Forget the Crewe by-election. The most important poll to our readers was taken at a local FE college.

Of course, students are obliged to vote Labour or Green. That’s their job. But they clearly have minds of their own in Crewe, where an internal college poll showed that politicians could have a sticky time ahead unless today’s teenagers are prepared to accept soaring fuel inflation.

I am told that the students at South Cheshire College - or at least the posher ones who drive in from the countryside - put Labour well down the list as they vented their anger over the price of fuel, most of which is made up of taxes.

The “cut tax on petrol and diesel” candidate got 25 per cent of the vote from students fed up with the cost of filling up at the nearby Shell garage.

Second was Edward Timpson, the Conservative candidate, with 20 per cent.

And what of Tamsin Dunwoody, the Labour candidate? She was beaten into fourth place by Nick Delves, aka “The Flying Brick”, standing for the Official Monster Raving Loony Party.

Elizabeth Shenton, the Lib Dem, tied in fifth place with Gemma Garret, of Beauties for Britain.

David Collins, the principal, insists that owning a car at 18 doesn’t make you posh - at least not by South Cheshire standards. But he was pleased that all the major political parties visited the college, where the hundreds of students old enough to vote clearly had some unpredictable loyalties.