Winners and losers.....

We've had the best part of a week to digest the result of our by-election and now it is all but forgotten, except for us poor sods in the constituency who are now lumbered with a Tory MP. The result was trumpeted as a massive victory for Cameron's Conservatives, with Iain Dale typical of those with blue-tinted spectacles who focussed on the size of the swing (nearly 17%) and the 7000+ majority.

I have to assume that this was part of a propaganda effort and that the Tories own analysis will be more sophisticated. You could not have picked more favourable circumstances for the Conservatives had you tried. A blitzkrieg of MP's and shadow cabinet spokespersons and a blizzard of slick and sophisticated leaflets - with one estimate of the Tory spending for this put at £100k. Alongside that a cash strapped and demoralised Labour Party lacked confidence and substance, with a candidate that failed to inspire or excite. All against the backdrop of a the disgraceful and vindictive treatment handed out to the very popular previous MP, Ian Gibson - a name that apparently was thrown back time and time again by the good citizens to canvassers of all party's. With no glamour independent candidate and the other 'third parties' either campaigning feebly or selecting an odd candidate (or both!) all hopes of an upset evaporated with the close of nominations.

Despite Ian's left wing credentials his honesty and tenacity as a local MP did mean that some natural Conservative voters had given him a personal vote, guaranteed to return to the fold once he had gone. With his personal vote also taken from people who would normally vote for others, and traditional Labour voters punishing the Party by either staying away or voting for one of the third parties it would have been nothing short of a miracle had the Tories not won.. So, other than the obvious what are the real lessons of the result?

Firstly this wasn't the massive triumph for the Tories that was trumpeted. Against the circumstance described above they actually polled nearly 2000 less than in 2005 with the swing and majority accounted for by the total collapse of the Labour vote. Clearly the former Ian Gibson voters had not switched back to the Conservatives and they even failed to hang on to all their 2005 voters.

Secondly, nor was this the unmitigated disaster for Labour that it first appears. Staggeringly they did actually manage to come second, some 1500 votes above their nearest challengers. With a 'first past the post' voting system still certain for the General Election the Third Party challenge has passed its high water mark without altering the essential arithmetic for voters - vote other than Labour and you help elect a Tory. With two Tory wards, the subject of much attention during the by-election, moving out of the constituency at the General Election, IF Labour can get their act together young Chloe's reign could yet be brief. As incumbent, she will still need to hold good on her promise to put constituents first and ahead of Party - Ian Dale is right in suggesting that she will need to work hard in former Labour heartland areas - if she is to make good on the advantage this gives her.

Thirdly, the Green challenge failed to really materialise with the Lib Dems scare tactics and infantile campaigning disappointingly giving them enough benefit to hold third place. UKIP, picking up disgruntled voters from both Labour and Conservative even managed to finish ahead of the Greens. Whichever way Rupert tries to spin it this also serves to highlight that in a close campaign their intervention is really only likely to benefit the Tories.

Saying that this wasn't the unmitigated disaster for Labour is one thing, but them rectifying their mistakes and getting the seat back is something completely different. It will take changes both locally and nationally to stand a chance of success, and it is very unlikely that these changes will take place. Nationally Brown needs to go, and any replacement needs to find a way of apologising for the way the Party treated Ian Gibson - without this basic step the wounds from the debacle of the star chamber will continue to fester. Locally a more credible candidate than Ostrowski is needed, one with longer and more obvious local connections. It is unlikely Ian could be attracted back, but some rapprochement is necessary. As with an apology this is unlikely - the obvious source of a local candidate would be a prominent Councillor but so poor is the reputation of the City Council, and so few the number of County Councillors for the Party. Linked to this would be some step change in the local councils efficiency, with its poor reputation as much a function of poor management by officers and the perceived indifference of many front line staff as of weak political leadership it would take something very dramatic indeed to change the publics perception of City Hall in the time between now and the General Election

A depressing end

A Tory blitzkreig has been really galling, and the flood of canvassers and leaflets has probably done more to alienate than galvanise. It has been really hard to put up with all the Tory MP's - up to 40 in a day - treating the constituency as their own, and 6 visits by Cameron alone, have all gone to make it a very depressing by-election. Media interest was slow, probably reflecting a mood of initial indifference in the electorate that became more actively hostile as it progressed.

