Cameron suffers in Brown election win double

Telegraph

20 July 2007



Gordon Brown has passed his first big political test by winning two crucial by-elections on what proved to be a night of severe disappointment for David Cameron, the Conservative leader.

Following a fiercely contested campaign, Labour held on to Ealing Southall in London in the early hours of this morning though their majority was cut from 11,440 to just 5,070.

Despite mounting a high-profile campaign - including no fewer than five visits from Mr Cameron - the Conservatives' flamboyant candidate Tony Lit trailed in in third place on 8,230 votes, 1,888 votes behind the Liberal Democrats.

Virendra Sharma, the victorious Labour candidate, said to great cheers from the crowd at Ealing town hall: "This is a great result for our new Prime Minister Gordon Brown and it is a humiliating rebuke from Britain’s most diverse constituency to David Cameron’s Conservatives.

"David Cameron staked his reputation on this by-election and the people of Ealing Southall have given David Cameron their verdict. We do not trust the Tories to represent us. It is policies that win elections, not slick PR."

Labour enjoyed a much more comfortable victory in Sedgefield, the North East constituency held by Tony Blair for nearly a quarter of a century.

Phil Wilson, the Labour candidate and close friend of Mr Blair's, won 12,528 votes - though the party's majority plummeted from 18,449 to just under 7,000.

But there was bad news for Mr Cameron as the Tories slipped into third place on 4,082 votes, with the Lib Dems - who won 5,572 votes - leap-frogging them to finish second. The British National Party finished on just under 2,500.

The results are certain to increase the momentum behind calls for an early election as Cabinet ministers prepare for a crucial political strategy meeting at Chequers next week.

The Prime Minister has been buoyed by recent polls which have shown Labour opening up a seven point lead over the Tories - their biggest in two years.

Labour even managed to hit the psychologically important 40 per cent mark in an ICM poll for The Sunday Telegraph at the weekend.

But the outcomes are a setback for Mr Cameron, who had hoped a strong showing in Ealing Southall would have helped him reassert his authority following the recent row over grammar schools.

The Tory leader took a calculated gamble at the end of last month by choosing Mr Lit as the party's candidate in Ealing Southall, even though the 34-year-old had only joined the party a couple of days earlier.

The Conservative leader has also invested a lot of time in the by-election too and made five separate visits over the last couple of weeks.

The risks were underlined last weekend when it emerged Mr Lit, the former managing director of Sunrise Radio, attended a Labour fundraiser just days before becoming the Tory candidate, with Sunrise paying nearly £5,000 for a table at the event. Mr Lit and his wife Mandy even posed for a photo with Tony Blair, the former Prime Minister.

His disappointment will be intensified by the party's failure to hold on to the second place it clinched in Sedgefield at the last General Election.

In contrast, there will be relief in the Labour high command that the party avoided an unlikely defeat in Ealing Southall, a result which would have brought Mr Brown’s honeymoon in Number 10 to a shuddering halt.

The twin victories will ensure Cabinet ministers are in an upbeat mood when they gather at Chequers next week to thrash out Labour’s political strategy over the coming months.

But there is little doubt that Mr Brown, who is not one of politics' natural risk-takers, will want to see a sustained lead in the polls over the summer months before taking an decision on calling a snap election. The Prime Minister could go to the polls on October 25, before the clocks go back.

Speculation about an Autumn election was fuelled last week when it emerged that Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, is planning to bring forward the Pre-Budget Report from late November or early December and hold it in October.

The move means he can combine it with the Government’s crucial Comprehensive Spending Review, with some MPs predicting that Mr Brown will use the event as a launch-pad for an early election.

However, many at Westminster remain convinced that an election in May or June next year remains the more likely option.

Douglas Alexander, Labour’s general election co-ordinator, inflamed the febrile atmosphere earlier this week by telling ministers that recent polls suggest Mr Cameron could perform as badly as Neil Kinnock in the 1992 general election.

At the same time, Ed Miliband, the Cabinet Office minister and a key Brown ally, has been asked to start preparing an election manifesto.

The results may help ease the pressure on Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat leader, after senior party figures privately warned that a poor performance in this week's by-elections could trigger a leadership election.