Bonus and Banana Skins a postscript.

Results of Newton Ward by-election
Labour 844 Lib Dems 809 Tories 587 Greens 45
Can I at this point remind my readership that my Guesstimometer was predicting a Labour win of 50 votes. Not a bad prediction for a first time.
On this occasion in my opinion Newton have elected the best person for the job. I will be monitoring his progress to ensure he does what he said he would. Congratulations to David and commiserations to the other candidates.
We did get a big finish with the Libs up before dawn to deliver yet another election special Focus. Vote today for a strong local voice etc. Their candidate was known has Kay and I think they missed a great sound bite Vote Today Vote, for Kay, the rest of it was mediocre and uninspiring. Tories followed with perhaps the worst piece of electioneering: - Urgent Message from Your Neighbour. Folded so you read that first. I know all my neighbours well and if I’m getting notes from them I know there is trouble. So when I read it and saw she was actually planning to do nothing more than she already did, I was angry. I have spoken to others who also thought this a shabby approach. There is no way she is a neighbour of mine. She lives in the really posh bit on the other side of the canal that divides our ward. Labour on the other hand sent a simple card outlining some of the things their candidate had done and offering a phone number if people needed help getting out to vote. Very pragmatic for an area such as ours.
None of the parties have tried to engage properly with older people and for that they should be utterly ashamed.
So the right person won. We need to do it again in May so can I humbly offer some advice to all the parties and of course in reverse order.
Greens, don’t bother if this is how you are going to do it.
Tories, sack whoever was managing this campaign, stop knocking Labour, stop carping on about THE pUBLIC start telling us what you have done and what you are going to do and no more urgent messages from my neighbour.
Lib Dems, stop claiming to be a strong local voice when clearly you are not. Stop exaggerating your candidates contribution to our ward. Keep it accurate and remember there are three parties competing so if you must knock at the opposition do it to all of them in equal measure. Your performance over the last 5/6 years as been perceived as poor you need to raise your game.
Labour, keep it positive, keep it accurate, no more Dodgy Dave stories.

AND GET RID OF BROWN.

If you wish to have a swipe at me please feel free to do so in the comments section. But remember in a few months time you will be after my vote again and I might just do this again with a much wider readership. Won't that be fun!