Still silent on Shepshed

If it's Friday evening, then it's a three hour Taggart marathon courtesy of UKTV Drama to keep my mother-in-law in a good mood.

I kept dropping off so I had an early night.

I woke up at two o'clock, had a cup of tea and read the political news in The Times, Telegraph, Guardian and Independent online. Not one mention of the Shepshed County Council by-election.

I am mystified how a telephone opinion poll of 800-odd voters can make all the headlines yet a REAL election in a key marginal with 4,000 people actually going out and voting rather than just answering the telephone at home, is completely ignored.

What makes it even more strange is that the newsfeed outfit 24 Dash reported it at 9.00am yesterday and normally all the main newspapers would have carried their report - they do most other times for the council election results.

Their report was:

"Tory hopes of a by-election boost after their conference were dashed today when Labour defended a key council seat, keeping alive the possibility of a November general election.
Conservatives achieved a net swing of just 1.2% at Leicestershire's Shepshed division in Loughborough.
It had previously been fought in May 2005 on the same day as the last general election.
The vote share movement was less than the 2% Tories need to capture the barometer marginal Loughborough constituency which has consistently backed the party forming the Government in every poll since 1974.
Of concern to the major parties was the 20% scored by the far right BNP.
Leicestershire County - Shepshed: Lab 1217, C 1074, Lib Dem 933, BNP 807. (May 2005 - Lab 2864, C 2461, Lib Dem 1356). Lab hold. Swing 1.2% Lab to C..

Also there was a mention from Sean Fear on the Political Betting site.

He wrote:

"Leicestershire County - Shepshed: Labour 1217, Conservative 1074, Lib Dem 933, BNP 807. Labour hold. This was a good result for Labour, as they managed to keep the swing to the Conservatives down to 1.2%. The BNP’s best performance in a Leicestershire County Council seat in 2005 was 11%, so this result (like May’s district elections) implies that their support has grown considerably in the County since then."

Maybe Sunday's newspapers will be a little more forthcoming.