Notes on Newark
Several Tories who worked on the party’s phone bank canvassing voters in Newark told me they came across the same phenomenon: voters who said they weren’t massive fans of the Conservatives but would vote Tory in the by-election to keep Ukip out.
There are shades there of the Jacques Chirac run-off with Jean-Marie Le Pen in the French presidential second round run-off in 2002.
It suggests that, for some voters at least, Ukip is reaching “pariah” status. Its success sends out a message about their community or their country that they’re not comfortable with.
That may be unique to a by-election, the extraordinary national focus that brought Ukip to second place, threatening the top spot. But then again it might not be.
The heavy-handed whipping of Tory MPs, told they must go to Newark and campaign for three days or be reported to the PM, came with a price.
Read more: Nigel Farage says he will not stand in Newark by-election
Some MPs thought it fatuous to require an MP from a distant part of the country to pay a fortune on travel and accommodation to deliver leaflets in a far-off constituency.
Better to get MPs within a certain radius of Newark, they suggested. The whip, and in particular the Deputy Chief Whip Greg Hands – widely seen as a shoe-in for the top job if there is a reshuffle – wasn’t budging.
Some MPs would stay overnight and – rather like the discredited “sign in” technique at the Lords and the European Parliament – poke their head round the campaign door the next morning, sign in for a second day before heading for the station and out of town.
Read more: Patrick Mercer to quit as MP after Commons suspension
The Lib Dems’ sixth place and lost deposit was a miserable outing. But it’s not clear it’s going to greatly fire up the attempt to topple Nick Clegg.
At the Lib Dem parliamentary meeting in the Commons on Wednesday evening MP after MP chipped in with suggestions for how to turn things round and improve campaigning. But they didn’t take a pot shot at their leader. Nick Clegg, for his part, told his MPs that the attacks on him did have an impact on him and his family but he was convinced he was the best person to lead the party and would carry on doing just that.
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