It’s class war as Labour try to regain their balance

It looks like Gordon Brown's campaign for the crucially important by-election at Crewe and Nantwich on May 22 is going to be based on good old-fashioned class hatred. The party is already targeting the wealth of the Tory candidate, Edward Timpson, heir to his father's shoe empire.

Labour officials have been told to brief the press that Timpson "lives in Tarporley, outside the constituency, in a millionaire's house". Labour's candidate on the other hand, Tamsin Dunwoody, is the daughter of the down-to-earth Labour candidate, Gwyneth Dunwoody, whose death sadly triggered the election.

Gwyneth's funeral is taking place on Thursday and her family have made no objections to the campaign going ahead early to wrong-foot the Tories. But before going too far down the class war road, Labour ought to know that Gwyneth was signed up to the phrase, "There's nowt too good for the working class!" And that included the odd glass of champagne over lunch.

Jack Straw is being thrown into the Crewe and Nantwich today as Gordon Brown's 'ghost buster' to kill off the spectre of general election defeat. Straw is rightly judged to be one of the 'grey heads' like Alan Johnson who knows how to do the street fighting - he uses a soap box in Blackburn - and can teach the 'Cabinet kids' such as James Purnell and Douglas Alexander how to wipe their noses.

Unfortunately for the Grey Eminence, he could get tripped up as soon as he opens his mouth on the question of the 10p tax band. Frank Field, the maverick minister turned rebel backbencher, who is lobbying for compensation for the 5.3m losers from the tax hike, has seen to that. "How does our candidate call her first press conference until she can say what the deal is?" he asked.

Jack will be hoping that the hacks covering the by-election will be too busy watching another candidate - pouting blonde Belfast beauty, 26-year-old Gemma Garrett, Miss Great Britain, a member of the newly formed Beauties for Britain Party.

THE MOLE: CREWE BY-ELECTION

FIRST POSTED MAY 6, 2008