Talking Tactics

IT isn't just football managers who spent half their lives talking tactics. Political parties are equally adept at burning the midnight oil when preparing to go into battle.

West Lancashire's politicians are no different and, make no mistake, each seat has been subjected to a certain degree of scrutiny by all sides.

This year, both the Conservatives and Labour have put up candidates in every ward, which is quite interesting. You're probably thinking: "Well of course they have, it's an election you idiot hack - what would you expect?"

Well, allow me to explain...

For the past few years, both sides have flirted with the idea of using 'Tatton Tactics'.

This harks back to the 1997 General Election when the Lib Dems and Labour pulled their candidates out of the Cheshire seat to give independent Martin Bell (the ex-BBC journo) the best chance of beating sitting Tory MP Neil Hamilton. The Lib-Lab pact came about because they knew they had no chance of taking the seat themselves but also realised that the only way to get the Conservative out was not to split the indie vote.

Such tactics aren't uncommon in West Lancs either.

Back in 2003, Labour didn't put up in Tarleton, leaving a straight fight between former independent Cllr John Hodson and Conservative Rosie Evans, who won.

Although Cllr Evans won comfortably in the end, if Labour had put up there it's quite conceivable the majority could have been even bigger between the pair.

A year later, the Conservatives fielded a candidate in Skelmersdale North Ward - a move they have regretted ever since because on the night Joan Morrison, an independent, came within inches of beating the then Labour leader Alan Bullen.

Afterwards, many Conservatives privately admitted that they should have pulled out their candidate and instructed his supporters to back Mrs Morrison. If they had done that, she would have probably won and, in the process, have claimed a massive scalp.

So it just goes to show that when candidate lists are published, it's usually more interesting to see who isn't on it as opposed to who is...

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