The Tice is right: is Reform about to break through?

History doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes, said Mark Twain. Right now the commentariat is looking for something that will rhyme with the famous Battle of Knutsford Heath of 8 April 1997.

In that face-off, Neil Hamilton and his formidable wife Christine were ranged against the white-suited ‘anti-corruption’ independent candidate Martin Bell. Though the Hamiltons gave as good as they got for the cameras, Bell had the last laugh by comfortably winning the formerly impregnable Tory seat of Tatton in the general election held a month or so later.

With a by-election now looming in Shropshire North following the sleaze scandal that engulfed departing Tory MP Owen Paterson, leftish opinion is excitedly searching around for a new man or woman in white to pull off the same trick.

I may of course be proved wrong in due course, but this looks like entirely the wrong rhyme to me, not just because voters are far more cynical about being manipulated by the liberal left these days but also because the Tories are able to set a date for the contest that suits them — potentially months away.