The Liberal Democrats have announced Mike Thornton as their candidate for the Eastleigh by-election, and the Conservatives have selected Maria Hutchings as theirs. Labour and UKIP have yet to announce their candidates.
Deputy prime minister Nick Clegg has admitted that the Chris Huhne speeding scandal will be an important issue influencing the Eastleigh by-election.
When asked if trust of the Lib Dems would be an issue, he replied:
It's undeniably an issue. That is why the by-election is taking place.
As I have said before I was very shocked and sad to see what happened, to see, frankly, that his whole family is engulfed in this in a very public way. You'd have to have a heart of stone not to think that is a pretty shocking and sad thing.
I took what Chris said at face value. He than rang me the night before he entered his guilty plea to tell me he was doing so. But I am not going to start providing a running commentary on events that happened. And of course the sentence has not even been handed down to him yet.
– Deputy prime minister Nick Clegg
Nick Clegg made the comments on Sky News' Sunday Live with Murnaghan.
The Liberal Democrats have announced Mike Thornton as their candidate for the Eastleigh by-election, and the Conservatives have selected Maria Hutchings as theirs.
According to a new poll released late Saturday, the Liberal Democrats remain in front in Eastleigh, spelling potential defeat for the Prime Minister.
The Survation poll for The Mail on Sunday put the Lib Dems on 36%, ahead of the Tories on 33%. The poll also put the UK Independence Party on 16%, ahead of Labour on 13%.
Survation polled 504 people in Eastleigh by telephone on Thursday.
Conservative candidate Maria Hutchings Credit: Twitter/Maria Hutchings
The Conservative candidate for the Eastleigh by-election is Maria Hutchings.
She has already run for the seat once before in the 2010 general election, when she lost out to Chris Huhne by 3,864 votes.
Hutchings describes herself as a "straight-talking businesswoman and mother of four". She is running under the slogan "vote for a local MP you can trust".
In 2005, she shot to fame when she challenged the then Prime Minister Tony Blair on a live TV debate about the planned closure of a school for children with special needs.
A few weeks later, she switched from being a Labour supporter to the Conservative party.
UKIP targets four-way fight in Eastleigh by-election
UKIP leader Nigel Farage said he decided against running in the Eastleigh by-election because he had "enough on my plate" but vowed to turn the seat into a four-way marginal fight.
Farage, who kicked off the party's campaign in Hampshire today, told ITV Meridian that Eastleigh was a "very interesting" and "fascinating" by-election.
