By-election round-up No.8

By-election round-up:

* I had cause to be out-and-about in Shelton today, an area of Stoke-on-Trent which is looking a tatty as always. The area is rancid with litter and dumping in alleys. I took a walk up to the edge of Hanley Cemetery and back and only saw one red-and-yellow Labour flyer in in a house window, plus another hand-written little sign "no ***-ing leaflets, but VOTE LABOUR". There was also one diamond-shaped poster for Dr. Ali (Lib Dems) in a side window of a barber's shop. That was it for flyers on display. But I did spot Dr. Ali himself standing outside the Shelton Post Office in a nice suit, collaring likely-looking students as they passed by. He was gone by the time I came out of the shop.

---

* I doubt many people buy The Sentinel newspaper's print edition on a dull Tuesday in February. But it's pretty good today, with a conservative-positive full page story on Mrs May's visit to The Sentinel office in Hanley.

The paper has also printed a useful last-minute set of pitches direct from the candidates: "The Stoke-on-Trent Central candidates say why you should vote for them".

The Sentinel also gives the results of a questionable 1,000 respondent online survey they've been running for the last two weeks. This suggests that Ukip and Labour are neck-and-neck, but you can't help thinking that such a survey will have been distorted by online activists across the nation. They'll surely have been mucking around with browser location-spoofers and different Google accounts. 30% of votes going to "other" parties looks way too high, for instance. So much so, that you have to wonder how much of that is the BNP's entire membership (five people and a dog, last I heard) all frantically clickety-clicking on the survey's voting button.

A rather amusing detail is that The Sentinel is using a lurid picture of Ukip's Nuttall which effectively covers him in a urine-stained yellow colour, when it's printed on cheap newsprint paper. It appears twice in the print edition of today's paper.

---

* London's Evening Standard newspaper is reporting that Paul Nuttall has given Hillsborough witness statement:

"He told BBC Radio 5 Live's Breakfast he spent "three hours yesterday morning in Operation Resolve giving a witness statement""

---

* The Daily Telegraph: "Labour's Stoke candidate apologises to wife and daughter for describing women as 'polished turds'".

---

* Guido: "Labour use the St George’s cross on a leaflet in Stoke and top Corbynista cheerleader Ava Vidal takes offence."

---

* Political Betting, a leading blog: "Stoke Central is set to rank alongside Darlington in 1983 as one of the great by-elections of modern times"

"We could get a very tight result with four parties being very close to each other."

More of a three-way race now I'd say, according to my calculations, but still close between the three and could break any which-way depending on turnout on the day. Of course a lot of Ukip and Labour postal votes have already been sent in. Possibly also some Conservative postal votes, though there's a certain traditionalist "I want to walk down to the voting booths and feel the pencil in my hand" attitude among such voters.

I'd also question the use of the word "Great" in the headline. A great big pile of farce, perhaps. Still, it could be worse. Apparently in the Northern Ireland by-election they're now down to throwing petrol bombs rather than lobbing tweets.