It was similar in 1987 and 92 where Labour were in no position to challenge the Tories nationally but racked up huge majorities in places like Merseyside and East London

In Scotland of course there was an overall swing to Labour – but Scotland is so different vfrom the UK nationally now that it’s hard to read much into that

That was certainly the case in Central Scotland and specific rural seats like Dumfries & Galloway and Ochil & South Perthshire.

I’m sure it was not the case in Moray shire or Argyllshire & Buteshire.

“I think you can count on one hand Labour candidates who increased their vote in England & Wales”

There were a few.
Seeing as turnout overall increased, I shall only count those seats where Labour’s numerical vote AND vote share both increased (in numerous other seats the numerical vote increased but the actual vote share fell).

London:
Barking
Bethnal Green and Bow
Croydon North
Dulwich and West Norwood
East Ham
Hackney North and Stoke Newington
Hackney South and Shoreditch
Holborn and St Pancras
Ilford South
Islington North
Islington South and Finsbury
Poplar and Limehouse
Tooting
Tottenham
Walthamstow
West Ham
Westminster North

Merseyside:
Garston and Halewood
Liverpool, Riverside
Liverpool, Wavertree
Liverpool, West Derby

Midlands:
Birmingham, Hodge Hill
Birmingham, Ladywood
Birmingham, Perry Barr
Leicester South

And then of course goodness knows how many in Scotland.

None in Wales I don’t think.

Fair point re: the safeness of a good number of the ‘A-list seats’, but around 20 of those 38 A-listers who were elected fought seats which had marginal majorities. Admittedly some of these were Tory-held and likely to return a Tory MP in 2010, but some where Labour / Lib Dem-held, and had to be gained.

You seem to the one making stuff up now

I never castigated Liz Truss for taking a graduate job with Shell – I merely pointed out that her politics changed during that time

I castigated Shell because they had a human rights activist hanged for daring to tell people what they were doing to their land in Nigeria

And for the record I also said Cable’s involvement in Shell was a black mark against him

As for the Bailey comment, good campaigners don’t necessarily make great legislators (or vice versa) but if you’re not good at campaigning you’re not going to be in a position to legislate in the first place

It’s even worse when the posts such as Tim’s above, are just a summary of comments from disgruntled party activists who probably failed to get selected.

There will ALWAYS be someone who hates the selected candidate and will share stories about how “terrible” their party representative is and how people will never vote them.

They are the same ones who cannot see any good in an MP who is not a member of their political party.

it is all rather pathetic.
That Tim a “lib-dem” sympathiser, would castigate 35 year old Liz Truss for taking a graduate job with Shell while ignoring a leading light in his chosen party who became their Chief Economist quite frankly, beggars belief. It just goes to show that there’s more emotion than logic to his argument.

There was never any attempt to deselect Joanne Cash in Westminster North either. A made up story to buttress a nonsensical argument.

His comment about Shaun Bailey also shows that too many people don’t understand that a good legislator may not necessarily be a good campaigner.

The country wants MPs who are capable of writing and scrutinizing proper legislation, and can run the country as part of a government.

People are indifferent about skills in type-setting and producing raggedy focus leaflets and suchlike.

There are a string of similarly strong seats – Maidstone & The Weald and Spelthorne being two that come off the top of the head – where Tory A-listers held on but suffered a big swing against them. In those two cases Anne Widdecombe is irreplaceable but I imagine quite a few of David Wilshire’s constituents were glad to see the back of him in light of what he’d being doing with his expenses claims.

I think your being a little unfair in your last paragraph. I recognise it’s unfashionable to criticise people who cheat on people they profess to love, or in this case, cheat with someone they know has a wife and children (neither of whom have ever done anything to harm them) and I’m not saying these things should be resigning matters, but I think it speaks volumes about that person’s character – or lack of it – thus can completely understand why local Tories would be angered that they were likely to be represented by one.

I’m absolutely certain that John Major’s adminitration would have been finished had the distatesful facts about what he and Edwina Curry got up to together came out at any time between April 92 – May 97