ImageThe by-election in Crewe and Nantwich to be held on 22nd May is not a referendum on this Labour government or Gordon Brown. By-elections are held in tiny little areas, and to cast them as being any more than extremely vague indicators of national preferences and feelings is way overplaying their significance. If Edward Timpson wins for the Conservatives, or Tamsin Dunwoody wins for Labour, or even if Elizabeth Shenton wins for the Lib Dems it is not a referendum on any sort of real national significance.

Especially when we just had an election on a significantly more national scale. If anything is a referendum on Labour and Brown, that was it - and they lost, badly.

If this by-election to be fought online, then the Conservatives have won, with the Crewe and Nantwich Conservatives by-election website being far superior both in design and content to the Labour and Lib Dem ones.

One thing is certain, though: you don’t have to pay much attention to the by-election in Crewe and Nantwich to see rank hypocrisy in action. Just look at this webpage and then this one. One saying “Don’t be conned by Tory Boy Timpson” and the other proclaiming “She’s a Dunwoody”. Just showing which party is the one with the hereditary, rather than meritocratic, principles.

The class-war approach is old hat, not top hat - and backfiring.

UPDATE: UK Polling Report, Iain Dale, and Guido Fawkes have a poll that reports the Conservatives are on course to win this by-election: Con 43, Lab 39, Lib Dem 16. Iain Dale also says that he has been told that the “election figures were adjusted downwards to take account of large number of Labour don’t knows. If they stayed at home on polling day, the Tories would win by 13 points.” Good times. But will they last?

Hat-tip to Quaequam Blog! for the Tory-toff/hereditary MP hypocrisy.