Cameron’s secret plan if he fails next week is to carry on regardless

Fraser Nelson says that the Tory leader knows that his campaign to win over the Lib Dem voters may not succeed in the local elections. But he has decided not to change his strategy a jot: the chameleon’s not for turning

David Cameron could hardly wish for a better backdrop to next week’s English local elections. The Home Secretary admits that a thousand foreign ex-convicts have slipped the deportation net and been left at large. The Health Secretary is heckled by union workers and spectacularly mishandles a National Health Service crisis. Donors in the loans-for-ermine scandal are demanding their money back, and the Deputy Prime Minister confesses to an extramarital affair. And yet, in spite of all this, no one in Conservative headquarters dares predict any sign of a breakthrough for the party on Thursday.

The election is evidently Cameron’s first big test, but no one on his team will admit as much.