Douglas Carswell: the rebel with an unclear cause

Anyone who would rather not live in a Britain run by Ed Miliband and Ed Balls should be dismayed at Carswell’s defection to Ukip. He is an original, intelligent and eloquent MP who has done much to help the Prime Minister form the more radical parts of his agenda. For a while, I thought that this was his game plan: to avoid frontbench positions, and engage constructive opposition – which is democratic tugging of the party leader from the vantage point of the backbenches. I defended him against critics who said he was an attention-seeker whose ego would one day explode.

Today, it’s harder to defend him. He was elected to a parliamentary term as a Conservative MP and his triggering a by-election now inflicts damage in the party to which he owes his political career. And on a day where it has reduced Labour’s lead to one vulnerable point.

This is all the more surprising given that when I interviewed Carswell back in January for our podcast, he told me that he had decided to give up rebelling, because he believed it was time to support the PM.