Eastleigh result: the Tories aren’t panicking, but that doesn’t mean they won’t

Don’t panic, don’t panic! But are the Tories actually panicking about the Eastleigh result? Coffee House readers will have seen Stewart Jackson’s call on the government to get more robust on Romanian and Bulgarian migrants, and Gavin Barwell’s plea to his colleagues to stay calm. But backbenchers aren’t really flapping their arms in terror today, other than taking positions we’ve already heard them take. Even backbenchers who really don’t like David Cameron are clear that even though coming third is ‘deeply disappointing’, it’s not a catalyst for disaster right now.

But that doesn’t mean Cameron’s opponents don’t have some sort of vision of how the next few months could pan out. It turns out that some see quite a clear trajectory for the government which they still think will lead to uprisings like those against Gordon Brown. Whether those coups are of the James Purnell or Geoff Hoon type remains to be seen, but for them to be more successful than those two Labour attempts would require someone who MPs could sincerely imagine stepping straight into the shoes of the Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.