needs to set out his stall a bit better than a window dresser would. We need to see the goodies. Are they well made, or will it be cheap stuff from China. The latest policy of getting youngsters to work sounds good but seems to be more stick than carrot. A lasting approach would be making the carrot a bit tasty. Unless there is someone or something to spark their imagination to stay in work, these kids are going into a revolving door under this policy.

David Cameron hails the end of New Labour. I can't wait! The way forward is sound policies and a sense of hope.

Tories out in front in Crewe

According to an ICM poll for the Mail on Sunday, the Conservative candidate in the Crewe and Nantwich by-election has a good chance of winning the seat. Could the Tories be on target to snatch a win from Labour for the first time since 1982?

The poll puts the Tories on 43%, Labour on 39% and the Liberal Democrats on 16%. Whatever the Labour Party may be telling the electors of Crewe it doesn't seem to be working. Gordon Brown is seen as a tetchy grump who is nowhere near being the Prime Minister he so deftly portrayed himself as being capable of when second-in-line to Blair. The whole sorry pantomime is unravelling. There isn't a chance they could come in tenth is there? Wishful thinking, I know!

Gordon Brown is no class act!

Gordon Brown obviously thinks its funny to bring up the old class war stuff. There are plenty in the Labour Party who can't stand "gents". They have an abiding hatred of public schools and "anything proper". So, because David Cameron went to Eton, they think it fair game to have a go at him. Just like they got rid of hereditary peers, or most of them, from the House of Lords, they try to sneer and jape at someone's background.

Is Gordon Brown so great? He was recently telling us his family was "ordinary". Do we care? Not really. I am much more concerned about him saying he made "a mistake" over the 10p tax fiasco, when in fact he knew at the time he was deliberately causing the poor to suffer. It was no mistake Gordon. Personally, I prefer toffs to liars!

In the Crewe and Nantwich by-election, the Labour Party has been finding it fun to poke fun at people they think posh. The word hypocrite comes to mind. As if they've never had a toff on their side of the House. One minister said, "Voters simply aren't concerned if someone went to a posh school and a good number are actually turned off by these sorts of attacks. Frankly they make us look puerile. The mayoral elections should have demonstrated to everybody that they don't work." Exactly! Boris Johnson is an Old Etonian. Londoners preferred him to the product of a "local school".

Ten green bottles hanging on the......

The Crewe and Nantwich By-election has managed to interest ten candidates to stand for election. As we know, only one will be hired, the others will be fired.

They are:-

Tamsin Dunwoody - Labour
Edward Timpson - Conservatives
Elizabeth Shenton - Liberal Democrats
Mike Nattrass - UK Independence Party
Robert Smith - Green Party
David Roberts - English Democrats
The Flying Brick - The Official Monster Raving Loony Party
Paul Thorogood - Cut Tax on Diesel and Petrol
Gemma Garrett - Independent
Mark Walklate - Independent

UKIP in Crewe and Nantwich

UKIP are getting more professional and they have just launched a by-election site for Mike Nattrass MEP who is the UKIP candidate in Crewe and Nantwich. They have a battle bus too, so this should add to the fun as well as the publicity!

New Labour Joke of the Week!

"Labour sources in Crewe last night claimed voters were not raising the 10p issue with them."

From the Daily Mail.

All change at Crewe - Oh, and Nantwich too!

The Crewe and Nantwich By-election will be upon us very soon. An unseemly rush to hold the election, an unseemly scramble for candidates to be nominated. All very unseemly in the unseemly world of New Labour.

The election will be on the 22nd May and Labour have announced that Gwyneth Dunwoody's daughter Tamsin will fight the seat. There has been a long tradition in British politics for spouses or other relatives to take over the party cause in by-elections. Some would say this is a way to keep the electorate on side with a sympathy vote, others think it gives a natural feeling of dynastic continuity. After all, an MP in the Westminster model of democracy is very much wedded to a constituency. In fact, constituents are known to get the hump on occasions as with Mark Woodnutt in the Isle of Wight or the Leyton by-election of 1965 when Harold Wilson thought it a good idea to drop Patrick Gordon Walker onto the constituency. Leyton voters thought otherwise, and gave him a big raspberry at the ballot box.

On the matter of raspberries, Gordon Brown's been getting the pick of the crop recently. However, he will be looking to the voters in Crewe and Nantwich to give him a juicy plum instead. The Conservatives will be wanting to stem a particular tide of historical political by-election fact. The fact that the last Conservative by-election gain from Labour was Mitcham & Morden, in June 1982. And that was only because the sitting MP decided to test the electorate after defecting to the SDP. He was advised not to do it, but did it anyway. So it is little wonder that no defector has done it since, the last being Bob Spink to UKIP.

All eyes will be on the Conservatives here. Can they beat a 26-year gap in by-election success? David Cameron should say loud and clear what the Tories will do on taxation, helping the poor, about local democracy, cleaning up Westminster politics, and tackling abuses in immigration and employment. He should lay out a proper set of policies on penal reform (not just building more prisons) and he should tackle the abuses that the minority of businesses use in helping create a perception of rip-off Britain. We've seen the corporate cowboys telling us that they have "robust business models" in place, when they have nothing of the kind. Firmer regulation not more regulation, that should be the way forward.

A Conservative Party that has policies that are properly understood and agreed with by the electorate will be a winner. Ones that give the impression of spin and deception won't.