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[/audioplayer]In a corner of the Ukip campaign office in Rochester, a light-up orb is spinning, with the words ‘Vote Mark Reckless’ endlessly switching from yellow to purple. It’s hypnotic, if disconcerting, but also unnecessary because voters don’t need to be persuaded to vote for him. The by-election that Ukip thought would be a tricky one is turning out to be easier than anyone predicted.
Poll after poll has put Mark Reckless as the winner of next week’s vote, and fewer and fewer Tories privately think that their party will win. Yet the Tories were boasting at their conference in October that they were going to beat Reckless and humiliate him. So why has it gone so wrong?
One of the problems is that the Conservatives, buzzing about in their conference bubble in Birmingham, oversold themselves as the natural victors.
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