Bromley disaster for Cameron

June 29th 2006 was a bad night for both Labour and Conservatives. While it was widely anticipated that the government would not re-take the Welsh valleys seat of Blaenau Gwent, many had expected to see some sort of Cameron effect in the safe Kent seat vacated by Eric Forth.
In the event the Tories very nearly lost Bromley & Chislehurst to the LibDems. The seat is almost entirely leafy suburbia, the Tory candidate was a well-known local councillor and Assembly member, and the party are riding high in the polls nationally.
Many commentators thought the threat to the Tories might come from the plethora of ultra-right wing candidates from the National Front, UKIP and English Democrats. In the event only UKIP polled above 500 votes, pushing Labour into a humiliating fouth place.
The story of Bromley & Chislehurst is the LibDem resurgence - the party are by-election masters, and they came very close to causing the biggest upset since they took Dunfermline West in the Labour heartland.
It is normal for the governing party to lose by-elections - not the opposition. Labour did get 10,241 votes in 2001, down to 1,925 - humiliating for the candidate involved, but the party have bigger problems in Wales.
The LibDems are jubilant, understandably. The past six months have been particularly difficult for them, and it is a slap in the face for all those briefing against Ming Campbell.
For Cameron, the problem is more complex. Some right-wingers in his own party are pointing out that the Thatcherite Eric Forth held the seat easily throughout the resurgence of New Labour - he had a majority of 11,118 in 1997.
The "new" Tories under Cameron barely held onto the seat - perhaps it is their core voters who aren't impressed with the new green gay-friendly party.
No-one can argue that Bromley is a special case like Blaenau Gwent. This is the Tory heartland. What went wrong?
Turnout was down 28% in Bromley - that could be a factor. It could be argued that Cameron merely did not energise the voters in this election. A poll for YouGov shows he is more popular than either Blair or Brown as PM in the country at large.
By-elections are always unpredicatable that is their nature. The questions being asked today at Conservative Central Office will be - did we try hard enough?
Party chairman Francis Maude said:
"David's been rightly, driving a process of change in the party - and the simple truth from this election result is that we have to drive that change faster, wider and deeper.
"Because we have to supply more and more positive reasons for people to vote for us. And I'm sure we will do so."
Perhaps they will. Bromley could just be a blip on the matrix. The other worry for Central Office is the result achieved by UKIP candidate Nigel Farage. The party have already got 12 MEPs and 30 councillors. Their strong showing in this by-election could prove problematic for Cameron in his attempts to shift the party to the centre ground.
It might explain the strongly Euro-sceptic position Cameron has taken in leaving the EPP grouping in the European Parliament.

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