Eastleigh

Nick Clegg has come back from Spain to admit that he did know about the allegations about Lord Rennard’s behaviour towards women – and, for good measure, has told us all that so did Danny Alexander, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. In a statement, he has this to say: ‘I am angry and outraged at the suggestion that I would not have acted if these allegations had been put to me. Indeed, when indirect and non-specific concerns about Chris Rennard’s conduct reached my office in 2008, we acted to deal with them. My chief of staff at the time, Danny Alexander, put these concerns to Chris Rennard and warned him

By-elections are notoriously hard to call. But everyone who comes back from Eastleigh says the same thing, UKIP are the party with forward momentum. This morning’s Populus poll bears that out. They are in third place with 21 per cent, with the Tories second on 28 and the Lib Dems ahead with 33. But, as the indispensable UK Polling Report points out, if you don’t reallocate some of the undecides to the party they voted for last time, UKIP are doing even better. The numbers then are UKIP 25%, Tories 26% and Lib Dems 31%. As I said in the magazine this week, UKIP are picking up support from all

All the evidence is pointing to a Lib Dem win in Eastleigh, but those Tories visiting are continuing to fight to the bitter end. Eric Pickles was down there today, and wasted no time at all in sinking his teeth into his Coalition partners. The Communities Secretary said: ‘The Lib Dems are taking the people of Eastleigh for a ride. Their homes tax would hit hardworking families hardest – with ordinary people running the risk of seeing a £320 hike in their council tax. The Lib Dem candidate doesn’t understand that his new tax could not be introduced without a costly general revaluation of council tax bands. When Labour did

How can Labour win back voters in the South East? At the 2010 general election, Labour took ten southern seats outside of London, compared to four times that in 1997. Like the Tories in the North, Ed Miliband needs to offer policies that will ease the concerns of these lost southeastern voters; to convince them Labour is once again on their side. Miliband has tried to address the problem. The catalyst came from John Denham, who urged Miliband, as Giles Radice did with Neil Kinnock in 1992, to remember the ‘6:14 from Basingstoke’ voter and avoid using ‘north-south’ language. Instead, Denham suggested Labour should present policies that appeal across the whole country. The Labour leader

Eastleigh could be a turning point in by-election history. Not because the Tories are looking like they may well lose, as the Times (£) suggests this morning, but as the moment the party woke up to the possibilities of digital campaigning. Online election adverts in UK politics are nothing new – the 2012 London Mayor race saw both Ken and Boris plaster websites (including this one) with a variety of colourful attack messages. What is different in Eastleigh is the drive for data gathering. Take some of the adverts CCHQ are running on the websites of two local papers — the Southern Daily Echo and Hampshire Chronicle: The main purpose of these adverts is not to

Whoosh! Crasshh! Ploophm! Crummppp! The personal attacks came pounding in on David Cameron today. Ed Miliband asked about declining living standards and set about portraying the prime minister as an out-of-touch toff surrounded by plutocratic parasites. He cited the recent Tory Winter Ball where a signed mug-shot of Mr Cameron had been auctioned for the Warhol-esque sum of £100,000. ‘Then the prime minister declared, without a hint of irony, that the Tories are no longer the party of privilege.’ Cameron ignored the issue of living standards and told Miliband he’d raised the wrong topic. ‘If his question is – have you had to take difficult decisions to deal with the

The latest ICM poll for The Guardian is interesting because it highlights the weakness in both the Tory and Labour positions. The Tories are 12 points behind on 29, doing appallingly with women voters—trailing Labour 25-51, and haven’t managed to halt UKIP’s momentum. But Labour’s position is not as strong as the headline figures suggest. A plurality of voters still places the blame for the economic slowdown on Labour’s ‘unsustainable spending’. Polls in mid-term do not tell us that much. But the more bad news they bring for the Tories, the grimmer the mood on their benches will become. This is one of the things which makes Eastleigh so important

It took a while for Nick Clegg to confirm that he would stay with his party to 2015, but today his colleague Ed Davey did him a favour (or perhaps not) and confirmed on his behalf that Clegg would stay not just through the next election, but would lead his party into the 2020 election. He told Andrew Neil on the Sunday Politics: ‘I’m really very supportive of what Nick has been doing, I think he’s the best leader we’ve ever had and I think he’s going to lead the party not just into the next election but into the one after that.’ Ed Davey is obviously trying to fend

The Conservatives have just published their poster for the Eastleigh by-election. Like most campaigns, they’re capitalising on the fact that the Tory candidate, Maria Hutchings, is local. But in their slogan they’ve also told voters that she’s the one constituents can trust. This shows that, even though Nick Clegg argued in the Q&A after his speech yesterday that the contest shouldn’t be about Chris Huhne, the party wants to make as much of the former Energy Secretary’s exit as they possibly can in this bloody battle. UPDATE, 17.40pm: A rather sardonic Lib Dem source tells me: ‘I have to say, campaigning against Chris Huhne when he’s not a candidate is