Craig Whittaker's 'Boris' dog and Yorkshire Party takes on the BBC: Six things you might have missed on the election trail

My dog looks like the PM

They say there is often an uncanny resemblance between a dog and their owner, but how about a candidate’s dog and their party leader?

Calder Valley Tory hopeful Craig Whittaker revealed to a YP reporter this week that his miniature Pomeranian Milo could have had a different name.

Mr Whittaker said he had wanted to call his pet pooch Boris, because he was blonde and fluffy - much like the leader of his party.

The pitch was reportedly vetoed by Mr Whittaker’s wife Elaine.

Duke’s a hazard

As if the people of Fishlake and Stainforth in South Yorkshire haven’t been through enough with the recent floods, they’ve had to put up with politicians traipsing through their communities on the election trail. So the last thing they needed was an embattled Duke turning up on their doorstep, too.

It seems Prince Andrew, fresh from a grilling over his friendship with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, agreed as he cancelled a visit to the area on Tuesday citing the General Election and a clashing political visit on the same day.

But by the time the floods happened, the election would have already been called, so surely Andrew realised it would still be going on when he planned his trip?

And despite extensive efforts by The Yorkshire Post, including asking Buckingham Palace repeatedly which politician caused the visit to be cancelled, the identity of the election hopeful remains a mystery. All three main parties told this newspaper they did not have any record of high profile visits to flood-hit communities that day, or the next.

Loach in Leeds

Acclaimed director Ken Loach, who directed Kes and I Daniel Blake, visited Leeds on Thursday night for a special screening of his film The Spirit of ’45, about the creation of the NHS. But Labour-supporting Mr Loach was also campaigning for local candidates, including Pudsey’s Jane Aitchison, who featured in previous round ups for her toe-curling Radio 5 Live appearance.

His appearance in Leeds at a Labour-backed event however, where many in the strong Jewish community already feel out of touch with Labour, raised a few eyebrows.

Mr Loach previously said MPs at the Enough is Enough protest to stamp out anti-Semitism in the party should be “kicked out”, called the Panorama programme into anti-Semitism a "dishonest hatchet job" and supports Labour Against the Witchhunt - which was launched to defend Labour activists accused of antisemitism.

Jared doesn't have Momentum

Grassroots campaign group Momentum was quick to get in touch after the The Yorkshire Post published a constituency profile on Sheffield Hallam last week, asking for a correction to the claim Jared O’Mara was “Momentum’s first MP”.

The YP is happy to clarify that Mr O’Mara was simply one of Momentum’s first MPs, and the coup pulled off by the group to gain seats Labour thought were unwinnable was impressive.

But it was not always that case that the group wanted to distance themselves so far from Mr O’Mara.

After the election Mr O’Mara said: “The contribution of Momentum members in South Yorkshire and beyond was exemplary. It was a blessing to have them on board campaigning to get me elected.”

And on their Facebook page Momentum Sheffield called Mr O’Mara “our newest MP”, urging members to get behind him.

But relations seemed to cool off pretty quickly, soon after the election Mr O’Mara told The Guardian: “I was grateful for [Momentum’s] help, but it was a victory for every shade of red in the party. There are some really good eggs in there, but there are also a few people that… well, I maybe want to put a bit of distance between them and myself.”

Momentum said last week it would be incorrect to suggest they supported Mr O’Mara any longer.

PM sticks to the script on HS2

He's often accused of going off-piste, but Boris Johnson is sticking to the script when it comes to HS2.

Visiting The Yorkshire Post in September, the Prime Minister was asked about the future of the controversial project.

"I'm going to hesitate for a long time before cancelling anything like HS2," he replied. "All we want to do is see whether money can be re-profiled to do more in the North first."

Asked again about the scheme this week in the North East, his answer was rather familiar: "I'm going to hesitate before simply scrapping something that has been long planned and is of great national importance, but we will want to be checking that the money is being properly spent and that there aren't ways in which it could be reprioritised or reprofiled."

Given the controversial nature of the project, it seems the PM is hoping to avoid coming down on one side or another before December 12.

Yorkshire Party's fake news row

Ongoing spats between political parties and certain sections of the media are old hat on the election trail, but now the Yorkshire Party is getting in on the act.

With 28 candidates standing on December 12, the regionalist party backing a Yorkshire Parliament has this week been taking aim at broadcasters BBC and LBC for ignoring them in discussions of the national picture.

A particular sticking point was the Beeb publishing a list earlier this week of how many candidates parties are standing with the Yorkshire Party not mentioned.

After a flurry of tweets the BBC updated its story with Chris Whitwood's party now included. But the table was also updated to reflect the proportion of female candidates on each party's roster - bad news for the Yorkshire Party as they languish near the bottom of the table on just seven per cent.