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World

Why the Hartlepool election result doesn’t really matter

6 May 2021

4:00 PM

6 May 2021

4:00 PM

Ah, Hartlepool. The by-election there brings back memories: I am old enough to have reported on the last one, back in 2004, when Peter Mandelson went off to Brussels and left behind what was then a fairly safe Labour seat.

My slightly faded memory of that 2004 vote informs my view of what is apparently the most important question in British politics today: who will win the latest Hartlepool by-election? And my view is this: it doesn’t really matter.

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