The Spectator

The Tory result in Ealing Southall is a setback for David Cameron that ensures he will be on the back foot over the summer. To come a poor third after Cameron’s repeated visits to the seat is embarrassing and suggests that the Cameron message is not resonating as strongly as it should be. Recriminations on the Tory side will be particularly bitter because Central Office played such a key role in Tony Lit being selected only for it to turn out that he had been happily hobnobbing with Tony Blair at a Labour fundraiser just the month before. Many in the Westminster Village see the failure to properly vet Lit as typical of the slightly slapdash nature of Cameronian decision making.

Boris mania has, understandably, rather crowded out coverage of this Thursday’s Ealing Southall by-election. But the result will be key to the political mood over the summer. If the Tories get within 3 figures of Labour, it will ease the pressure on David Cameron that has built as Labour’s lead has widened. It will show that his more inclusive, less tribal politics appeals not only to commentators but voters. While if the Tory campaign belly flops, there’ll be much grassroots muttering about how on earth someone who’d been photographed beaming with Blair at a Labour fundraiser just last month got picked as a Tory candidate. The result, though, will have the most direct impact on Ming Campbell’s future, as Iain Dale argues.