Deletion of Elwyn Watkins

Comment: possibly re-work/re-name. Clearly Watkins does not meet notability purely as a councillor and unsuccessful Parliamentary candidate, but, also clearly, an unsuccessful candidate can still be notable more generally under . The events around the election court case and subsequent by-election are clearly very significant, notwithstanding precisely when the law was last invoked (although thanks to Sam Blacketer's usual precision on that matter). For me, Timrollpickering's  argument is the most relevant.  says, "In considering whether or not to create separate articles, the degree of significance of the event itself and the degree of significance of the individual's role within it should be considered. The general rule in many cases is to cover the event, not the person. However, as both the event and the individual's role grow larger, separate articles become justified." Watkins' role in the event was clearly very significant, and I feel the event was very significant (to UK politics). I don't agree with Sam Blacketer that the event is adequately covered under the Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election, 2011 article, although it is better covered under Phil Woolas. However, there is no article specifically about the event. It seems to me that what we should do to follow  is create ''Watkins v Woolas'' about the court case, its background and associated appeals, then re-direct Elwyn Watkins there! In the absence of someone more legally minded doing that, I'd keep this article, but I can see the arguments both ways. If this article is deleted, I suggest re-direction to Phil Woolas#Re-election 2010 and election court case rather than Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election, 2011. As a final observation, I think the analogy with the Miranda Grell article (which I note I created) would suggest that this article should be kept: Watkins is more notable than Grell. There was an AfD for Miranda Grell, not that I can find it, but the decision was to keep
Stance: keep
Cited policy: Wikipedia:Notability (WP:GNG||WP:ONEEVENT||WP:ONEEVENT)

Comment: to the bye-election article, whose background section ought to be expanded.  Since he was not elected, he fails .  However the circumstances of the by-election need coverage in more than the Phil Woolas article.  I do not think we usually have by-election articles, as it is sufficient to put the results in the constituency article, but this is the first occasion in about a century that an election court has overturned an election result for misconduct
Stance: merge
Cited policy: Wikipedia:Notability (WP:POLITICIAN)

Comment: Watkins is more than just a (former) parliamentary candidate. He is responsible for challenging the general election result which found an MP guilty of a criminal offence and voided the MPs election, prompting their removal as an MP and a by-election. This is far from a regular occurrence, the last time an election was voided like this was in 1997 and it was http://news.sky.com/skynews/Article/201009115795656 under an election law that had not been used in 99 years. He was of course the target of the statements which the court found were illegal. I suggest he meets the criteria set out at  regarding candidates: ...such people can still be notable if they meet the primary notability criterion of "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject of the article
Stance: keep
Cited policy: Wikipedia:Notability (WP:POLITICIAN)

Comment: probably to the article about the by-election. The by-election, and the court case surrounding it, are both notable chapters in the history of this parliament, and Elwyn Watkins played an important role in it, but he doesn't seem to have any coverage independent of these events, so this is a clear . However, this should be merged properly, to make sure no information in this article is lost if it isn't already in the article of the merge destination
Stance: merge
Cited policy: Wikipedia:Notability (WP:BIO1E)

Comment: per nom. Only notable for |one event; ample precedent that just being a parliamentary candidate is insufficient
Stance: delete
Cited policy: Wikipedia:Notability (WP:ONEEVENT)