As many predicted, an honest man wasn’t returned to parliament in the Norwich North constituency. Instead a woman, Chloe Smith, comfortably won the by-election for the Conservatives. Aged 27, she takes over the mantle of Baby of the House from 29 year old Liberal Democrat Jo Swinson.
The Labour candidate was hospitalised with suspected swine flu earlier this week. Not the most positive turn of events for his already difficult campaign. Chris Ostrowski’s wife represented him at this morning’s count.
The Telegraph reports that
Labour voters - bitterly resentful at the party for making an expenses scapegoat out of their MP - stayed home from the polls in their droves.
Had the popular Ian Gibson decided to stand as an independent, Labour would almost certainly could have been pushed into third place.
The colourful independent candidate Craig Murray received 7% of the votes for his Put an honest Man into Parliament party. He got the highest vote of the six independent candidates, also beating the BNP by twelve votes.
- Chloe Smith (Conservative): 13,591
- Chris Ostrowski (Labour): 6,243
- April Pond (Liberal Democrat): 4,803
- Glenn Tingle (UK Independence party): 4,068
- Rupert Read (Green): 3,350
- Craig Murray (Put an Honest Man into Parliament): 953
- Robert West (BNP): 941
- Bill Holden (Independent): 166
- Howling Laud (Monster Raving Loony): 144
- Anne Fryatt (NOTA): 59
- Thomas Burridge (Libertarian): 36
- Peter Baggs (Independent): 23
Turnout = 45.88% (down from 61.09% in 2005 General Election)
2 comments:
I am glad that the (allegedly) honest man beat the BNP.
But I am worried by the implication that all of the other candidates weren't honest, because they weren't labelled as such.
Do we need a standardised candidate labelling scheme?
Lies 20%
Self-serving 40%
Party cronyism 30%
Personality 10%
Honesty 0%
I would like to hope that it was an honest woman returned to parliament - despite Craig Murray's concerns and annoyances!
And there seems quite a lot of local support in the area for the resigned MP, Ian Gibson, who may have been made a bit of a scape-goat, or at least got more heavy handed treatment than other colleagues.
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