Speculation around that there might be an upset in Scarisbrick. I’m willing to bet that we won’t see any surprises there – I expect the Conservative candidate to win there by a healthy majority.

Some have cited the Skelmersdale North election a couple of years ago when an independent stood against the, then Labour group leader, Alan Bullen. There was very nearly a shock that year with the independent coming close to beating the incumbent.

However, back then there was a strong independent campaign with many “pseudo-anonymous” leaflets going out. These attacked our candidate but didn’t go so far as to suggest voting for anyone else. The imprint cryptically had the Conservative’s HQ address, but nothing else. In the eyes of election law, they could get away with it because it didn’t explicitly suggest voting for someone, just not to vote Labour. In fact, at the time I called the Conservative agent to double check that they had put the leaflet out, which he confirmed.

After the count, the Tories went all coy and said that they should have withdrawn their candidate, as if that were the only way to help someone. The reality is that the Tories were in there and fighting hard for the independent.

The situation in Scarisbrick is much less clear, and the impact of an upset far less than Skem North would have been in 2004. We’ve seen already that Mrs Edwards will vote with the Conservatives as an independent – she did it on a number of occasions at the last full council. There is virtually no way that Labour can “come through the middle”, since we only get around 200 votes, while the Conservatives last polled around 800. We would have to more than double our vote and the Tories would have to split equally between the candidates.

It just won’t happen. I expect that Scarisbrick will be a damp squib tomorrow night. Another new face on the Tory benches, and if the trend from the last couple of years continues, a further lurch to the right.

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Updated 7th May: As I suggested above, there was no great surprise in Scarisbrick. Mrs Edwards came a respectable 2nd place with 292 votes behind the Tory with 614 and (relatively) just ahead of the Labour paper candidate with 158. From the reaction at the count, it’s fair to say that the Tories had no idea how things would go. There was a massive crowd around the table and many worried faces (very briefly).