Does their failure suggest that anti-Tory voting is drying up?

In all the analysis of the H&H numbers very little attention is being paid to the Green party which is making great play this morning of their 7.4% in Haltemprice and Howden – their candidate’s site suggests it’s a party record.

But in the absence of Labour and the Liberal Democrat candidates you would have thought that the Greens, the only other nationally known party with MEPs and councillors, would have swept up the anti-Tory protest vote and come in with a significantly bigger share than they got.

In the circumstances their total of 1,758 votes seems pitiful. I don’t know what their campaign was like but surely there is enough anti-Tory sentiment still left in the area for them to have done substantially better?

Maybe therein lies the answer. Could it be that H&H shows that the massive anti-Tory feeling that has dominated British politics for nearly two decades is withering away. Is this the real pointer to the general election from Haltemprice and Howden?

Mike Smithson