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The wicked witch and the Falklands traitor... that's all you need when you can't move

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For many voters in the Hampshire town of Eastleigh, today’s by-election poll cannot come fast enough. Plunged into this saga by the serial fibbing of their philandering ex-MP, Chris Huhne, many are clearly relishing the chance to give the entire political class a poke in the eye.

Others are so disillusioned that they don’t care what happens. 

They just want rid of a circus which scaled new heights of absurdity yesterday when Cherie Blair appeared with the Labour candidate canvassing invalids in the local children’s ward.

No escape: Cherie Blair and Labour's candidate John O'Farrell pictured with one-year-old Phoebe Shepherd on the children's ward at Southampton General Hospital yesterday on the final day of campaigning

Indeed, one man found himself unable to wait until today’s poll to vent his disgust and received a knock from the police. The unnamed man – wearing a pink dressing gown – had earlier climbed on to a flat roof to throw eggs and potatoes at the Loony Party leader, canvassing below his window.

When the voters start assaulting the candidates – even candidates who, themselves, are mocking the electoral process – then it’s safe to say that politics is at a low ebb. But this absurd scene was no more farcical than much of this by-election campaign. 

Mired in creepy sex allegations, the sitting tenant, the Liberal Democrat party, has been reduced to ushering its own leader in and out of the constituency like an Old Bailey suspect.

  More... 'We are coming up on the rails': Farage boasts that UKIP could defy the odds to win three-horse race in Eastleigh by-election Education Secretary Michael Gove defends politicians who shun state schools after Nick Clegg hinted son could go private It's called a free press for a reason, Mr Clegg: Fury as 'Liberal' leader calls journalists 'self-appointed detectives' for exposing scandal he and his party covered up

Yesterday, Nick Clegg travelled to Eastleigh but never left the safety of his own HQ for fear of meeting the public and/or the Press.

For much of this campaign, it has been the same with the straight-talking Tory candidate, Maria Hutchings. Amid fears that she might stray ‘off-message’, party spin doctors have been restricting media access.

Why the paranoia? Simple. Eastleigh is of knuckle-chewing importance to all the main parties. It’s been a hard-fought Liberal/Tory marginal for years and, as such, is being seen as an exquisite test of the true standing of the Coalition’s increasingly warring partners.

O'Farrell and Cherie Blair also spoke to Angela Lancaster and her daughter Millie, 3, on the children's ward

All ears: The pair took time out of their busy schedule to have a chat with Bethany Gollop, 12, on the final day of campaigning in the Eastleigh by-election

For its part, Labour badly needs a respectable result in this surprisingly industrial corner of Hampshire to prove it has any appeal to the South – and thus any claim to being the ‘One Nation’ party which Ed Miliband says it is.

Meanwhile, UKIP has come storming out from the margins to mount a serious pitch for second place. 

With every council seat in the constituency in their pocket, the Lib Dems should have Eastleigh sewn up. Yet broken election pledges and an ex-MP facing the clink have seen the national standing of the party plummet. 

In the last few days, the lurid accusations (all denied) about former Lib Dem strategist Lord Rennard have turned in to a full-scale political crisis. Much as some party spinners have tried to cast Lord Rennard in the same mould as Eastleigh’s most famous son – comedian Benny Hill – we are a long way beyond that now. No one is sniggering about Gropegate.

Paranoia? Amid fears that Maria Hutchings (pictured) might stray 'off-message', party spin doctors have been restricting media access

The standard Lib Dem strategy for defending a key marginal like this is to import coachloads of activists to be filmed marching goofily through the streets alongside party high-ups, conveying a sense of unstoppable momentum. Not any more.  The high-ups have all but disappeared, knowing that any public appearance in Eastleigh would descend into a Gropegate quiz. 

Hence Nick Clegg’s only other appearance here this week has been a crack-of-dawn chat to a local radio station before fleeing to an important conference on paperclips in Holland.

Another key figure with Gropegate questions to answer is Treasury Chief Secretary, Danny Alexander. Expected earlier this week, he somehow missed his train. 

So, the Lib Dems have been fielding a former leader from pre-Gropegate days. As Lord Ashdown strode down the street, swatting all questions about Lord Rennard, the media barely noticed Lib Dem candidate Mike Thornton behind him.

A local councillor and financial adviser, his campaign motto says it all: ‘I Like Mike’. It’s safe to say that the Lib Dems were not after celebrity stardust when they chose a successor to the exotic Huhne. 

Funnily enough, Huhne’s duplicity is not a major doorstep issue. Indeed, I have met one man who will vote Lib Dem in solidarity: ‘Huhne was brought down by a speed camera, and that could happen to any of us.’

Of all the candidates, it is the Conservatives’ Maria Hutchings who has attracted most headlines. A punchy Europhobe, her Catholicism puts her at odds with gay marriage.

She has attracted considerable flak by revealing that her 12-year-old son, the third of her four children, has won a scholarship to a fee-paying school because he is ‘gifted’ and wants to be a doctor. 

The fact that she and the rest of the family (including two children with special needs) are state-educated has cut little ice with her critics. It’s been a bruising few weeks for a woman branded a ‘loose cannon’. When I do catch up with her knocking on doors, I find a determined grafter who moved her family here from Essex to fight the last election and who has stayed put.

Clegg travelled to Eastleigh but never left the safety of his own HQ for fear of meeting the public and the Press

Tory candidate Maria Hutchings was joined by Justice Secretary Chris Grayling on the last day of campaigning

She’s not great at snappy soundbites but remains good-humoured when repeatedly asked what makes her any different from UKIP – ‘people want a serious party and we’ve got David Cameron’. 

This week’s visit from Education Secretary, Michael Gove, perked her up. He arrived in glacial drizzle at a near-empty executive housing estate and gave every indication that he had stumbled upon paradise. ‘So good to be back,’ he beamed on this, his third Eastleigh adventure.

'So good to be back': Michael Gove arrived for his third Eastleigh adventure

Finally, a door was answered by a grudging Tory voter, depressed at the ‘Big Brother’ stranglehold of big business and laying into politicians of every hue. Mr Gove nodded patiently and took the hits before saying: ‘In our candidate, you have exactly the sort of person you want on your side. She’s not an establishment figure.’ With that, he gestured to the delighted Mrs Hutchings.

No voters raised the education of Mrs Hutchings’s son. But when a reporter did, Mr Gove drew his sword fully from his scabbard and  declared: ‘It is terrible politics to drag people’s children into this. How dare people criticise a mother when they don’t know the circumstances!’ 

Mr Gove refused to take a pot-shot at the other Eastleigh candidates. Labour’s candidate, satirist John O’Farrell, the man who backed Argentina in the Falklands War, seemed ‘delightful’ – despite once fantasising about Mrs Thatcher being killed by the IRA – and there was almost a pitying tone as Mr Gove turned to UKIP: ‘A UKIP vote is merely a cost-free way of saying “we’re hurting”.’ 

In fact, the UKIP campaign grows more buoyant by the day as opinion polls show that the party is the new protest vote of choice. 

The candidate, Diane James, a Surrey healthcare executive, is a polished performer but perhaps a little too earnest.  Asked about her campaign leaflet which claims that four million Bulgarians – half of Bulgaria – could flock to Britain next year, she seems offended at the very suggestion that her numbers might be a teeny bit on the high side.

As to the numbers in today’s poll, it is too close to call – beyond a prediction that UKIP will do very well. Don’t be surprised if voters deliver  a nasty shock to Britain’s jaded  and discredited political establishment.







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