Paul Nuttall throws Labour a lifeline in Stoke: Mirror Politics morning briefing
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Until recently there was a convention that Prime Ministers did not campaign in by-elections.
That ended when Gordon Brown went to Glenrothes by-election in 2008 where Labour managed to fend off the SNP to hold the seat.
The dam having been broken, David Cameron campaigned in a number of by-elections and today Theresa May will visit Copeland.
You suspect the Prime Minister would not be travelling to Cumbria unless she thought the Tories were in with a chance of being the first government to make a by-election gain since 1982 when the Conservatives took Mitcham and Morden from Labour.
Labour is defending a 2,564 majority in Copeland and a majority of 5,179 in Stoke, which is also up for grabs next Thursday.
(Photo: Getty)
A double defeat for Labour would be a disaster for Jeremy Corbyn and would hasten speculation about him leaving before the 2020 general election.
This is not to say Copeland is a lost cause.
For all Labour’s troubles the party still has a well-organised campaign machine which is being overseen in Copeland by Andrew Gwynne MP who helped pull off the thumping victory in Oldham .
Local issues tend to dominate in by-elections and while Jeremy Corbyn’s anti-nuclear stance has been unhelpful in Cumbria, the Tories are having to defend a poor record on local NHS services.
In Stoke, UKIP’s Paul Nuttall is the main challenger to Labour, the Tories having left the field to maximise the chances of inflicting a defeat.
Until yesterday the purple warriors must have felt they were in with a chance, not least because of the Labour candidate Gareth Snell’s loudmouth tweets .
(Photo: Daily Mirror)
But the UKIP leader Paul Nuttall’s struggle with reality when it comes to his past - parts of his CV could win a fiction prize - has thrown a lifeline to Labour.
Nuttall’s press officer last night took the rap for allegedly embellishing his website with the inaccurate claim he lost a close personal friend at Hillsborough .
Either this is a pathetic excuse to try to minimise the damage or it shows that Nuttall is so incompetent he cannot be bothered to read his own literature.
Neither reflects well on him.
Diane Abbott can be an infuriating, though also charming, politician. Her views are often abrasive, inconsistent and exasperating.
None of which can excuse the awful abuse she has to endure.
In an article for the Guardian she writes of the deluge of sexist and racist attacks she regularly receives on social media.
On this she deserves our support.
Not just for her sake but to ensure women and black people are not driven from entering politics.
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