Your comment on majorites of 7,000 is muddled. Try and explain yourself more clearly.

This piece, that allows for only one Labour failing – that of making little impact in their attempts to show Tamsin Dunwoody in a positive light – describes every single factor as not having made much impact. Choice of candidates? “no bearing on the outcome”. Saturation media coverage? “little additional impact”. On the ground campaigning? “The parties’ efforts cancelled each other out”.

The only thing mentioned here to explain the loss of Crewe and Nantwich was that it wasn’t really a solid Labour seat, and could thus, presumably, be expected to see an 18% swing to the Conservatives. The point I’m making, and I’ll speak slower and more clearly this time so that you can understand it, is that if Labour are explaining away 7,000 majority seats as inevitable losses then a Conservative victory at the next election is guaranteed.

On turnout, this was down on the 2005 General Election by around 2,000 votes – despite all the hype surrounding the campaign. Perhaps a couple of thousand one way or the other qualifies as “pretty much identical” in Tory land.

Fathead. By-election turnouts are frequently substantially lower than the general election levels. Couple of examples?

In Norwich North, turnout in 2005 was 61% At the by election it was 46%

In Henley, turnout in 2005 was 68%, at the by-election it was 50%.

In Crewe, in 2005 it was 60%, and in the by-election it was 58%. That’s a remarkably low downturn from a general election – less than 5% of the people that voted in 2005 stayed away in 2008.

whatever attributes Tamsin Dunwoody posessed, she certainly was not “ghastly”

Her literature certainly was. Describing your opponent as a ‘con man’ is pretty bloody low. Running your entire campaign on the fact that your Mum was MP and you are therefore ‘one of us’ unlike the top hats on the other side was, and the word is particularly apposite, ghastly.

Incidentally, anyone called Tamsin Dunwoody-Kneafsey running a campaign on ‘don’t vote for posh people’ looks a bit like a parody.

Your comment on majorites of 7,000 is muddled. Try and explain yourself more clearly.

Also, what part of the word “additional” do you not understand? The saturation media coverage and all the extra bodies sent daily from London, as I assserted, made no *additional* impact. But if you have “evidence” to refute my specific point, please present it.

I encoutered all three major parties’ candidates during the campaign, and whatever attributes Tamsin Dunwoody posessed, she certainly was not “ghastly”. Unless you’re a partisan Tory, perhaps. I wasn’t impressed by Edward Timpson, but then, he did get in my way outside Crewe station one morning. Ms Dunwoody and her pals stood away from Nantwich Road the day they attempted to impress rail commuters. That was a sensible thing to do, but it made them less visible.

On turnout, this was down on the 2005 General Election by around 2,000 votes – despite all the hype surrounding the campaign. Perhaps a couple of thousand one way or the other qualifies as “pretty much identical” in Tory land.

Also, Timpson benefited from a fall in the Lib Dem support (down around 2,000 from the 2005 GE), which suggests there was some tactical switch – consistent with a Government that was unpopular nationally. I note that you do not contest my point that Labour gave up and failed to make an effort to get their vote out.

[The Lib Dems were last of the three main parties to select a candidate for the GE, which suggests they do not expect to better their usual third place]

The last time a majority Tory Government was returned – in 1992 – Dunwoody’s majority was under 2,700. There had been only one instance of a five figure majority, that in 1997

So, you should expect to lose seats with a majority of 7,000? Hello PM Cameron.

The saturation media coverage, and the dispatch of every well known politician to Crewe and Nantwich, also had little additional impact:..The parties’ efforts cancelled each other out.

A quick look at the evidence suggests that this isn’t true. An 18% swing to the Tories? Their first by-election win in 30 years? Turning a 7,000 Labour majority into an 8,000 Tory majority? That rather suggests that Labour ran a shockingly poor campaign, and the Tories ran a good one.

The Tories were allowed to make the running from the start, and their focus was incessantly negative, and personal towards the PM. They stuck to this tack and their discipline held firm. Labour’s attempts to show Tamsin Dunwoody in a positive light made little impact.

The only Labour campaign tactic that made any impact was the Tory toff one. Not only the sublimely fatuous one of having two Labour public schoolboys wander around in top hats (ffs. Lamest political stunt ever), but also driving the ghastly Tamsin Dunwoody’s leaflets which said ‘She’s one of us, he’s one of them’. Now, quite a lot of political campaigns are based on implying this. Very few just flat out say it. I’d say they were the worst leaflets ever, but sadly the ones handed out in Norwich that said ‘vote Labour or the fox gets it’ win that accolade.

Labour had already admitted defeat: the Tory majority therefore flattered Timpson.

What? The turnout was pretty much identical to the general election – almost unheard of at by-elections.

It’s a brave attempt to gloss over one of the worst Labour by-elections ever. But it doesn’t wash. It was a perfect storm of a terrible time nationally – the 10p tax rate – a terrible candidate – the hereditary principle is not always an electoral bonus – and a terrible campaign.

David Williams, his next Labour opponent, has the presence and the patter: he is a natural politician.

I’m not sure this is as much of a compliment as it’s supposed to be.

Nantwich, which was a new seat in 1955, returned a Tory MP, and much of that constituency is now part of Eddisbury, which also routinely returns a Tory MP.

There have been further boundary changes to Crewe and Nantwich, which will take effect for the 2010 General Election.

@1: You could always read the post, and are indeed beyond parody.

People were really pissed off about it. “Tory toffs” was a side issue, and yes it annoyed some people, but regressive Labour policies had much more to do with it.

Perversely, people then voted for the Tories (or didn’t vote at all). But that’s just a brute fact about the weird voting patterns of British voters on average.

“Was the ‘Tory Toff’ line wrong?”

Answer: Well, not really, because they *are* toffs.

“Was the leaflet racist?”

Answer: Um, well, personally I don’t think so; it was “clumsy”.

Overview: “The Tories were allowed to make the running from the start, and their focus was incessantly negative, and personal towards the PM. They stuck to this tack and their discipline held firm. Labour’s attempts to show Tamsin Dunwoody in a positive light made little impact.

Damn those “incessantly negative” Tories! Damn the lack of impact of Labour’s “positive” campaigning!

Really, this is beyond parody.