Corb’s perfect storm Doris was nothing to what’s about to hit Labour after the by-elections
PLENTY of politicians will have the wind-up after the stormy by-elections.
The result was a score draw as Labour blew away Ukip’s Paul Nuttall in Stoke and Trudy Harrison won Copeland for the Tories in a historic upset.
MPs set off to campaign up North – but Storm Doris had different ideas.
Reports flooded into my phone of people stranded on planes, trains and automobiles across our green and pleasant land.
It was a pleasure to watch Ukip spokesmen (they were all men) on the TV election coverage on Thursday night.
The party who hung their contrived flat caps on being the plain- speaking voice of the common man sounded like every other politician they claim to loathe – trying to spin their defeat as no biggy. “It was only 72 on our target list so defeat was expected...blah...blah.”
I shouldn’t be surprised. Spin and lies characterised Ukip’s campaign in Stoke, with more than a few porkies catching out Mr Nuttall. Their steady slide into irrelevance begins.
But who am I to be so cocky? Opposition parties don’t lose by- elections. Not usually, anyway.
Blame
This is only the second time it’s happened in my life.
In Labour and among the chattering classes, everyone is picking up the nearest cat and swinging it around, trying to hit someone to blame for this catastrophe.
And it is a catastrophe. Anyone who tells you different is spinning or, as I call it, lying. As the week progresses, everyone will be blamed – Corbyn, Blair, the media, the left, the right, the PLP, worst of all, the voters. Everyone is going to cop it. What is certain is that Doris will seem like a mere drizzle compared with the storm that’s brewing from this result. Luckily I’ve got a brolly.
Few things annoy me more than when we talk down to voters and say things like: “These people didn’t vote for us because they believed everything they read in the biased newspapers.”
This is code for: “I’m cleverer than them and therefore their decision is wrong.” Yuck! But the voters are clever enough to know that THEY are in charge. Only a fool wouldn’t recognise that.