UK:CONSERVATIVE LEADER David Cameron will be back on the campaign trail today as the latest opinion polls point to a possibly famous Tory win in Thursday's byelection.
Labour is mobilising its ministerial forces in an increasingly desperate defence of the late Gwyneth Dunwoody's 7,000-plus majority at the last general election.
But prime minister Gordon Brown is expected to continue to stay away amid expectations that defeat for Labour on Thursday will launch a fresh tide of speculation about his leadership. Faced with difficulty now in playing down expectations, shadow home secretary David Davis confirmed the Conservatives were pulling out all the stops in their quest for what would be their first byelection gain from Labour in 30 years.
Mr Davis also maintained that victory in this constituency - which stayed loyal to Labour even during Mrs Thatcher's reign - would be "quite extraordinary".
However, an ICM poll for the News of the World showed the Conservatives doubling their lead to 8 points ahead of Thursday's vote, while YouGov's national survey puts Mr Cameron's Conservatives in a 20-point lead over Labour.
This latest double-digit lead will be taken as further evidence that Mr Cameron is now commanding the kind of advantage enjoyed by Tony Blair in the two years before his first "New Labour" landslide and the eviction of John Major's government in 1997.
The Conservatives' 45 per cent to 37 per cent advantage in Crewe and Nantwich prompted Nick Sparrow, the respected managing director of ICM, to suggest this marked "a special moment" in terms of Labour's decline under Mr Brown - "when it must become apparent he is staring defeat in the face at the next general election".
The added indignity for the prime minister had YouGov in the Sunday Times recording Mr Brown's unpopularity on a par with the worst days of John Major, while the drop in Mr Brown's personal ratings - a negative rating of 61 points - is apparently "worse than Neville Chamberlain in 1940".
Mr Brown had been hoping that last week's £2.7 billion (€3.3 billion) mini-budget compensation package for four or five million low-paid workers disadvantaged by the abolition of the 10p tax rate would help defuse the anger registered by voters in Labour's abysmal showing in the local and London elections two weeks ago.
But while almost half those surveyed thought Mr Brown had done the right thing, 59 per cent also thought it was an "election bribe".
The prime minister gave a reminder of his personal "moral compass" again at the weekend, telling the Church of Scotland of his commitment to "the church's enduring vision of the good society of compassion and justice".
Labour-leaning commentators, meanwhile, were leading the attack on a byelection campaign in Crewe and Nantwich that has so far managed to be both ridiculous and racist. Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman yesterday acknowledged that Labour's "class-warfare" depiction of Conservative candidate Edward Timpson as "a toff" had not been "the most positive".
He has been ambushed by Labour activists dressed in top hats and tails distributing spoof leaflets asking people if they live "in a big mansion house" or if they think "regeneration is adding another wing to your mansion".
More damaging to Labour in the longer term, however, might be the attempt to play the race card and exploit concerns about east European immigration by suggesting the Conservatives "oppose making foreign nationals carry an ID card". Mr Cameron has in fact made much of his opposition to ID cards for anybody as a matter of principle.
Cabinet minister Ed Milliband attempted to make light of "adventurous ways of campaigning" typical of byelections. But adoption of the so-called "dog whistle" approach to politics once associated with Michael Howard's Conservative leadership will further fuel criticism of Mr Brown should Labour lose on Thursday.