THE BRITISH Labour Party is predicting victory at today's Hemsworth by election, confident that its recent spate of problems and in fighting will not harm the party's rock solid majority.
The Labour majority in the 1992 general election was 22,000. However, for this by election, which was caused by the death of Mr Derek Enright MP, one Labour frontbencher after another has joined the campaign trail.
"Every Labour frontbencher's been up here except Harriet Harman," said Mr Arthur Scargill, the founder of the Socialist Labour Party (SLP). But it is the recent establishment of the SLP which has turned this by election from a mundane and predictable one party race into a symbolic showdown between "Old" and "New" Labour, forcing Mr Blair on to the offensive.
Hemsworth, a mining community until all the mines were closed in 1992, is regarded as the perfect testing ground for Mr Scargill's party. For if it cannot win votes here, then the party will be doomed even before its official launch on May 1st.
Labour Party sources claims that their canvass returns show the SLP candidate, Ms Brenda Nixon, is polling about the same as the other fringe parties.
Although Ms Nixon appears to be popular with many former miners because of her work with Women Against Pit Closures, she has confessed to being a "little in the dark" about the SLP policies and repeatedly refers questions to her agent, Mr Scargill, for answers.
However, local Labour activists are also unhappy that for the second time running a candidate - Mr Jon Trickett, the leader of Leeds City Council - has been imposed upon them after the media denounced the local choice, Mr Steve Kemp, as an "NUM stooge".
The battle for second place will be between the Conservative candidate, Mr Norman Hazeil, and the Liberal Democrat, Mr David Ridgway.
One of the first decisions the newly elected MP for Hemsworth will have to make is whether to join the all party campaign to double backbenchers' pay.
So far the campaign has the support of nearly 300 MPs, who have signed a Commons motion calling for an inquiry into their current £34,000 a year salaries. The campaign's sponsors include Sir James Molyneaux, the former leader of the Ulster Unionist Party.