While the New Statesman claims to know the score in Buckingham, The Slog will exclusively reveal throughout today what’s really going on in this dirty contest.

The New Statesman’s ill-informed piece of today (‘Why Bercow won’t be defeated’) may well come back to haunt them in time. If only they’d spent more time on the ground…and talking to Tories. Not their speed I know, but it would’ve helped.

Whereas multiple opponents would normally split the opposition to an unpopular MP, in Buckingham’s fringe politics it works the other way round. Against sitting Speaker MP Bercow’s previously held 18,000 majority are 9508 disenfranchised Libdem voters, and anything up to 12,000 Tories who either don’t like Bercow or are Eurosceptic. There are also 9,600 Labour supporters, whom Farage is keen to attract – having allegedly referred to them in private as ‘immigration rednecks’.

“We are doing very well indeed among the former Labour vote,” Farage confirmed to me last week, “they will always vote for a strong policy on immigration control. As a former Thatcherite, I know this only too well”.

The New Statesman has missed the appeal of both Patrick Phillips (a local Eurosceptic likely to poll around 3000 votes) and the possibility of George Walden-sponsored Euro-MEP John Stevens entering the contest to pull in the old Libdem vote.

The NS also fails to note Bercow’s amazing ability to get up everyone’s nose….and the canvassing results coming in for UKIP. Farage is polling seven votes to every two for John Bercow in Princes Risborough. In turn, Stevens has mass-distributed a vitriolic attack on the Speaker as the precursor to probably throwing his hat in the ring.

The reality is that a minority-vote UKIP victory is feared by David Cameron personally, because it will cast the first-past-the-post system he wants to retain in a ridiculous light. In a four-way contest, Bercow could still lose – and the most likely winner – Nigel Farage – would go to Parliament with under 20% of the vote. New Labour and Libdem spin-doctors would have a field day at the Tory leader’s expense.

Equally, Cameron’s aides fear Buckingham will be an Orpington-style launching pad for UKIP. Orpington was a safe Kent seat captured by the Liberals in 1963, and marked the revival of the Party’s fortunes. A Tory backbencher confirmed this view last week.

“Victory in Buckingham would give UKIP a huge dose of credibility” he said, “and the Leadership are paranoid about the Europe issue. Buckingham could be a springboard for UKIP – and start a leakage of members from us”.