It was Labour's day, finally

BY Hasan Suroor

LONDON, NOV. 24. The Labour Party has won all the three parliamentary bye-elections held on Thursday in what is seen as a blow to the Conservatives who were hoping to win at least one of them to boost their morale ahead of next year's general elections. The Labour defied the many prophets of its doom to pass the most crucial test of its popularity six months before the parliamentary elections which now look certain. May 3 is the tentative date.

Despite narrow margins, the fact that the Labour held on to all the three seats shows that the hype over the Tories' `revival' has little substance and the Labour is still regarded as the best of the worst. ``There appeared to be no sign that the current furore over the Government's backing for the European rapid reaction force had damaged Labour,'' The Times commented pointing out that the outcome held little comfort for the Tory chief, Mr. William Hague, who needed a good result on the eve of general elections.

The seat which the Tories were most likely to win was West Bromwich West where the Labour candidate Mr. Adrian Bailey was described by a newspaper as having about as much personality as `a vandalised bus stop.' In the end, he defeated the Tory's Ms. Karen Bissell by a margin of over 3,000 votes on a very low voter turn out. The seat was vacated by the former Speaker of the House of Commons, Ms. Betty Boothroyd.

In Preston, the Labour's Mr. Mark Hendrick defeated his Tory rival Mr. Graham O'Hare, and the Glasgow seat was snapped by Mr. John Robertson to succeed the late Donald Dewar, the charismatic first minister of Scotland who died last month. The Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) which had high stakes in Glasgow was a poor second.

The Labour also won Mr. Dewar's seat in the Scottish Parliament.

The Tories sought to put on a brave face saying that they had managed to reduce the Labour's victory margins in what were after all its `hard rock solid' seats.

They also pointed to the low turnout, but others said that this itself reflected on the Tory's poor organisational skill.

While the Labour managed to get its supporters out on the polling day, the Tories clearly failed. They however cautioned the Labour against complacency and said the message from the elections was that while people were beginning to get disillusioned with it they were not disillusioned enough to reject it yet. It would be premature to read the results as unqualified support for Labour, they said.

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