Sunday 1 July 2007

Scared Labour rush poll

The Labour Party has called both the Sedgefield and Ealing Southall by-elections for the earliest possible date: July 19th. Having lost a number of seats to the Liberal Democrats over the past few years, and nearly losing rock-solid Hartlepool to us, Labour has decided to rush through these elections to stop us gaining any campaign momentum.
Surprisingly, although they knew about this long ago, Labour does not have a candidate yet: and apparently won't be selecting until Wednesday. The Tories have appointed Graham Robb, a PR consultant from Darlington.
All Liberal Democrat approved parliamentary candidates, were emailed details of the application procedure overnight on Wednesday/Thursday - to be returned by 10am on Friday morning.
Local party members, appointed by our local executive, carried out a short-listing from those who applied. The full local party membership will vote to choose our candidate at a hustings on Tuesday evening. The shortlist contains very high quality candidates from the northern regon, including local members. Whoever we choose will be an excellent candidate.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You are right that the margin was probably too thin for comfort as far as labour are concerned, but 34% to 40% is not what I would call nearly taking the rock-solid labour seat in Hartlepool. "Nearly" would be 1% or 2% difference. Twas a good try though.