The Crewe and Nantwich by-election describes the perfect definition of mixed emotions from the late Gwyneth Dunwoody's point of view. She would clearly be upset for her daughter that this super safe seat was not inherited by Tamsin, but there would be a wry smile at the kicking that was inflicted on Gordon Brown and his Government. Gwyneth would have liked that.
As someone who was on the receiving end of a bloody nose in 1991 at the Ribble Valley by-election, I have a scintilla of sympathy for Ms. Dunwoody. It's not nice waking up the next morning after having lost a safe seat. You are exhausted but Party officials expect you to smile at the cameras and try to pick up some crumbs from the defeat.
There are no crumbs in Crewe and Nantwich. It was an awful campaign based on spite, envy and fabrication. Edward Timpson is no "Tory Toff". He is a well educated, family man who has lived in the area for years. He was the true local candidate. He fought on the issues people spoke about in the area, and not on bile wretched up from the rotten guts of a decaying party defaulting to class war politics.
Whilst the Ribble Valley by-election faltered for the Tories on one issue of the poll tax, the Crewe by-election slaughter was built on the quicksands of spin and deceit. We all have our list, but here is my non exhaustive list.
- Blair says "I will do a full term" if elected in 2005. Blair is elected and ousted in 2007. Brown bottles out of calling the General Election later that year.
- Reneging on the promise that there would be a referendum on the Lisbon Constitutional Treaty. People don't like being lied to.
- Post office closures, run on the bank, abolition of 10p tax rate, reneging on police pay deal, crippling tax increases on petrol, alcohol, council tax, 25 million people data loss, vehicle excise duty increase on family cars, nurses pay deal less in England than Scotland, West Lothian Question unanswered, violent crime through the roof, dodgy donations to Labour, immigration shambles, Olympics budget scandal.....etc.
- People completely fed up with price hikes on food and fuel. Economy in nosedive and whilst Brown took the credit when the world economy was strong, it's a case of not-me-gov.com when it's failing.
Labour MPs with slim majorities will be navel gazing this bank holiday recess. Phone lines will be hot with the warbling of sweating backbenchers suggesting a solution to the Party's woes. The keys to no. 10 which Brown rattled over the head of Blair could be snatched frrom his clunking fist by ingrates who fail to see the "bigger picture".
Brown repeats that he is listening, although staring defeat in the face they put up the lowliest of nobodies to front the BBC by-election special programme, Chris Bryant. He was so poor he even made the weak Lib Dem Lynne Featherstone look half credible. (A huge feat, believe me because she was awful too.)
The big question is whether the tipping point for Labour MPs and supporters has been reached. How much longer will trade unions spread their largesse on this brown field site, before they decide its time to spread the muck.
Which takes me nicely back to the promise of 2005. Blair's promise of doing a full term placed a moral imperative on his successor to call an election as soon as Blair was pushed out of office early. They have paid a price for their treason and their arrogance.
Should the Labour hierarchy decide that Brown should be quickly dispatched into the footnotes of failed, short lived Prime Ministers then surely the moral imperative becomes acute. As Straw, Miliband and Johnson book their appointments with their respective dentist, aka John Major, let them brood on this. The keys to no. 10 are not the property of a party in deep distress clinging onto the helm of the ship of state as they descend swiftly into the deep.
It is a case of all change at Crewe, but changing the crew at no.10 without the endorsement of the people will be further cheating the public of their constitutional right to elect their Government. Labour must not confuse their own crisis with that of the country's. Brown bottled it in 2007 and things have gone rotten ever since. If he is to be replaced, the incomer had better listen and learn a darn sight better than their predecessor. Britain won't be cheated twice.
