The fat lady sings ...

Well, the campaign is over and Labour have held the Copeland seat.

As I suspected was the case, the majority of polls were understating the Conservative share of the national vote and overstating Labour's. However, the result in Copeland was much more disappointing than I expected.

As I wrote in previous posts, I allowed when canvassing for the possibility that many people were too polite to tell me they were not voting for me. Comparing what I was told on the doorstep with what happened on the night, I wonder if this was true to an even greater extent than I had allowed. Alternatively the people I managed to speak to and who expressed an opinion may not have been entirely representative of the constituency.

However, I would like to thank all those - more than ten thousand people - who did vote for me, and all those who worked on my campaign.

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