Elizabeth Peacock is a classic populist Conservative, in that she is essentially left-of-centre on economic matters and Europe, very much in the mould of a one-nation Conservative, but hard-line on social issues, most noticeably the death penalty

She was very much a constituency MP - which any Conservative reprersenting a working class seat in Yorkshire would have to be

She’s of far higher stock than the flat-tax advocating millionaires who dominate today’s Conservative Party

Here we go again, “Tim Jones”. Since when has the Conservative policy officially advocated a flat tax? Personally I very much wish they would.

And what’s wrong with someone working hard and becoming a millionaire? Anyhow, there are quite a few of those on the Labour and Liberal sides as well.

HH - Please don’t rise to it.
Tim - you’ve been told before, and I thought we’d got over this.

I was merely praising Peacock (who is afterall a Tory) for being a good MP and suggesting if the Tories selected someone like her they might have a good chance at taking this seat in the next election…

I think that’s a relavent and fair comment in the context of this thread

The Tories need to gain some working class seats in the North if they are to win at a national level, and Elizabeth Peacock must have been doing something right to have held on here up until 1997, when she still achieved significantly more votes than whoever stood for the Tories in 2001 and 2005

Duh, Elizabeth Peacock also stood for the Tories here in 2001.

I think you know that niether of us were referring to your first two paragraphs.

My prediction

Labour hold by less than 1000