If the Housing Secretary is to survive, he will have to learn the art of sometimes saying no to property developers such as Richard Desmond.
In which I go campaigning with Grant Shapps’s brainchild, which has mobilised thousands of activists who would probably not have joined their local associations.
Farage’s summer isn’t getting off to a good start – how might he try to regain momentum before it vanishes?
After 25 years and 16 consecutive defeats a by-election victory for the Conservatives while in Government
We be witnessing the birth of an intriguing new phenomenon – tactical voting by left-ish voters for the Conservative Party
A lesson of Newark is just how deep-set that last one is among voters.
This by-election was ultimately won by the brute force of a massive activist turnout. It was a vivid demonstration of the importance of a party’s grassroots.
We should point up that UKIP’s electoral appeal to Left and Right is inconsistent and undeliverable – a ‘have your cake and eat it’ brand of politics.
The Conservative Party has flung every minister, MP, candidate, activist and aristocrat it can lay its hands on into this fight.
People don’t talk about Eastleigh much – but it should loom large in our minds.
Hundreds of activists will descend on the constituency to help deliver victory. Would you like to be one of them?
Just as selections become more local, the by-election machine places more demands on candidates nationally.
Plus: Boris’ big MP hurdle. Why Helmer is a disastrous by-election choice. Anonymous MEPs. And: No. 10’s cup of cold sick.
By-election candidates for the party of protest don’t usually determine the result.
For the first time in years, young women with push chairs were happy to stop and talk to someone wearing a blue rosette, and even to take balloons for the children.