Norwich North & Chloe Smith's victory - what is the message?

It is generally a mistake to question the electorate's decision after a by-election or general election. The voters have spoken and congratulations to Chloe Smith who becomes the youngest MP at 27 years old (I wonder if Jo Swinson feel just that little bit older this afternoon ;)).

However I do think that the message from this election is decidedly odd. This is the first by-election triggered as a result of the expenses scandal. Ian Gibson, the former Labour MP had his future political career destroyed by his own party after his expenses came to light and he decided to quit the Commons rather than hang around during the fag-end of this administration.

Because of the circumstances of the by-election, you might imagine that the beneficiaries of it would have been the parties that were least associated with the expenses scandal and/or were associated with being particularly clean.

This has manifestly not happened. Although Chloe Smith herself had nothing to do with the expenses scandal, her party was slap bang in the middle of it with arguably many of the worst examples and offences perpetrated by their members. And yet they are rewarded with a stunning by-election win with a 7,000+ majority.

Now of course the expenses scandal will not have been the only thing people were voting on, there are all sorts of other issues but this does demonstrate to me that it looks like the Conservatives are going to do very well and are not likely to be punished for the actions of some of their members in a way that natural justice might suggest is warranted.

I think strategists in all parties will need to take note of this. Perhaps the expenses scandal will not after all have the huge effect in the upcoming general election that many politicians feared.

Dale's Norwich North Scoop

Iain Dale has a bit of a scoop regarding the Norwich North selection.

Apparently Nick Clegg approached Martin Bell and also the editor of the Eastern Daily Press both of whom turned him down.

I was going post my thoughts on this but Nich Starling has said pretty much what I was going to.

I will just add that I seem to recall 18 months ago that there were lots of people approached about the Conservative London Mayor candidate position before they finally accepted Boris as the candidate. It is by no means unusual during a high profile election (like any by-election) for parties to try and raise their profile by going for a well known national or local figure.

I am sure the Tories will try and use this against April Pond but I am really not sure there is much mileage in this story.