The battle of Eastleigh will be bloody

This week’s Cabinet meeting was a deceptively straightforward affair. Conservative and Liberal Democrat ministers met as usual, and discussed economic competitiveness and their priorities for the next Queen’s speech. It was a convivial gathering of coalition allies. But no one mentioned the elephant in the room: the Eastleigh by-election, a contest that will pit minister against minister. As one Cabinet member puts it: ‘This will be very difficult to handle, as both sides really have to win.’

This by-election, triggered by Lib Dem MP Chris Huhne standing down after admitting in court that he perverted the course of justice over his 2003 speeding offence, will be seen as a test of whether the Conservatives are capable of winning seats from the Lib Dems — and therefore a majority in 2015. The party hierarchy has decided that their best chance of triumphing outright is to depose many of their coalition partners: half of the Tories’ 40 target seats are Lib Dem-held. They have concluded that the collapse in support for the Lib Dems — a side-effect of coalition — has given them a chance to take back a slew of constituencies wrestled from them over the last 20 years or so.

Eastleigh is precisely the type of place where the Conservatives need to beat the Lib Dems. It is a prosperous southern town where more than 70 per cent of households are owner-occupiers — in theory, prime Tory territory. It is the kind of place the party never should have lost. Chris Huhne’s majority is only 3,864 and bookmakers have put Labour’s chances of winning at 100-1. Given that the contest has been prompted by a Lib Dem MP admitting to having lied repeatedly, then this should be a gilt-edged opportunity for the Conservatives.