Cross-posted to Slugger O’Toole…
So the LibDems held on to Eastleigh by a narrow majority of 1,771 or just 4.3%, with UKIP surging into second place. Alex Massie in the Speccie warns against overanalysing by-elections, while Martin Kettle argued last week in the Guardian that this was the most crucial by-election in decades. I’m inclined to agree with Kettle – I think this could well be a by-election that sets the psephological scene for the next election.
I wonder will this be a ‘canary in the coalmine’ by-election reminiscent of South London’s unglamorous Mitcham and Morden in 1982, one of only a handful of government by-election gains since the war. In that case only a very modest fall in the Tory vote was coupled with a huge defection of erstwhile Labour voters to the SDP/Liberal Alliance, seeing a comfortable Tory gain against a split centre-left, prefiguring what happened in literally dozens of seats in the 1983 General Election.