Blaenau Gwent will make its own mind up

I WAS in Blaenau Gwent this week, trying to make sense of what, at first sight, appears like a mass of contradictory information about what's going on in the double by-election campaign.

When he died a few weeks ago, the seat's AM and MP Peter Law bequeathed a huge majority and lots of popular support for what he'd done - leave Labour after a lengthy row over the use of all-women shortlists.

There was no real surprise when two of the people closest to Mr Law, his wife Trish and his agent Dai Davies, decided to stand in the by-elections, Mrs Law for the Assembly and Mr Davies for Westminster.

It seemed like the seat was theirs to lose, with the outpouring of grief at Mr Law's funeral seen as an indication that people weren't ready to return to Labour Party they felt had moved away from them. Canvassers for Labour admit privately that the phrase "we will vote Labour again, but not yet", has come up regularly on the doorstep.

Yet the ITV/NOP poll released this week shows support has been coming back to Labour. Owen Smith, the Westminster candidate, is comfortably ahead of Mr Davies, according to the pollsters. So comfortably in fact that he was forced to say he didn't believe the poll, so as not to appear complacent.

The Labour strategy is to do lots of admitting that last year's all-women shortlists was a mistake, and to do lots of face-to-face campaigning. It helps that strategy if it looks as if there's still work to do.

Labour is obviously prepared to do whatever it takes to win the seat back, even if that means taking what in Westminster would be regarded as "awkward squad" positions. Mr Smith said this week that he was "probably" against an all-Wales police force (Government policy), and there will probably more of this sort of this before polling today.

Meanwhile the Labour Assembly candidate John Hopkins, is, if the poll is to believed, three points behind Mrs Law. It seems a few people are contemplating splitting their ticket and voting for Mrs Law and then for Mr Smith. If the poll is right though, it's a worry for Mrs Law; if she really was going to win she should be further ahead at this point.

With four weeks to go the Labour machine is going to up the ante, and the trend will be a drift back towards them. All of which begs the question - why is the campaign so long? Labour initially wanted a short campaign, but now they must be pleased they didn't get their way.

Polls are sometimes wrong, sometimes inaccurate and sometimes no help at all to either side. But anyone who thought the voters were just going to hand the same mandate to Mr Law's family as they did to him has underestimated Blaenau Gwent's famous tradition of making its own mind up, thank you very much.

Tomos Livingstone, Western Mail