Why the Hartlepool election result doesn’t really matter

Ah, Hartlepool. The by-election there brings back memories: I am old enough to have reported on the last one, back in 2004, when Peter Mandelson went off to Brussels and left behind what was then a fairly safe Labour seat.

My slightly faded memory of that 2004 vote informs my view of what is apparently the most important question in British politics today: who will win the latest Hartlepool by-election? And my view is this: it doesn’t really matter.

To explain what I mean by that, let’s go back to that 2004 by-election, where a bright young local lad called Iain Wright (he’s now 48 and retired from politics) saw off a solid challenge from the Lib Dems in the form of Jody Dunn, an earnest, accomplished barrister who thought it was a good idea to write a blog about canvassing in the town, recounting how everyone she met was either drunk, accompanied by an angry dog or undressed – ‘and in some cases two or more of the above.