Leading article: Mr Brown can't be written off yet. But the voters' message is clear

No one believes that the Conservatives are really heading for a majority of 348 seats at the next general election. The outcome of the by-election in Crewe and Nantwich was an exaggerated measure, therefore, of the feeling of dissatisfaction with Gordon Brown's Government. And it was certainly exaggerated. The Independent's opinion poll on Tuesday was the most accurate of the three surveys conducted in the constituency, possibly because it was the latest snapshot of an electorate on the move, but even that underestimated the scale of the Tory victory.

Labour ministers have learnt enough – most of them – not to try to make excuses for their poor showing. There were a few. The Labour campaign, for example, was negative, hypocritical and insulting – not just to the Tory candidate but also to the intelligence of the voters. As George Osborne, the Shadow Chancellor, acutely observed yesterday, it suggested that Labour has become the "nasty party".

And a by-election does not test one party's programme for national government against another's. It subjects the Government's record to a one-sided plebiscite.

It is still too early, therefore, to write off definitively Mr Brown's chances of recovery. The suddenness of the shift in opinion against him is evidence in itself of the possibility of change, even if gaining respect is much harder and slower work than losing it.

Any sensible democratic politician ought to respect the verdict of the people, even in such a heated and artificial arena as the modern media by-election. That said, there is no denying the seriousness of the message from the voters of Crewe on Thursday. It may have been amplified by the media circus, but it was real.

The Conservatives were smart enough to claim that the by-election was a referendum on the abolition of the 10p tax rate, but that issue had already provoked a genuine popular revolt. For a year after it was announced in last year's Budget, the issue lay fallow. It was not raised by HM Official Opposition (although the Liberal Democrats did try); it was not a plot by the Blairites; it was not taken up by the media. It was only when Labour backbenchers started to express the alarm coming through from low-paid workers in their constituency surgeries that the issue took off. It was, in fact – and the by-election was the culmination of this – an example of people engaging with the political process and forcing a change.

Yes, public sentiment has overshot the target. The tax changes made by Mr Brown and Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, did belatedly and not quite exactly deal with the original grievance. But, by then, "10p" had come to symbolise wider problems of the credit crunch and rising fuel and food prices. Mr Brown's handling of such concerns has followed a pattern of denial, adjustment and abstract language that has failed to reassure.

So, even if the by-election exaggerated the crisis of confidence in Mr Brown's Government, that crisis is bad enough. It is difficult to see how Mr Brown can find a way out of the hole he has dug for himself.

Now attention turns to Mr Cameron. He has done the easy bit of presenting himself as the safe recipient of protest votes. It will not be enough, over the next two years, simply to proclaim that he is not Mr Brown. It will not be enough simply to disagree with Government policy without setting out in detail what the Conservatives would do instead. Time for Mr Cameron to move up a gear.

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