Red faces in the Conservative Party this morning after the revelation that staffers in the Crewe and Nantwich by-election inadvertently sent the personal details of 8,500 local voters to a radio station in the Isle of Man. Given Gordon Brown's luck recently, it's just the sort of thing you would expect to happen to Labour. On reflection, I suppose it has -- the Great Datagate Fiasco in which child benefit records on 25m people were lost last autumn.
Labour officials have something to smile about at last after a grim campaign in Crewe. But they admit privately that the Tory gaffe will almost certainly come too late to save Labour's skin. If it had happened a week ago, and been followed by other mistakes by the Tories, their candidate Edward Timpson (foolishly dubbed a "toff" by Labour) might just have been under pressure. But it seems that the minds of local people have been made up. The momentum has been not pro-Tory but anti-Labour, and the Tories (rather than the Liberal Democrats) will benefit. The task for Team Brown once we know the Crewe result will be to convince panicky Labour MPs that Crewe is a mid-term blip and that the PM still has time to turn round the hostility shown in the by-election. But morale in the Parliamentary Labour Party is at rock bottom and the fear among some backbenchers is that the wider electorate has also made its mind up --about Brown.
What did the Tory staff in Crewe & Nantwich mean to send to a radio station on the Isle of Man? Something doesn't sound right here - please delve deeper!
Posted by: Mike O'Hara | Thursday, 22 May 2008 at 12:43 PM
Its Labours own fault
,with greed and stupid small laws , and Tax fiasco
Posted by: Colin Turner, | Thursday, 22 May 2008 at 01:00 PM
re: Mike O'hara
quite possibly they meant to send it to a different email address and the wrong one was "auto-completed" from the drop-down list - i have once sent an email to a "Benji" instead of a "Ben" due to this.
Usually, it turns out to be cock-up not conspiracy...
Posted by: Michael, London | Thursday, 22 May 2008 at 01:31 PM
It is correct to say that the Conservative gain is not a change of mind by the voters but a protest against Labours failure. It does look likely that David Cameron will be entering No 10 as the Next Prime Minister. The biggest problem is that few who have real clout address the real issues in politics and that is to demand common sense, ask these leaders to explain why we have this urgency for foreign policy over domestic policy. Why have none been prosecuted over the lies which brought our involvement in Iraq / Afghanistan. We need to be asking why so many of our civil liberties have been taken away and what is the reason. Most of all we need to have those who can ask these sort of questions stand up on our behalf as neither Labour or Tory will actualy listen to the people. I have been campaining for some time now to have the most basic of principals in our political structure and that is of common sense policies; put UK issues before all others. Promote real democracy and free global trade. Support our poorest neighbours with farming and medical programmes and offer our hand in friendship to those who regard our foreign policy for what it really is (corrupt). These are the questions that all real journalists should be asking and all editors unafraid of printing. If a person is ridiculed for asking a straight forward question then those who are doing the ridiculing are the ones with something to hide. Remember that any and all politicians are elected to serve in our interests. Demand real democracy and above all common sense politics.
Reporting about Brown's blunders and the credit crunch is not enough. What is needed is to focus on the real issues and not this illusion that the politicians create to stop us asking difficult questions. How different will any political party be in the future if we do not demand justice?
Posted by: John Finningham | Wednesday, 28 May 2008 at 07:35 PM