This week, old footage has re-emerged of the 2001 Ipswich By-election. Not usually where Guido would expect to find the most riveting content…
This, however, was a by-election with a twist. When the result was announced the new MP was welcomed to the stage with a bizarre laser rave show, put on by the local council, which concluded with sparklers and confetti. The elderly returning officer took the whole thing in her stride…
h/t @arcpolitics98
Cleverly’s message after the Brecon by-election is essentially “Vote Farage, Get Swinson”. The Tories won’t have to worry about as long as they deliver on 31st October…
The Tories were left wondering what might have been after learning that they had lost the Brecon and Radnorshire by-election in the early hours of this morning by a narrow margin of just 1,425 votes. This was despite the Lib Dems being runaway favourites to win the seat by a landslide after other pro-Remain parties pulled out to give them a clear run, and the Tories re-standing a candidate whose conviction for fraud triggered the by-election in the first place. The May government’s decision to allow Chris Davies to re-stand for the seat looks more than a little foolish now, to say the least…
The Brexit Party vote eclipsed the size of the majority by almost 3:1, a clear warning sign for the Tories ahead of any general election. Interestingly, the Brexit Party’s tally was just seven votes different from UKIP’s in 2015 when Cameron did manage to scrape a majority…
Lib Dem: 13,826 (43%)
Conservative: 12,401 (39%)
Brexit Party: 3,331 (10%)
Labour: 1,680 (5%)
Monster Raving Loony Party: 334 (1%)
UKIP: 242 (0.8%)
At the other end of the table, Labour just managed to hold on to their deposit with a measly 5.28% of the vote. The party that won almost 50% of the vote in Wales last General Election now fighting it out with the Monster Raving Loony Party…
The Lib Dems’ answer to Harvey Weinstein, Lord Rennard, has been out on the campaign trail with them yet again – despite leader Jo Swinson previously calling for him to be kicked out of the party. The noxious Rennard has been embroiled in one of the Lib Dems’ most long-running scandals since over 40 separate sexual harassment claims from multiple Lib Dem staffers first emerged years ago. Yet the Lib Dem leadership has repeatedly failed to fully freeze him out due to his decades-long role masterminding Lib Dem ground campaigns…
Glad to have helped in Brecon with Chris Rennard who ran my 1995 by-election. He pulled out all the stops. I won – but only just. We need the same in Brecon. More help needed, and work till 10pm. Every vote is needed. @LibDems pic.twitter.com/iYz8YOXZnV
— Chris Davies MEP (@ChrisDaviesLD) July 31, 2019
Now he’s resurfaced in the Lib Dems’ by-election campaign in Brecon and Radnorshire, receiving a warm welcome from the Lib Dem old guard including MEP and former MP Chris Davies (who confusingly shares a name with the Tory ex-MP and candidate). As one furious former Lib Dem staffer puts it, the “human octopus” just can’t resist sticking his tentacles back in…
New Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson wrote a searing article two years ago about Rennard declaring him “not welcome” in the party:
“That Lord Rennard remains in the party, showing no remorse or contrition, while many of the women involved have left, fills me with sadness and anger. When I hear suggestions that the women who spoke out should not be believed, or that they were somehow manipulated, it makes my blood boil.
“Vince — and Tim before him — have repeatedly, publicly said Rennard is not welcome anywhere near their frontbench team, even as an adviser. I remain deeply frustrated that he was not expelled from the party through its disciplinary process. It just feels wrong, and I do not want Lord Rennard to continue as a member of the party. As far as I am concerned, he is not welcome.”
Now the buck stops with her there is no excuse, will she finally take action?
Labour’s Peterborough candidate Lisa Forbes was forced to apologise over the weekend for having endorsing a Facebook post saying Theresa May has a “Zionist Slave Masters agenda.” Guido can now reveal that Forbes has quietly deleted Facebook posts that attracted vile anti-Semitism in the thread below, totally ignored by Forbes herself when someone in her network alleged “ISIS leader Al-Baghdadi is a Jewish Mossad agent.” Perhaps it’s no wonder that Forbes signed a letter to Labour’s NEC calling on the party to not adopt the IHRC definition of anti-Semitism in full…
Like her party leader she accuses the BBC of being “pro-Israel”, this is now a matter of course for Corbynistas. Guido can also reveal that as recently as just a few months ago Forbes posted in an anti-Semitic hate group that talks of “Zionist rats”. The group itself posts content alleging the Jewish State has “improper influence” and “spends a fortune perverting our democracy”, promotes rallies organised by Hamas and proscribed terror group Palestinian Islamic Jihad. A member of the group even questioned why more Palestinians don’t go out to stab Jews. Why is Forbes active in such a deeply questionable group..?
Is this is the new mainstream in the Labour Party..?
The Liberal Democrats’ candidate in the Newport West by-election last night was nowhere to be seen at the count. Ryan Jones, a local businessman couldn’t make it to the count due to a mysterious “longstanding commitment” at ten past one in the morning. Welsh Liberal Democrat President William Powell wouldn’t let on. What was he up to..?
