If David Cameron is serious about losing the next election he’ll cuddle-up to UKIP

OK. Remember this: by-elections are always liable to be interpreted too keenly. Elections often fought on local issues then have their results scrutinised as though the election was a miniature general election. It isn’t. People who should know better this morning are forgetting that.

You know what else matters? The candidate. They matter much more at a by-election than they do in a general election. The Tory candidate Maria Hutchings might have won Eastleigh in a general election. But a by-election brings greater scrutiny. A good number of voters are minded to pick the best candidate. I suspect few of those voters endorsed Ms Hutchings.

Meanwhile, the Lib Dems chose a perfectly decent-seeming chap while UKIP’s candidate seemed more like a presentable Tory than the Tory candidate herself. Indeed on any number of issues Ms Hutchings seemed – from this distance – to be closer to UKIP’s views than to her own party’s official line.