What’s happened to the Labour campaign?

A couple of weeks before the July contests we advised punters wanting to place a bet to subject the competing parties to the Google Test.

For Google’s success as the world’s number one search engine has been based on providing the most relevant results in an order based, in broad terms, on the popularity of the site. At Brent East and Leicester South the Lib Dems dominated the first search pages. At Hodge Hill, which Labour held on to, the party was there near the top.

What you would expect to see in a vibrant campaign would be party sites calling for volunteers to come, details of meetings and gathering points, contact information, maps showing where to go, and up-beat stories about the candidate.

With the Hartlepool by-election search the only Labour-linked result on the first couple of pages is from the infamous party Blogger, Tom Watson, who “left” the Hartlepool campaign manager role a month ago. Contrast that with the Lib Dems, RESPECT, UKIP, and the Tories, which all have active web activity.

It’s not just Politicalbetting that’s noticed the silence from the Labour camp.

Yesterday the excellent Guacamoleville blog, which is doing a great job covering the election from all angles, put out the following plea so he could carry information from campaigns other than the one by Jody Dunn for the Lib Dems:-

A Dunn deal? Again, I’m obliged, nay, forced to link to articles emanating from the Dunn campaign, this time on health. Is there only one candidate in this by-election? Initiatives and headline-grabbers from Labour and the Tories, please.

This is a tough challenge for the LDs. Charles Kennedy can’t look to large Muslim communities like in the July contests and Brent East and his party has not got the comfort of being in top place in the last local elections there.

But their activists have been fired up by the way Labour briefed the press that the vote would take place on October 7 only to follow this just over a week later with the announcement that September 30 is the day.

This might have seen a great “wheeze” but if your only campaign strategy is to lie about the election date then you are in trouble. All this does is reduce further the standing of politicians with the public.

On the markets the best current Lib Dem price is 6/4. The Lib Dems are far from being a certainty but they stand a very good chances and this price will surely come down. Bet.