The Greens are to redirect resources up to York Central after the long-serving Labour MP Hugh Bayley announced he is standing down at the election. Though Labour have a safe-ish majority of 6,451, Guido understands the seat was already on the Green’s top 12 target list and is now being considered a key target. The Greens polled four times their national share in York Central in 2010, and secured 15% of the vote there in the Euros. Their candidate for 2015 is railwayman Jonathan Tyler, who tells Guido:

“Labour have blown it. They have behaved arrogantly here. They’ve now had a number of defections and lost control of the council. We’ve done well here in past elections and did extremely well in the European elections. It’s certainly promising ground.”

Tyler has lived in the seat for 27 years, just in case Labour were thinking about parachuting a London candidate up to York. Now the Greens are parking their solar-powered tanks on Labour’s lawn…