Al, do you have any idea what happened in Edgbaston. I would think a place like that would vote Tory in a year like this. Was it just a good Labour candidate versus a bad Conservative candidate?
The main thing was an extremely popular (and quite right-wing, actually) Labour M.P. I don't think anyone else could have held the seat this year. In the City Council elections the Tories won three wards, Labour one (though that's slightly misleading as one Tory ward (Bartley Green) has seriously weird politics and a love of ticket splitting). But the area has changed quite a bit over the years as well; it's not the bourgeois stronghold it was even thirty years ago. Even Edgbaston proper has a lot of social housing.