The massive Tory effort is, however, an interesting barometer of opinion. Young Chloe will win, but probably not increase her vote by much over the last election - and it will be the size of the vote more than the majority that should be scrutinised on Friday afternoon. Whilst any win will be acclaimed by a Tory celebration, in most parts of Norwich North that will be as welcome as an Ipswich team bus. Most people will have voted against the Tory but for them really to celebrate the massive effort should have gleaned much more for it to be a confident indicator that they are winning hearts and minds.

Who will be second will also be interesting, quite a few are punishing the main parties and I expect the Greens to do well in picking up those Labour voters who are angry enough about Ian's treatment to do more than sit on their hands. Labour could well find themselves behind both Greens and the Lib Dems with some side interest in whether the Lib Dems beat the Greens - 4th would not be good for them at all.

One factor that has not come through in all the reporting is the extent to which local residents are as fed up with the Council as they are the national parties. Traditionally Labour it was taken over by the Lib Dems after the infamous Chestnut tree incident, only for them to do so appallingly badly that they lost out to Labour and the Greens with a red/green coalition now in charge. Regardless of the Party in charge, the everyday experience of the council is one of incompetence and indifference by its employees - with honourable exceptions. It is that everyday experience that is doing so much to undermine democracy as people lose faith that voting will actually make a difference to their lives. That loss of faith is the real tragedy in politics, and in Norwich it is made all the more bleak because the honourable exception - the one person many came across who did seem to care and who did try to make a difference for peoples lives - was treated so badly. There will no real victors for all the smoke and mirrors that will be employed by the parties, but the people will have lost as a decent local MP is replaced by careerist insider.

After the weekend papers Norwich North will disappear from the national conscious. It is doubtful whether we will ever see Cameron here again after his weekend celebration. But we will still be here, the residents of Norwich North with our daily lives, our problems and struggles against bureaucratic inefficiency. Nothing much will change and life will go on, but something will have been diminished by the events of the last few weeks.

A bleak choice

Despite a poor candidate and the dreadful treatment of Ian Gibson, there does seem to be some movement back to Labour as we near polling day. It won't be enough to save the seat, but the prospect of young Chloe and a Tory MP has started to focus a few minds on how best to prevent it.

The Greens effectively blew their chance by persuading a perfectly good candidate (Adrian Holmes) that he didn't really want to stand and choosing Rupert instead, and then running a lacklustre campaign.

The LibDems have been dreadful, with scary April manipulated by the LibDem by-election machine into claims that have even driven the sober citizens of Aylsham to write into the local papers and complain about (her claimed single-handed saving of the local hospital came as news to local campaigners).

None of the independents have had the charisma or wider support of a Martin Bell, and UKIP have managed to generate the nearest thing to a joke locally with 'Don't mingle with Glen Tingle' adorning his third Reich era posters, undermining the Aryan poster boy impression they otherwise give.

In face of all this the Tories have given it their all, Cameron has made his fourth visit today and the area is flooded with party workers delivering leaflets. Cameron's obvious desire to specifically get Chloe elected does nothing to reduce the local impression of her as a Westminster insider. Her much vaunted Norfolk background has also aggravated a few locally to whom rural Norfolk and landed gentry might as well inhabit another planet. Working 'tirelessly' in the constituency since January 2008 doesn't really cut it either.

I suppose it could be a clever Tory strategy as it is in their interest for the Labour vote not to collapse and coalesce around one of the alternatives. Sadly, lessons of history aren't much in evidence in the Lidl queue and by this time next week we'll be a year ahead of the rest of the country as the Tories manage to neatly side-step their historic culpability for today's crisis.

