A BAD NIGHT FOR BLAIRISM AND PETTY NATIONALISM

12.49.52pm BST (GMT +0100) Sat 25th Jun 2005

Voters desert Labour in 9.5% swing to LibDems as UKIP's all-out campaign flops.

LibDem candidate Dr Jo Crotty cut the gap between Labour and the LibDems from nearly 10,000 to under 1,000 in the last constituency to vote in the 2005 general election.The economics lecturer from Lichfield only became South Staffordshire Parliamentary candidate four weeks ago after the tragic death of Jo Harrison. The seat was retained at the election by Tory Sir Patrick Cormack, whose share of the vote rose only slightly.

Jo Crotty said: "I was very pleased to have run Labour so close in this seat, traditionally a Labour/Tory contest. This election was a good result for the Liberal Democrats and a bad night for Blairism and petty nationalism. "Labour made support for compulsory ID cards and attacks on the Liberal Democrats the central plank of their campaign and their vote halved. The result shows a 9.5% swing to the Liberal Democrats. The more they attacked me, the more support I was getting!

"Clearly people here do not trust Labour to deliver, but they are not shifting to the Tories. They want more police, they want their post offices to stay open and they don't believe the nonsense we were told about the Iraq war." "Another interesting feature was the failure of UKIP in one of their strongest

seats, despite Europe being in the news such a lot.""I was also pleased with the strong support for my plan to stop the Wolverhampton Airport project once and for all. Many people have signed up to my campaign for new laws to toughen controls on regional airport expansion and the growth of regional aviation."

An expert on environmental pollution, Dr Crotty added that she hoped the new more marginal Parliament would force Tony Blair to wake up to the challenge of global warming.

LibDem Campaign Manager Ian Horner said: "Jo was a superb candidate and I have no doubt she will in future become a superb MP. This is not one of our traditionally strong seats, but in four weeks we made substantial progress. Labour collapsed, while the Tories got almost the same share as in their last two general elections here. "UKIP must now be considering throwing in the towel. They ran a big campaign in a fortnight when Europe dominated the media. Last June in a similar turnout of voters, UKIP took over 26% here - they lost more than half that." ENDS

Notes: 2005 result: Sir Patrick Cormack (Conservative) 13,343 (52.05%, +1.56%) Paul Kalinauckas (Labour) 4,496 (17.54%, -16.63%) Dr Jo Crotty (Lib Dem) 3,540 (13.81%, +2.21%), (UKIP) 2,675 (10.43%, +6.69%), (Eng Dem) 643 (2.51%), (Green) 437 (1.70%) , (Freedom Party) 434 (1.69%), (Clause 28) 67 (0.26%) Maj 8,847 (34.51%) Swing: 9.5% Lab to LibDem, 9.1% swing Lab to Con Turnout 25,635 (37.28%)South Staffordshire Euro election result June 2004: Con 32.9%, UKIP 26.3%, Lab 15.8%, LibDem 10.0%, Grn 4.0%, BNP 7.3%, Other 3.5% Turnout 32.6%.