Leading Article: A test of Labour's hopes in the South

IT IS always tempting to exaggerate the importance of impending by-elections. Most tend to be interpreted as plebiscites on the Government's popularity. But the battle for the seat left empty in the Eastleigh, Hampshire, constituency by the death of Stephen Milligan is different.

It does not require another huge swing to the Liberal Democrats along the lines of those in Newbury and Christchurch last year to tell us that John Major's government is in trouble. We know that already. Eastleigh is pre-eminently about Labour's prospects.

As the opinion poll we publish today shows, this will - unusually for the South - be a genuine three- horse race. At the last election, Mr Milligan won 51.3 per cent of the vote for the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats 28 per cent and Labour 20 per cent.

Our poll shows the Lib Dems well ahead, with Labour just behind the Tories in third place but capable, if seen to have a chance of winning, of scraping home as victors. Paradoxically, the better Labour does, the stronger the prospect of the Tories retaining enough of the vote to hang on to the seat against a divided opposition.

The significance of the eventual result will lie chiefly in the relative performances of Labour and the Lib Dems. There is no reason why the latter should be the natural repository of mid-term anti-

government sentiment. Eastleigh, which includes part of Southampton, is not a purely rural constituency in which Labour can expect little sympathy. If Labour cannot do well here - and our poll suggests it has much ground to catch up - its growing confidence that it will form the next government will be badly dented. Similarly, a disappointing Lib Dem performance (on present form unlikely) will damage hopes of sweeping up large numbers of southern seats where it lies second to the Tories.

Much the most interesting outcome would be a Labour victory. That would be a big gesture of confidence in John Smith and his party as the alternative government. To promote the chances of such a coup, Labour will be deploying its big guns, including Mr Smith, in the by-election campaign (which has begun even before the formal announcement of polling day).

A Labour victory, even a near- victory, would seem to vindicate Mr Smith's current strategy of allowing the Tories to be their own worst enemies while attacking their tax increases and committing his own party to few specific policies. If Labour performs badly at a time when the Government is so unpopular, that strategy will be discredited and southern prospects will look bleak. A possible deduction may then be that some form of pact with the Lib Dems will be necessary if the Tories are to be denied yet another term of office.