Free Republic

IN THE end, there was no big upset. Despite a surge of support for their nemesis, the UK Independence Party (UKIP), the Conservatives won the Newark by-election on June 5th with ease. This was in a sense historic—the prosperous south Nottinghamshire constituency has now given the Tories their first by-election victory while in office since 1989. But it will have done little, for all that, to quell Tory nerves set jangling by UKIP’s rise. The Tory candidate in Newark, Robert Jenrick, won with a robust majority of 7,000 votes, despite the hostile circumstances in which the election was held. It...