Caused by the death of Sir Stuart Bell, Labour MP for Middlesbrough since 1983, earlier in October.
Middlesbrough is a large industrial town at the southern end of North East England, on the Yorkshire bank of the River Tees. It's one of those places that developed from virtually nothing in the 19th century, in this case because of the iron and steel industry. It briefly had a Football League team glorifying in the name Middlesbrough Ironopolis; of course it still has another one, which is probably what it's best known for. These days it's one of the most economically depressed parts of the UK. Most of the town is in this constituency, though part is in the cumbersomely named Middlesbrough South & East Cleveland.
Middlesbrough has an elected mayor,
Ray Mallon, an Independent who was a not entirely uncontroversial policeman (nicknamed "Robocop") before his first election. Shortly after Stuart Bell died Mallon
announced that he might stand if the other candidates selected don't meet with his approval. This
didn't go down very well with Tom Blenkinsop, Labour MP for Middlesbrough South & East Cleveland.
There's some speculation about whether Mallon is a threat to Labour here. He is clearly quite popular, getting just over half the votes in the last mayoral election, but I don't know whether that would carry across to a parliamentary by-election. And I doubt he really intends to stand; I read his statement as more trying to influence the Labour selection.
This blog seems to have a lot of posts on the by-election. From there, the Lib Dem candidate is one George Selmer, and there's also some detail on people trying to get the Labour nomination.
