CHARLES KENNEDY is having to endure a taste of his party’s own medicine as he fights off an aggressive Tory challenge in a by-election in Cheadle tomorrow.

The Conservatives are pouring huge resources into imitating Liberal Democrat by-election techniques, copying their tabloid newspapers from past campaigns and bar charts showing the Tories in close second place.

Even the core Tory message — that the Lib Dem candidate is not “local” — is lifted directly from the Lib Dems’ successful by-election victory at Romsey in 2000.

Mr Kennedy sorely needs a victory in Cheadle, amid a period of drift in which his ablest MPs complain privately of lack of leadership and his backbench MPs are restive. He is not under direct threat, as his chief rival is Simon Hughes, who has little support and many opponents among Lib Dem MPs. But Mr Kennedy needs to avoid further mishaps until the summer recess. He makes his fifth by-election visit to the constituency today.

The Lib Dems, used to the role of challengers in by-elections but not defenders, are nervous about their prospects in Cheadle. Patsy Calton, the Lib Dem MP who died of cancer three weeks after the general election, had built a personal following that may not transfer to her successor.

Michael Howard, making his second visit yesterday, was given a good reception by well-heeled shoppers. But, in Stockport’s affluent commuter belt, where residents are likened by some to the characters in Footballers’ Wives, there were signs that the Tories may have been too aggressive. One leaflet superimposed a local newspaper report of a rape over a headline saying “shocking crime record of Mark Hunter”, the Lib Dem candidate and leader of Stockport council. His party threatened legal action. Another ran a headline “Hunter in school cash scandal”, attributed to the Stockport Express, whose sister paper denounced it as a misrepresentation and attacked the Tory campaign in a front page editorial.

The Lib Dems and their predecessors have not had to defend a seat in a by-election since 1987, when the Liberals held Truro; the Tories have not gained a constituency in a by-election since Merton, Mitcham and Morden in 1982.

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