The Norfolk Blogger on Luton South

Nich Starling, know as the Norfolk Blogger, has written a post previewing the election battleground in the Eastern Region. Initially he missed out the two Bedfordshire seats of most interest, Bedford and Luton South, but he has since updated the post with descriptions of both. He is reasonably accurate on Luton South, although over harsh on Esther Rantzen and misses out the fact that the Liberal Democrat vote doubled at the last election. What he isn’t aware of will be how the campaign is playing out on the ground, particularly the strength of the Liberal Democrat challenge, and, aside from Esther, the strengths and weaknesses of the various candidates.

“Luton South is at a council level a Lib Dem target and with the scandal involving Margaret Moran’s second home claims, the Labour Party will do well to hold the seat. The major problem for the Lib Dems is that they start in third place having failed to overcome the Tories last time who remain in second place. Given that until 1997 Luton South was a Tory seat, the Tories might expect to be the main challengers here this time. Again though, the Tories are not in the shape they might expect to be with a shaky local organisation and little in the way of local council success on which to hang any claims of being the main alternatives. Given the plethora of independents seeking to muddy the waters including the dreadful Esther Rantzen, whose stated reasons for standing appear to me to have all gone, except seemingly the number one reason (her ego), it seems that this seat will provide some interest to the press.”

This content was originally posted on my old Strange Thoughts blog.