Beneath the radar, the Tory party is working on a strategy to win by a landslide

These are bad times for Conservatives fighting the tightest marginal seats. About a year ago they were given generous resources to help them campaign, to promote their candidates and to rubbish Labour in general. Now, the cash is drying up. Unofficially, these target seats are being designated as ‘in the bag’ and the money instead is being diverted to constituencies that, pre-Cameron, were regarded as utterly unwinnable. No one in Conservative headquarters is calling it by its name — to do so would court the lethal charge of complacency — but what is being discreetly developed is nothing less than a landslide strategy.

This explains the energy with which the Crewe by-election was fought. It was the 165th most winnable seat, situated on terrain traditionally inhospitable to Conservatives. From the outset, David Cameron was pessimistic about his prospects, fearing that his party was either cursed in by-elections, or simply unable to fight on the ground with the precision and ferocity of the Liberal Democrats.