amazing

not worth the bother of debating it, but im staggered that anybody could
have that view.

frankly worrying

wasn't hitler anti socialist anti communism at hid peak

all I know is he blamed the mainly socialist supporting jews for the death of 100k german soldiers during ww1. read into that what you will, but to call him a socialist is way off the mark imo

Some folks were discussing on another forum if Labour were concentrating their forces on Stoke and giving up on Copeland. This poster appeared to refute that suggestion...

As a longstanding local campaigner Gill Troughton has got lots of local activists involved, and there does seem to be a lot of support from her Church and from Christians on the Left, as well as both public sector and nuclear unions. The Shadow Chancellor was campaigning there yesterday, and quite a few other MPs too. Copeland is not being sidelined. I suspect that Tim Farron has soft pedalled in Copeland though. There has not been anything on my LD daily emails calling for help.

Yes, that may well be the case. Labour concentrating their forces in the Whitehaven area itself and the Conservatives targeting rural areas in the constituency. If the Libdems are faking a sickie and lying low that surely must help the Tories in those areas away from Whitehaven.

given the accuracy of IDIEMYHAIRPINKE's predictions I wish he would tip labour

test

Whitehaven News poll

Who will you vote in by election?
Labour 24%
Cons 23.2 %
Lib Dems 33.4 %
UKIP 9.6%

Total Votes 1835

Meadow
3% undecided the other 7% split between the other candidates.
Not sure how reliable the poll is , it was an online one, suppose anyone could vote a 1,000 times for the preferred candidate to give a false impression.
Have to be honest I have seen or heard very little coverage of the Lib Dem.

I would say Gillian Troughton is an over whelming favourite in the Whitehaven area.
What little window & garden posters there are the majority are Labour.
For the second time in recent weeks they had a four page advertising spread on the cover of the Whitehaven News , although the paper declares itself politically neutral that is a powerful piece of PR even if people do not buy the paper it is staring them in the face in every supermarket, local shops & garages.
I have not met Ms Troughton but my 83 year old mother was suitably impressed with her visit to the local community centre to fill in her postal vote for her which I have just posted.
My 25 year old daughter whose partner works at Sellafield and has 2 young children is typical of many in the area, she would not know if Gillian Troughton , represented Labour , Conservative, Lib Dems , Ukip or Monster raving loony party but she was doorstepped last week and was won over with her arguments to vote for her, she is not voting Labour, she is voting for Gillian Troughton to represent our area which this by election could be more about than party politics.
If this was just the traditional old style constituency of Copeland I would rate Labour strong favourites, however with the boundary being pushed south & east it appears difficult to call.
No doubt Rebecca Harmson will have a strong following to the south where she lives and could pick up a lot of votes in those rural areas.
To the East we have now Keswick included whose issues would be far removed from those in the West which to my mind really complicates the issue. Their focus will primarily be on the leisure & tourist industry as opposed to nuclear , and the relevance of West Cumberland Hospital services would have little relevance to them as they can access Penrith & Carlisle hospitals just as quickly.
As stated previously I am no political expert but am a keen better and are struggling to see how the current odds of 1.44 Cons 3.5 Labour stack up in which to my mind is a coin toss , feel free to tell me where I am going wrong.

Thanks very much Shadder.  I hadn't given much thought to the Keswick area being nearer the hospitals at Penrith and Carlisle. Everything else you say is very much along my own line of thought including the current prices as I am also a keen bettor.  One particularly interesting thing you mention is regarding Rebecca Hanson, the LibDem candidate. I thought she may be concentrating on the remain voting Labour concentrated Whitehaven area but if she is instead campaigning in her own rural patch that may help Labour and hinder the Conservatives.  She seems to have spoken well both when interviewed and at hustings.

also UKIP got 6148 votes last time. some now question what is the point of the party. if half of that 6148 feel like that then i think it's most likely that they will go tory.

Burt,

Of course you are correct on the figures here. However, there is a good case to be made for Labour holding this...
1/ The local candidate is well respected as working and campaigning for the local hospital.
2/ She has been clear,  no ifs no buts in her support for the nuclear industry workers.
3/She is well respected in the local christian community.
4/ She has always said she will fight for every vote and from shadders account above that seems accurate.
5/ The local gmb union are campaigning hard for a labour victory.

And a couple of things that don't help the Conservatives..

1/ Their candidate may lack experience.
2/ Rural constituencies take longer to canvass votes from than urban areas like Whitehaven.
3/ The Libdem candidate may be after those rural votes.

I think the price for the Conservatives is very short with no polling data to support it.

Whitehaven news poll update
Labour 24.4
Cons   23.3
Lib Dems 31.7
Ukip 10.5
Green 2.7

Votes 2101

analysis here:

http://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/pol2d_Copeland.html

The table below shows all the wards in the seat, along with these quantities (sorted by EU leave share):

that table on the link is interesting.
it details each ward with the highest brexit vote to the lowest and who won which ward in the 2015 GE.
UKIP only won 1 ward and not surprisingly that ward was the highest amount of brexit vote - 75%.
but look at the bottom 8 wards - all won by the tories and most of them remain. of the top 12 wards to vote brexit, 9 of them are labour wards.they only won 3 other wards. this seems like a big problem for labour to me. wards where they win want brexit, wards where they lose don't. to take the 4016 votes in keswick as an example i just cannot see remain conservatives going over to labour, but i can see brexit labour voters simply not bothering.

this analysis predicts a con win 39% to 37.8%. personally i think the gap will be wider.

Agree Meadow Brexit not really an issue here.
Nuclear, Hospitals and local Infrastructure the big issues.

Burt , I fully respect your analysis and feel the inclusion of Keswick & the surrounding area could well be the game changer here.
As stated previously the priorities of those voters are far removed from the core of the constituency, many people I have spoken to are unaware of the boundary changes and are amazed that area is included in Copeland and not Allerdale

2/5 tory
9/4 labour

I've got a feeling that Storm Doris will help the Tories get home, in a remote area such as Copeland many people will be registered to vote by post but everyone who has worked on elections knows that postal voting favours the Tories.
If it's a wet and windy day many Cumbrians who don't have cars and who wound normally vote Labour might think 'I don't fancy going out in that and I don't like Corbyn anyway'
If the Tories win by a couple of hundred or less, they can thank Doris.