The Eastleigh by-election has reached that point where every word the candidates have ever uttered is dredged up and thrown back at them. John O’Farrell got it in the neck about his views on the IRA and Thatcher at the weekend, Maria Hutchings apparently once called Dave a sell-out and the LibDem bloke’s voting record does not match his leaflets. For his two cents, the Brighton bomb quote was not the only bit of O’Farrell’s 1998 autobiography Things Can Only Get Better that caught Guido’s eye:

“I was able to stay in the Labour Party while it ceased opposing privatisation, ceased to support unilateral nuclear disarmament, ceased voting against the Prevention of Terrorism Act and went back on just about every policy I believed in to get itself elected in 1997.”

O’Farrell has fired up the Labour Twitterati and got some boots on the ground, but aside from his comedic running commentary from the stump, he has not really said very much. Has he changed his mind on privatisation and nukes?