Rochdale Liberals & Oldham East & Saddleworth

I'm sorry for Phil Woolas, who has lost his seat in Oldham East & Saddleworth, but there's a background that never gets into the press.


Red and blue have always respected each other's political differences in Rochdale and in this new ungainly parliamentary constituency, to the extent that they had gentlemen's (and gentlewomen's) agreements not to queer each other's pitch at local or national elections when they went out on the knocker.  Neither party wanted to be involved in unseemly brawls in the street or on the doorstep.  Members of both main parties conducted themselves with dignity and with mutual respect.


That made them ripe for exploitation by the yellow brigade, whose strategists are recruited from St Trinian's and the Bash Street Kids, judging by their behaviour at the hustings (fundamentally juvenile).  It was the yellow brigade who dreamed up the bright idea of doing their last leaflet drop just before midnight on pre-election day, turning on all the security lights in sleeping households and causing every dog to bark, or shadowing other parties' door- knockers in the hope of engineering a punch-up.


The difficulty the two main parties have in this constituency is that there isn't just one yellow peril to contend with, but two - one hungry for power by adopting Conservative policies, the other by adopting Labour policies, and they squabble amongst themselves like children in the school playground. Power at any price - that is the unspoken slogan of the Liberal Party, and that is why they can't risk having a serious manifesto of their own: just opportunistic fluff to allow them to move either way when a  chance arises.


Ugh.