The voters in Rochester and Strood know Cameron has failed them

With just four days to go till the election in Rochester and Strood, it looks as if the result will be a damning indictment of David Cameron, proving that he cannot even lead his party, let alone the country.  If things turn out as the polls predict, Cameron will have lost his second seat to UKIP.  That’s the first two seats in the general election already lost.  No wonder many in his own party have concluded he’s not a winner.

The Labour campaign has focused on the issues that matter most to people up and down the country.  Led by our excellent candidate Naushabah Khan, we have been talking about the cost-of-living crisis and Labour’s plan to save and transform the NHS. It is this message that we are taking out to the doorsteps in all of our key seats, confident that we have answers to people’s concerns and aspirations and that we can win in 2015.

But while Labour has been fighting for the things that matter most to people, the Conservatives and UKIP have been engaging in a nasty little right-wing squabble between themselves.

The Tories have been fighting dirty, with reports that they have been using controversial ‘push polling’ to smear their opponent and UKIP have already threatened to challenge the result of the vote in court. In truth, though, there’s not much to tell them apart.  They have both backed and then pretended never to have backed the Lodge Hill development; and they’ve both backed and then pretended they would never ever back privatisation of the NHS.

There has been lots of speculation about this by-election.  Some have even called it the most important by-election in a political generation. There have been three local polls.  They all suggest that this Thursday will be a real body blow to David Cameron.  No doubt the Tories will try to claim that they always expected defeat here, but prior to the campaign Cameron told UKIP, “We are coming for you in by-elections and we are going to throw everything we can at you” and he made it clear that the Tories would do everything they could to kick Mark Reckless’s ‘fat arse’ out of Rochester. Cameron has visited the seat himself four times, with another visit planned before Thursday, and demanded that every Cabinet member make five visits and every MP three. At the start every Tory MP was confident of beating UKIP.  Yet the campaign has collapsed so badly that at one point Cabinet ministers were actually being used to stuff envelopes and when the voters started telling the Tories that they were sick of seeing Tory MPs traipsing through town, they were confined to the office.

But the Tories are on course to lose in no small part because they are defying their leader and fighting themselves as much as they are UKIP. Over 100 MPs, including 11 Government ministers, have reportedly refused to turn up to Rochester and there are now growing calls from senior Tories for their party to form a pact with Nigel Farage.

This Tory desperation results from their being 12 points behind in a seat they must win if they are to have any hope of winning a majority in 2015. This seat is the Tories’ 143^rd safest, in 2010 they received more than 50% of the vote and the Conservatives have held the local council for over 10 years. The real question now is whether the Tories can fight off the UKIP threat in a safe seat they expected to hold, and if they can’t here, what next?

If they cannot win here then they really are in dire straits.  And if they do not win, David Cameron will be in trouble as other MPs consider defecting and widespread panic sets in, as ‘safe’ seats become real concerns.  Reckless himself has said that he knows several Tory MPs considering defecting who will be ‘looking very closely’ at the result on Thursday.

Defeat in Rochester would therefore not only damage Conservative prospects for a majority next year, but would further demonstrate that the Tories are split and obsessed with internal preoccupations rather than the challenges faced by everyday working people.

David Cameron cannot stand up for the majority, because he believes a privileged few must come first. Rochester will show that, having lost the confidence of his party, David Cameron is losing the trust of the British people too.

The depth of Cameron’s desperation was shown last week when he made a desperate plea to Labour voters to vote Tory to keep UKIP out.  Everyone know that wasn’t a sign of strength, but of weakness. Labour voters in Rochester and Strood know that Labour has the best candidate in Naushabah Khan (one commentator, Rod Liddle, said she was the best by a ‘million miles’) and that UKIP and the Tories are as bad as each other.  They also know the local Tory record, with nearly two thirds of primary schools failing and Medway Maritime Hospital in indefinite special measures.  They know that Cameron has failed them and that it’s time he should go.  If the polls are right, that’s the message they will be sending on Thursday.