That was the by-election in

That was the by-election in which we got beaten by Mr Blobby. Another unfortunate result in a by-election in Scotland in 2005 (details here) led Conference the following year to vote:

So we couldn’t have put up a candidate even if we wanted to, but if there had been more time (the Labour Party has rushed the by-election since the MP died only on 10 November and was buried only on 25 November) West London branch would have leafleted the area. The 2006 resolution, however, does not rule out contesting either the general election or regional or local elections, just by-elections. Which is why we will be contesting the Greater London Assembly elections next year.On the face of it by-elections seem a good opportunity to gain some national publicity but the sort of results we were getting turned out to be counter-productive.It will be interesting to see tomorrow morning how many votes George Hallam got and whether he too got his fingers burnt by contesting a by-election for the publicity.