Wythenshawe: Where, according to the Daily Mail, the TV series Shameless was filmed. Sounds like a safe Labour seat to me.

After a campaign infused with grumbles about Labour and BNP campaigning methods, Labour’s marshalling of postal votes, and allegations that council tenants who supported UKIP were menaced by Labour supporters, Labour have held onto the Wythenshaw Parliamentary seat.

Although Labour have an inbuilt level of core support in Wythenshaw (how much of that is honest electoral support will hopefully later be made clear) from public sector workers, benefit claimants, habitual Labour voters and Labour’s ‘foreign imports’, it is UKIP who were the main interest in this electoral race.. To come from nowhere to gain second place despite UKIP being the subject of a subtle and not so subtle campaign of smear and abuse, some of which has allegedly come from both Labour and the British National Party, is a laudable electoral achievement.

This election also has the added and very welcome bonus of seeing the Liberal Democrats lose their eighth deposit during this Parliament. The sunlight of publicity that has been shone on the Liberal Democrats since the start of the Coalition Govt period seems to be continuing to have an effect. Voters are noticing that the Lib Dems have for years been promoting themselves as Leftists in Labour areas and the opposite in Conservative areas.

The greater level of publicity that the Lib Dems have had since 2010 has shown them to be ethically and politically dodgy, riddled with sex scandals, fanatically devoted to the European Union and now allegations of taking donations from allegedly questionable people has cropped up. A loss for the Lib Dems is a win for Britain. They have been clearly shown to be a party of incorrigible shysters.