Labour Pain

‘CLEARLY, Downing Street didn’t send in enough postal votes with a X next to Labour and an ‘I Love Tony’ message in yesterday’s elections.

‘Lord Lucan and Shergar have both gone for Labour’

The party was heading for what the Telegraph calls ‘one of its worst electoral performances in recent memory’ as the Tories made major gains across the country.

Indeed, a poll suggests that had yesterday been a General Election instead of a European and local government election, Labour’s majority would have been completely wiped out.

According to the YouGov survey, the Tories would have got 36% of the vote, Labour 32% and the Liberal Democrats 18%, although even then Labour would be the biggest party in Parliament and Tony Blair would continue as Prime Minister.

However, the Independent thinks Labour might not even wait that long to find out, suggesting that the results would ‘provoke another bout of speculation about Mr Blair’s future and demands for him to stand down’.

The man himself suggested that the Iraq war had ‘cast a shadow’ over the elections, although that is a pretty feeble argument as the Tories also supported the war.

‘In the end,’ the Messianic One opined, ‘you have to face decisions which you think are right and you have to see them through.’

Indeed – and we therefore expect that, if more than half the Labour party think it is the right thing to do to kick Blair out, then they will also have the guts to see it through.

If they do, it is unlikely that they will use a postal ballot to make the decision after the fiasco of the experiment in yesterday’s elections.

The Times is so fixated on this issue that it has now run exactly the same story on its front page for three days in a row.

‘Postal ballot marred by fraud’ was Wednesday’s headline; ‘Postal ballot dirty tricks exposed’ was yesterday’s lead; and today we get ‘Postal voting system need fraud check, officials say’.

It’s okay, guys – we got the message the first time.

So obsessed is the Times with this issue that its readers might struggle to discover the actual result of the supposed gerrymandering in this morning’s paper.

For all the talk of ‘fraud, vote-stealing and intimidation’, we could be in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe…or indeed Jeb Bush’s Florida.’

Posted: 11th, June 2004 | In: Broadsheets Comment | TrackBack | Permalink