Labour win South Shields. A sad day for democracy.

South Shields 'voted' for their new MP yesterday. The red rosette was pinned onto the latest airhead ( Miss Buck )after Dave Milliband went off to earn more money in New York.

Emma Buck ( scots slang... "I'm a dollar" ) was quick out of the traps declaring on Sky News that she was going to fight the Tory 'bedroom tax'

She's a bit slow there. Labour could have defeated the bedroom tax the other week but didn't bother. 44 Labour MPs' failed to show up for the vote, which the government won by 41 votes.

Oh and the bedroom tax was first introduced by Labour for private landlords and this was just an extension to the tax.

Postal voting accounted for 60% of the overall vote. Before Tony Blair changed the system in 2001 you had to be housebound or fighting for your country to get a postal vote. Now most folk in some towns use their postal vote if South Shields is anything to go by. We had the famous Glenrothes by election a few years ago in Scotland where Lindsay Roy ( Labour) won with a massive 6,000 postal votes. The ballot boxes mysteriously 'disappeared' I seem to remember.

Postal voting is turning the UK into a 'banana republic' according to a judge in 2005.

"Richard Mawrey QC, presiding over a special election court in Birmingham, warned that there were no realistic systems in place to detect or prevent postal voting fraud.....he found six Labour councillors in Birmingham guilty of carrying out "massive, systematic and organised" postal voting fraud.....it was carried out with the full knowledge and cooperation of the local Labour party....Mr Mawrey condemned the government for refusing to change the postal voting system...he said the system for registering postal vote applications was "hopelessly insecure". There was no way of checking whether the person who had applied for the vote was the legitimate voter....Postal ballots were sent out in ordinary mail and were clearly identifiable. "Short of writing "STEAL ME" on the envelopes, it is hard to see what more could be done to ensure their coming into the wrong hands," he said"

On a cheerier note, the Lib Dems lost their deposit for the 5th time since Nick 'solemn pledge' Clegg gave up his principles for a sniff of the limo leather.