Crewe and Nantwich

Sad that the Liberal Democrat party slipped a few per cent from its general election share of the vote. It was clearly no fault of our very good candidate. Rather, the electorate wanted to give Labour a good kicking, and the Conservative was the most obvious means of doing so.

That the vote was anti-Labour, rather than pro-Conservative, was illustrated by a post-election interview on Radio 4. Taxed with the Conservatives' lack of economic policy to set against Labour's, their spokesperson could only come up with "raising the inheritance tax threshhold". She didn't have the grace to mention that Vince Cable had thought of this first. (And it's hardly our most important tax policy, in my opinion.)

One other thing was illustrated by the campaign, and the media treatment of it: that old-fashioned class consciousness is dead. My grandmother's generation would not have been deceived into thinking that Timpson is a "toff"; as the scion of a successful shoe-salesman, he is strictly "trade".

For somewhat more incisive analysis, see The People's Republic of Mortimer.