Photo-op's and Parties past

The war of the photo-op continues with more ministerial visits lined up, and presumably shadow ministers as well. The local media generally oblige by providing coverage, but only for known national names - this has the effect of marginalising the remaining parties competing in the election, in fact even the Lib Dems can suffer on this score, so they keep sending Nick Clegg - guaranteed a sympathetic interview from Archant and the BBC.

The BBC did manage a BOGOF today, with Charles Clarke hijacking yet another Cameron visit to give him a letter about Andy Coulson. The danger with this stunt is that your enemy retaliates and start to hijack your photo-opportunities - with two weeks to go it could yet get very silly with the Loony's and other Independents yet to start their photo-op hijacking campaign. Perhaps anticipation of this is why a lot of the visits tend to be secret, with only the organisations concerned and the press tipped off in advance.

Rumours about the past of candidates continues, with Ostrowski doing nothing to improve his standing and image by conceding that his much vaunted UEA past included time spent in the Conservative Students Society, and even standing for them as a candidate in NUS elections. Rupert on the other hand used to be a LibDem - hardly a surprise, especially given the venom those clean campaigning LibDem's have extended to him.

Meanwhile Mr Tickle the UKIP candidate denies a rumoured past association with the National Front - but did he really need to trot out the old 'some of my best friends are ......' defence? His posters, advertising and leaflets all continue to prominently feature his picture as an Aryan pin-up boy.

TV appearance by 4 of the candidates last night, 30 seconds each on education. In order of competence in delivery 1. young Chloe, clearly showing how well groomed she has been by Tory Central Office; 2. Rupert, sounding like a Rupert but stringing coherent sentences together, 3. Scary April (but almost as vacuous in content as young Chloe) 4 - by a long way, Ostrowski continuing to demonstrate support for the 'ironic gesture' theory behind his selection. Try getting any sentence from him that doesn't include the words 'SureStart centres'.

Also on TV last night was Harriet Harman, trying hard to smile and talk through gritted teeth. It does seem that Labour nationally really thought they could remove Ian from the candidates list and that he'd go quietly at the next election. I suppose if you are in the Westminster bubble and know nothing of either the person or the constituency you might just be able to delude yourself that at 70 and with a heart condition, Ian could retire gracefully at the next election and be presented as a sign that the party was being 'tough' on the expenses scandal. Instead they have a by-election they are going to get slaughtered at, a very disgruntled local party and just look pathetic bullies when Ian's expenses are compared with others against whom no action has been taken (Mandy, anyone?)

What campaign?

Ever get the impression no one is taking this campaign seriously? A warm weather weekend and the date now known, yet you will be hard pushed to find a campaign by anyone. A few house posters have started to appear (Greens and Liberal Democrats), alongside the UKIP billboards (dominated by a head and shoulders of their 'BNP pin-up', an impression aided by easy facial hair defacement) but the only party workers spotted in a weekend wander were leafleteers.

The weekend leaflet count through our letter box was 1 each for Greens, Liberal Democrats and an interesting Independent candidate, Craig Murray. Nothing yet heard from the Labour Party and the Tory interventions were the same glossy leaflet put through the letterbox twice immediately after Ian's resignation. I'm sure things will warm up, but when a campaign relies on leaflets and photo-opportunities it means it is short of people on the ground.

The Lib Dem leaflet was a useful reminder of why I can't vote for them, nasty and snidy - and then there were the scary pictures of their candidate..... they will need to bus in a lot of door-knocking bodies to stand any chance.

