Seats and Candidates

Frank Cook, a left-winger and Eurosceptic who has been known to hold the Catholic line, is to contest his Stockton North seat as an Independent.

A single Unionist candidate, an Independent but pledged to take the Tory Whip, is to be put up at Fermanagh South Tyrone. He is practically guaranteed the seat, which is currently held by Sinn Fein. The DUP is backing both him, and Sylvia Hermon at North Down, who has gone Independents specifically in order to avoid taking the Tory Whip. That's both bases covered for the hung Parliament, then.

And Lynne Jones has endorsed Salma Yacoob of Respect. Not that a retiring Campaign Group MP's endorsement of a Respect candidate is big news. Not considering the unbatted eyelids when the Tories welcomed with open arms the SWP faction of the Respect Group on Tower Hamlets Council. Or when, in the last fortnight, they likewise welcomed a former MP who, until its dissolution as recently as January, had been the Leader of a Welsh separatist and Welsh-speaking supremacist party committed to the most Hard Left economic policies and to the most unyielding Politically Correct social policies.