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.

LibDem crassness

A mysterious publication 'Snap!' was delivered 'free' to us today. Well. it would be mysterious were it not for its exceedingly crass and un-subtle promotion of scary April. In UKIP colours it is clearly designed for submission to the Pontiff for her sainthood candidacy. The main photo prominently features a pet dog whilst elsewhere in this 'publication' pages are filled with shamelessly raiding of the family photo album in a bid to out Norfolk everyone else and demonstrate her 'normal family' pedigree. Meanwhile 'Snap!' exclusives report on the shocking extremism of the Greens and parade the usual poor gullible ex-Labour supporter whose occasional leaflet delivery has been elevated into 19 years of active campaigning on doorsteps.

Never before having been in a constituency during a by-election, I've not come across the LibDems famed by-election machine at work until now. They really should grow up - a more juvenile, patronising and insulting clutch of election material I have yet to see. Ironically it is coupled with another favoured LibDem tactic - the 'clean campaign' pledge to 'fight on issues' and constant carping at others negative campaigning. Pot. Kettle. Black.

Education Monday

The photo-op by-election continued on Monday with Goves escorting young Chloe to Hellesdon High and Ostrowski blending into Balls contingent at Sewell Park College. Balls visit had the added spice of Michael Crick with a Newsnight crew shamelessly using the school as a backdrop for a Cricks' ambush - ironically taking the form of accusing Balls of doing the same. The student perspective was interesting - Crick was seen as a wally and getting in the way, and upon finding out his name he was then dubbed 'Crick the prick'. But for all the media in attendance there was very little reporting on local news media, demonstrating the law of diminishing returns works with photo-ops as well.

Choice of schools was interesting - Balls at Sewell Park, predominantly taking kids from Mile Cross and Catton Grove, two areas that would normally be Labour but with a lot of disgruntled Ian Gibson supporters. Meanwhile Goves was at Hellesdon, popular with parents in the northern suburbs. Traditionally Tory but with growing UKIP influence, it seems both visits were aimed at shoring up core voters against the disrupting impact of the minor parties.

As election day approaches Labour are written off, with their candidate selection seen as contributing to the defeat. Choose from a national imposition of a poor candidate so that Brown can't be blamed (Newsnight) or a locally inspired two fingered gesture to the national party (local gossip). So with a certain Tory win, the real interest is in whether the Greens can beat the LibDems to third spot - or even beat Labour to second. Recent Green success in the County Council elections showed that the electorate are disgruntled enough to elect any muppet so long as they aren't representing a traditional party. I can't help thinking, however, that the Greens would have been better off sticking with their usual candidate rather than letting Rupert take the spotlight. I know I'm not the only Gibson supporter that was considering a Green vote in the by-election until they selected Rupert.

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?)

Norwich North's 12 choices of mediocrity

Nominations closed yesterday and two more have joined the fray. Sadly, no Ian Gibson and with a frankly uninspiring line-up of careerist hacks, local eccentrics and attention seekers it looks like I'll be spoiling my vote by adding Ian's name to the ballot. Two mysteries for me from the nominations :

• what is a plasterer from the West Midlands (Peter Baggs) doing standing as an independent with no publicly advertised affiliations? Guess we will have to await his election address
• could the A Pond and M Pond who nominated and seconded Anne Fryatt (the NOTA candidate from Leeds) have any connection to scary April (Pond) the Lib Dem candidate?

Two weeks to go, and still no canvassers - normally I'd be pleased, but I was quite looking forward to a good argument. Young Chloe's campaign put a sealed personally addressed envelope through our door tonight - claiming her team had apparently 'called to see you today'. Odd that they didn't knock and their envelopes were enclosed in a leaflet for 'Norwich City Kebab & Pizza House' .... seems it is proving hard to even find leafleteers since one of their London contingent went down with swine flu.

Labour's campaign continues to wobble along with local party workers still mostly sitting on their hands. It looks like a totally London based campaign of photo-opportunities, and having seen the candidate in action, I'm beginning to think he was voted for by the local party as an ironic comment, an impression underlined by seeing who signed their nominations.

So, it looks like the Tory by default. With no real campaign to report, guess I'll just have to devote the rest of the campaign to spelling out why - however bad things seem - the Tories are the problem.

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)

.... and they are off!!!!

With Labour's choice of a young London based John Lewis worker as candidate they moved the by-election writ for July 23rd. So, we get to go alone with all the media silly season attention and the Party's fully focussed on the one campaign. Little surprise, therefore, that there is a sudden surge in demand for short-term rented flats and houses in the constituency as party workers flock to Norwich.

With Labour's candidate selection completing the 'big 4' it is also worth noting that UKIP and the BNP have joined in with the local trend for selecting candidates that will even challenge their party faithful. As this just about covers what counts as 'mainstream' it will be interesting to see how the many fringe and independent candidates compete for the title of 'most unelectable' candidate.

On a more serious note, the choice of candidates is seriously depressing:

• Tory - young Chloe. May be too young to remember Thatcher, but many of us aren't - and would tactically vote to keep her out
• Labour - young Chris. Careerist aparatchik at 28 parachuted in as willing cannon fodder. Presumably hopes he will do well enough to get something winnable at the next General Election
• Liberal Democrat - scary April. Well advised not to try kissing too many babies - spoils the effect when they scream the place down
• Green - Rupert and friends will find the by-election campaign rough and tumble too overwhelming to compete with.
• UKIP - Glen Tingle will probably pinch quite a few Mail reading Tory voters from the northern suburbs and help keep the BNP vote down, but xenophobia is so 1930's.
• BNP - A self-styled Rev may have seemed a good way to present a respectable face, but on any sort of examination just looks to be another trick from Goebbels campaign manual.

So, all to play for in a contest that will try all our patience!