Ian Gibson anyone? An interesting poll shows he would attract 40% if he stood as an independent - perhaps the same pollsters that showed Labour on 30% and only 5% behind the Tories. (see Michael Crick's blog for more on these)

Predictable so far - for Norwich

Will he? won't he? in an uninspiring and largely predictable week the only real item of interest is the continuing disarray of the Labour Party over the by-election.  the national Party, we know, would prefer to wait as long as possible and hold all its by-elections together for obvious tactical reasons.  Unfortunately for London, the local Party doesn't want to play ball and Harriet was met by a resounding vote for the by-election to be called immediately.  

Sophistry around not wanting to be without an MP over the summer (they really want a Tory MP???) and not allowing the Greens to build on their European and Local Government success can't disguise the fact that it was really a two-finger gesture from a still seething local Party.  Sunday's selection meeting will be fascinating!

Meanwhile young Chloe continues to age as her national minders continue their relentless pursuit of the record for summer visits by shadow cabinet members to one constituency; and faces another visit by Cameron. The Green's predictably picked Rupert as their candidate, a safe if uninspiring choice whilst the local Lib Dems obviously decided they didn't want to win (or wanted a plausible excuse for losing) by picking scary April.  I suppose I should exempt Clegg from the choice as he upset the local party in a desperate 'anyone but April ( and preferably famous)' search.  Already with two visits, he will be back, and it will be interesting to see how he gets on with the locals.

Predictably the Lib Dems are writing to everyone asking for a clean campaign, whilst putting out a press release that describes Rupert as an extremist and claiming that only they can beat the Tories.  Even more predictably, Tory blogger Iain Dale is taking an interest in the by-election from the safe distance of London, sustained by local party insider tittle tattle.  

Sadly it does look as if the collapsing Labour vote will be split between Greens and Lib Dems, leaving the Tories to sneak through the middle.  There is hope in that the Tories clearly don't have the candidate they would have chosen for a by-election, and neither Rupert or April are very appealing locally.  A good charismatic independent could yet shock them all.

The phoney war

End of week 1 and the Tories continue to set the pace. Young Chloe is getting around the constituency for photo opportunities with more mature shadow ministers, and Nick Clegg followed Cameron in 'meeting the public' at a local High School. At least the school was actually in the constituency this time, and he didn't try out a cod German accent - although claiming that 'thinking about a holiday on the Broads sometime' qualifies as a 'local connection' was bizarre, even by the Lib Dem standards! Like Cameron and the Tories they are happier to make the by-election a negative campaign against Brown than to put forward anything positive. As the local rag has observed:

"Yet it seems party strategists for both Mr Clegg and Mr Cameron feel that this by-election will be part of a bigger debate about the future direction of this country. Given Norwich and Norfolk's reputation for doing different, I wonder if they may have got that wrong."

Meanwhile the Greens seem paralysed by their own processes and their campaigning naivety is shining through. Presumably they won't compete with leafleting on environmental grounds, and any comment seems dependent on finding a candidate. The Adrian's have ruled themselves out of standing, leaving Rupert to be coy and toy with the idea. If they could get there act together (and PLEASE, don't select Rupert!) they would have a good chance. They gained the largest share of the Euro election vote in Norwich, and picked up a few County Council seats in North Norwich (including the poor candidate for Mile Cross who, according to party rumour, only stood as a paper candidate and didn't want to be elected). Despite this they have left unchallenged young Chloe's silly leaflet with its sub SATS bar chart showing how only the Tories can challenge Labour. Sort out a sensible candidate and get a campaign going , and they would be a good option for even Labour loyalists wanting to make a gesture to the national party.

As for Labour, the national party has sent Harriet along this weekend to stiffen their resolve. I guess she will make optimistic noises (well, you have to, don't you) but there are no credible local candidate options ( under the circumstances, standing will automatically remove credibility) and they will be reduced to importing party workers if they want to do any campaigning for a national imposition. Realistically, all Labour can do is look to minimise the damage and call all the outstanding by-elections together as late as possible (October?), hoping the other parties get bored. They will all soon be on their summer holidays soon anyway, leaving the way open for a motley collection of independents who will be happy to regard campaigning in Norwich as their holiday.