South Staffs prepares for poll

Voters in Staffordshire South are preparing to elect their MP - weeks after the rest of the country.

With six days to go before the May 5 poll, the constituency's election was postponed when Liberal Democrat candidate Jo Harrison died after a short illness.

It means the incumbent of 30 years, Conservative Sir Patrick Cormack, has had to fight an election his party has already lost.

After 10 weeks of campaigning Sir Patrick is looking forward to reaching the finish line.

"It will certainly be a sense of relief when I cease to have to pound the beat day after day," he said.

"And I hope it will be a sense of relief because I will be going back to the House of Commons to pick up the threads and carry on serving the people of this lovely part of England."

Sir Patrick's majority of nearly 7,000 should be enough to see him returned on Thursday but the unusual circumstances of the poll have attracted a variety of candidates that make the result far from certain.

UKIP candidate Malcolm Hurst insists that this is an ideal opportunity for the people of Staffordshire South to make a statement on Europe for "the whole country" following the resent rows over the constitution and the UK rebate.

Adding to the by-election feel is the presence of newspaper columnist Gary Bushell who is also running a vigorous campaign for the English Democrats.

Considerable protest votes for those two could give the Labour candidate

Paul Kalinauckas a chance of winning the seat his party came second in at the last election.

Latest national opinion polls have shown the Labour Party has increased its lead over the Tories and Sir Patrick cannot have been helped by the Tories ongoing leadership fight and election post-mortem.

Kalinauckas told the BBC: "It's given us a unique opportunity to win the seat.

"The constituency has had a history of being a Tory squirearchy, one of the safest seats in the country.

"But there is something going on - an undercurrent. People are saying, hang on a minute, this is the 21st century."

The Liberal Democrats also insist they have a good chance.

Their candidate, Jo Crotty, said: "It is much more like a by-election - and we are picking up an extreme lack of enthusiasm from Labour voters."

Whatever the result Sir Patrick, for one, believes the rules should now be changed to prevent such situation occurring again.

epolitix.com