What is at stake in Henley poll?

By James Landale Chief political correspondent, BBC News Channel

By-elections come in two kinds. There are those with grim candidates in grim locations and grim weather.

No one enjoys it - the participants, the party workers, the visiting politicians, the straggling media - and the result, however it falls, comes to universal relief.

And there are those contests which delight: a pleasant constituency, pleasing summer sun, a robust campaign, with a reasonably predictable outcome.

It is into the second category that the Henley by-election falls, where this week - ahead of the aquatic chaos of regatta week - it really has been jolly voting weather.

The seat is bordered to the south by Reading and Henley; to the north, the M40 corridor and the largest population base of Thame. In between lie hundreds of pretty villages, stretching out to the south east of Oxford.

Non-blond

For the Conservatives, it is in theory a safe seat; Boris Johnson's majority was 12,793 over the Liberal Democrats at the last general election.

But safe seats can sometimes be unsafe; remember Bromley and Chislehurst in 2006 where the Tories ran a dismal campaign and almost lost what had traditionally been a Conservative banker.

So this time the party has dispensed money and resources. Voters have been showered with letters from Boris - playing on his undoubted local popularity - using expensively stamped envelopes.

The Lib Dems have fought their usual aggressive insurgency, aiming to use a reasonable second place in 2005 as a platform for overhauling the Conservatives Henley by-election candidates

Conservative members, MPs and would-be candidates are being urged repeatedly to visit. David Cameron has dropped in four times en-route to his conveniently neighbouring constituency.

In their candidate, the party has broken with convention.

No more the blond flamboyance of a Heseltine or Johnson. Instead, they have chosen in John Howell an accountant, a straight bat plucked from the party's benches in Oxfordshire County Council. His hair is distinctly brown.

Crewe momentum

The challenge for the Tories is complacency; they know their voters are out there, they just have to make sure that people don't assume everyone else is voting and stay at home on Thursday.

The wider test for David Cameron is to maintain momentum from Crewe and Nantwich and to see how he is faring against the Liberal Democrats in the south of England. If he wants to win a general election, the Conservative leader needs to pick up 15 to 20 Lib Dem seats in this part of the country.

For the Liberal Democrats themselves, the challenge is to restore their reputation as doughty by-election fighters.

There is of course nothing wrong in itself in coming from Plymouth, unless you are a candidate for a Parliamentary seat in south Oxfordshire

This took a knock at Crewe where the party came a poor third place.

They also, by contrast, need to show they can take on Mr Cameron in his heartlands.

It is no surprise that the party leader Nick Clegg has been to the constituency seven times in recent weeks.

The party's electoral eminence Lord Rennard has been sniffing around the seat ever since it became possible that Boris might win the London mayoralty.

Genteel voters

The Lib Dems have fought their usual aggressive insurgency, aiming to use a reasonable second place in 2005 as a platform for overhauling the Conservatives.

They have focused hard on local issues and targeted the Tory candidate relentlessly, questioning his commitment to defending the greenbelt and a local hospital.

I won't bore you with the minutiae but by playing the man as much as the ball, they have already prompted threats of legal action from the Conservatives.

There is also a sense from some voters I spoke to that the hard campaigning might be turning one or two people off. Henley is nothing if not genteel and there are some things one does not do.

In Stephen Kearney, the Lib Dems have chosen an energetic candidate who has fought a robust campaign.

His failing is that he is from Plymouth. There is of course nothing wrong in itself in coming from Plymouth, unless you are a candidate for a Parliamentary seat in south Oxfordshire where your opponents will naturally ask how much you know about the area.

For Labour, the challenge is straightforward: do what you can to avoid losing your deposit but don't waste too much money in the process because frankly the party has not got any.

In 2005, Labour won 6,862 votes, many of whom are expected to stay at home or disperse among the other parties.

In Richard McKenzie, they have just the cheerful sort of fellow to weather the storm with a grin on his face. Both the Greens and UKIP have him in their sights and are aiming to push Labour into fourth place.

Having spent a day in Henley this week, it was easy to find Conservative supporters, harder to find Lib Dems and a fool's errand to seek out fans of Labour.

But as ever, much will depend on turnout on Thursday. For Messrs Cameron and Clegg, there is more at stake than might first appear.

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