We've seen a big Liberal Democrat pickup in Bristol West. The university town - the most educated in the nation - ousted an anti-war Labour MP, Valerie Davey, based on opposition to the war and university fees.
When I was in town checking out the race, the Lib Dem camp was supremely confident of victory. Standing over a map of the constituency, a campaign strategist pointed to the northern part of the district, the well-off suburb of Westbury-on-Trym, and boldly predicted they would garner 30 percent of the vote from the solidly Tory area.
I looked at him skeptically, but he emphatically nodded that it was true. "I shouldn't tell you this," he confided, "but we will be dropping literature on their doorsteps Thursday morning encouraging them to vote."
I was incredulous. "But that means you'll be helping the Tories get their 70 percent from the area!"
He shrugged. "They won't be an issue."
Stephen Williams, the Lib Dem candidate, won comfortably with 38 percent of the vote. Labour's Davey got 29, and the Tory David Martin got 27 percent. That 27 percent for the Tories was the sixth straight election in which their share of the vote has fallen.
