THE Tory high command last night denied giving the Lib Dems an easy ride in the Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election in an attempt to avert a catastrophic collapse in support for their coalition partners.

David Cameron said he was proud of the Conservative campaign, despite seeing his party finish a distant third, while the Lib Dems were unable to overturn a wafer-thin Labour majority.

Labour leader Ed Miliband said the voters had sent a very clear message to the coalition, as Labour extended its 103- vote majority at the General Election in May to 3,558.

Debbie Abrahams, the Labour candidate, was a comfortable winner with 14,718 votes, ahead of the Lib Dem Elwyn Watkins with 11,160.

Tory Kashif Ali was third with 4,481 as support for the Conservatives fell away.

The Lib Dems had forced the contest after Mr Watkins mounted a successful legal challenge to the General Election result, claiming his Labour opponent, Phil Woolas, had lied about him.

But as the Lib Dems’ opinion poll ratings plummeted after they abandoned their pledge to oppose any increase in university tuition fees, there were fears they could suffer a huge loss of support.

Among some Tories, however, there was anger at what they saw as a deliberately lacklustre campaign designed to ensure maximum support for the Lib Dems – a claim fiercely denied by party chairman Baroness Warsi.

“I led this campaign and every resource was put into it,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

“We never attacked the Liberal Democrat party but we never campaigned for them either.”

She acknowledged that there had been criticisms from some on the Tory right over the way the campaign had been run, but rejected their complaints.

Mr Miliband – whose position was bolstered by the victory after criticism of his failure to make an impact since becoming Labour leader – said the voters had rejected coalition policies.

“This is a first step in a long journey for Labour but, more importantly, I hope the Government will listen to what they’ve said about these key issues,” he said.

Mrs Abrahams, accompanied by her husband, John, an England under-19 cricket coach, and her daughter, Dawn, 21, celebrated victory at a pub in Denshaw, in the hills above Oldham, as her new life as an MP began.

She said she would be fighting public spending cuts, the rise in tuition fees, the scrapping of the Education Maintenance Allowance and the cutting of police numbers, which she said were broken promises by the coalition Government.