Tory MP Douglas Carswell defects to Ukip

[muriel_volestrangler]

Conservative MP Douglas Carswell has announced he is defecting from the Conservatives to Ukip – forcing a byelection.

He said he was resigning from parliament and standing for Ukip at a byelection in his Essex seat of Clacton.

Carswell had a majority of 12,068 at the last general election.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/aug/28/douglas-carswell-ukip-defects-tory-mp-byelection

Interesting - that's a healthy majority. Could be people who will always vote Tory, of course, or right wingers who might go UKIP with him.

Labour was 2nd in 2010 - a new constituency: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clacton_%28UK_Parliament_constituency%29 . When it was part of Harwich, Labour held it from 1997-2005, but Tory apart from that. I'd love to see the RW vote split enough to let Labour in, but I suspect that's over-optimistic.