Eastleigh: Cameron faces pressure after bad result PRIME Minister David Cameron has until the summer to prove he can lead the Tories to election victory or face a possible leadership challenge, furious Tory MPs were privately claiming last night following the humiliating result for the party in the Eastleigh by-election. The result in the Tories" 16th target seat, which they need to win back to form a majority in 2015, saw the Lib Dems comfortably hold on and UKIP come a shock second. Last night Mr Cameron insisted that he would try to "win back the support of the people" but he was being openly and private criticised by Tory backbenchers who fear the party is now heading to a inevitable defeat in the 2015 general election if he remains as leader. One Tory backbencher said: "The only reason there isn't a leadership challenge now is that Cameron's opponents in the arty are split into different factions." He added: "If we do badly in the [English] county council elections in May and have a budget like last shambles in March then there will almost certainly be a stalking horse candidate put up over the summer." Another MP described the Eastleigh result as the "revenge of the turnip Taliban" referring to the way Mr Cameron once famously dismissed party members in Norfolk who objected to having Liz Truss forced on them as a candidate in 2010. The top issues which appeared to swee Tory votes go to UKIP included Mr Cameron pushing ahead with gay marriage, immigration and voters not believing his promise to hold an in/out referendum on Europe. Already Windsor MP Adam Afriyie has been talked up as a stalking horse candidate, but many MPs pointed to former children's Tim Loughton who was sacked because of his opposition to gay marriage and who has recently been targeted by Education Secretary Michael Gove's spin doctors in a briefing campaign against him. There is concern that the 2010 intake of Tory MPs, many of whom have been sidelined by Mr Cameron after the House of Lords reform rebellion, will be vulnerable to losing their seats because the billionaire Lord Ashcroft has pulled his financial backing for the party. Some senior backbench MPs openly criticised Mr Cameron yesterday in the wake of the result. Scottish Conservative MP Eleanor Laing, who described herself as having been "utterly loyal" during her parliamentary career, said many Tories felt "hurt" by the way they were treated by the leadership. "They feel hurt and they feel left out," she told Radio 4"s The World At One programme. They're told that they're old-fashioned and they think that they don't matter and that what they stand for, and what they believe in, doesn't matter. She said MPs were "in despair" about the number of people who are resigning from the party. "Inevitably, when the fortunes of the party are not as good as they ought to be, then there is some disquiet," she added. Another Conservative MP, Douglas Carswell, said there were "policy lessons" to be learned and questioned why the party was on a "long march of defeat." He said: "I would like us to do far more to focus on the bread-and-butter issue of cost of living. I think living standards are declining. We talk about only a protest vote. One of the reasons why people feel inclined to protest is because they are hurting in their pocket. Speaking in Downing Street, Mr Cameron said: "It is a disappointing result for the Conservative Party, but it is clear that, in mid-term by-elections, people want to register a protest. But I am confident that at the general election we can win those people back by demonstrating that we are delivering for everyone who wants to work hard and wants to get on. That is what we will be focused on. Mr Cameron insisted the Conservatives would not move to the right to encourage voters back from UKIP, saying: "I don't think we should tack this way, tack that way." He promised to continue cutting the deficit, helping people "who work hard," reforming welfare and cutting immigration. Mr Cameron said: "That is my agenda. That is their agenda. This is a by-election. It's mid-term. It's a protest. That's what happens in by-elections. It's disappointing for the Conservative Party but we must remain true to our principles, true to our course, and that way we can win people back. The Liberal Democrats landed what Nick Clegg said was a "stunning victory" in the vote despite a turbulent week for the party amid allegations it failed to deal with claims of sexual harassment levelled at its former master strategist Lord Rennard. Mike Thornton won the by-election - triggered by the resignation of the Lib Dem's disgraced ex-Cabinet minister Chris Huhne - with 13,342 votes, a majority of 1,771 over UKIP's Diane James, who said beating the Tories was a "humongous" shock which represented a "seismic shift" in UK politics. The poll was a major test for the Lib Dems, after Huhne's guilty plea for passing driving penalty points to his wife, and the claims hitting the headlines about Lord Rennard. Mr Clegg said the message for Lib Dems from the poll was that "we can be in government and still win." He told activists in Eastleigh: "We held our nerve, we stood our ground... we overcame the odds and we won a stunning victory." Tory Maria Hutchings polled 10,559 votes - more than 1,000 behind UKIP, which snatched huge chunks of the coalition parties" 2010 general election vote share, taking more than 27 per cent of the total. UKIP leader Nigel Farage described the result as a "massive boost" and claimed Ukip would cause "an earthquake" in British politics. "People will say it was a protest vote, but who we attracted here were non-voters who had not voted for 20 years - they are not protest votes," he said. Labour's candidate, satirist and author John O'Farrell, polled 4,088 votes. Labour leader Ed Miliband said: "Clearly I would have preferred to have got more votes than we did, but this was always going to be a tough fight for Labour - it's a seat that we've never won." The Hampshire seat is one of a list of 20 Lib Dem-held constituencies Tories believe are crucial for the party to win in 2015 to secure an outright majority. Sarah Newton, deputy chairman of the Conservative Party, raised eyebrows when she tried to put a gloss on the result by branding it "good for the Coalition that the Coalition has kept a seat." However, Liberal Democrat victory in Eastleigh may not translate into success at the 2015 general election, according to a poll carried out for former Conservative treasurer Lord Ashcroft. The Tory peer cautioned the Conservative leadership against "learning the wrong lessons" from being pushed into third place by Ukip, as the survey found that many of those backing the eurosceptic group were doing so as a protest against the mainstream parties. "Our task is not to become more like Ukip, the party of easy answers, but to be the party of government that people want to vote for," said Lord Ashcroft. Let's hope there's still time. The poll of 760 Eastleigh voters, taken after they cast their ballots suggested that fewer than half (43%) of those voting Lib Dem yesterday expect to back the party at the general election. Some 13 per cent said they would go back to Labour seven per cent will move to the Tories and one third did not know.