Small by-election, no-one heard
So David Davis has regained his seat in Haltemprice and Howden - what a surprise! The only thing that surprised me about the most boring by-election I have ever known was that no candidate changed their name by deed poll to Alan Beresford B’Stard.
Was it worth all the huffing and puffing and financial costs? According to the Telegraph, the cost was £200,000, although LibDem activist Gavin Whenman thinks it’s much lower than that.
So who are the winners and losers? Despite the majority, it appears that David Davis has done himself no favours with the Conservative heirarchy or his leader, Dave Chameleon. Labour have left themselves looking stupid and cowardly by refusing to contest the by-election and no amount of the usual pointless comments from Tony McNulty can disguise that fact. None of the minor parties or independents made a real impact.
The Greens almost failed to come second in a by-election where they were an absolute shoo-in for that position, which really took some doing. Yet they had to try and portray the result as a near victory.
So that leaves the LibDems. The decision of Nick Clegg to assure David Davis that his closest opponents wouldn’t contest the by-election rendered it a non-contest. Should we have fought the election? Probably yes, not just on a no to 42 days platform, but also one of real civil liberties. But we didn’t, so the chance of getting real publicity and support for a liberal alternative was lost. So for us, it was probably a neutral outcome.
The real sadness is that important issues around civil liberties could have been raised over the past month. But they weren’t, because both the LibDems and Labour chose, for very different reasons, not to contest the by-election. So apart from satisfying Mr Davis’s vanity, what was the point?
Related posts:
- Not seen – and not heard
- It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing
- Neither human, nor British
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