Byelections live: Tory seats under threat as voting begins to replace Nadine Dorries and Chris Pincher | Byelections
My colleague Peter Walker has this report on the byelections today. The Conservatives are defending large majorities but given Rishi Sunak’s dismal poll ratings, the other parties have a chance to take the seats.
Voting has opened in Mid Bedfordshire and Tamworth in byelections seen as crucial in gauging the electoral fate of Rishi Sunak, but difficult to predict.
The Conservatives are defending majorities of nearly 25,000 in Mid Bedfordshire and close to 20,000 in Tamworth, which would normally point to an easy hold. However, their chances will be hampered by the party’s dismal poll ratings and the records of departing MPs.
The Mid Bedfordshire vote was triggered by the resignation of the former culture secretary Nadine Dorries in protest at her lack of a peerage from Boris Johnson’s resignation honours. Her protracted departure drew attention to her seemingly limited involvement in local affairs.
In Tamworth, Chris Pincher, the former deputy chief whip, stepped down from his seat after losing an appeal against an eight-week suspension from parliament for groping two men at a private members’ club in the summer of 2022.
Tamworth is a straight fight between the Conservatives and Labour. The latter held the Staffordshire seat between 1997 and 2010, when Pincher was first elected.
Sarah Edwards, the Labour candidate in Tamworth, is the bookmakers’ favourite to defeat the Conservatives’ Andrew Cooper, but this would need a swing of more than 21 percentage points.
Cooper has not helped his case after it emerged that in 2020 he shared a Facebook photo of a flowchart which said parents should only seek help with their finances if they were employed and gave up their TV and mobile phone contracts.
A Labour win would not be without precedent: a byelection in 1996 in South East Staffordshire, the previous seat in the area, saw Labour defeat the Conservatives with a swing of nearly 22 percentage points.
Mid Bedfordshire is even harder to call, given that both the Liberal Democrats and Labour have flung huge resources at the byelection.
Labour came a fairly distant second to Dorries in the 2019 general election, and argue this makes them the obvious challengers. The Lib Dems in turn say the seat’s largely rural demographics and the need to tempt wavering Tory voters to change sides mean they are better placed.
Read the full story here:
Welcome to today’s liveblog. I’m Nicola Slawson and I’m covering for Andrew Sparrow today. Do drop me a line if you have any questions or comments. I’m on nicola.slawson@theguardian.com or @Nicola_Slawson on the site formerly known as Twitter.
Reminder: Please don’t tell us how you voted in the comments section – Election law (specifically section 66A of the Representation of the People Act 1983) makes it an offence to publish before the polls close at 10pm. Many thanks.
Key events
Pippa Crerar
In the world of expectation management, a “leaked” memo can be a useful tool for a political party on the eve of a tricky byelection. So the publication of an internal report prepared for the Conservative party chair, Greg Hands, was initially met with some scepticism.
The document, based on telephone canvassing data from recent days, claimed the Tory vote in Thursday’s two byelections in Tamworth and Mid Bedfordshire could halve to about 30%, creating more problems for Rishi Sunak.
In Mid Bedfordshire, where Nadine Dorries hung on for months after saying she would quit, the internal polling, seen by Sky News, suggested the Tories would lose even though it said Labour was trailing behind in the rural seat on 22% and the Lib Dems on 12%.
The memo also indicates a loss in Tamworth, where Chris Pincher stood down after drunkenly groping two men, and where there is a straight fight between the Tories and Labour.
Despite the leak, both results look far from clear cut. The Tories hold a majority of almost 25,000 in Mid Bedfordshire and it is 94 years since a party other than the Conservatives won the seat. The three-way nature of the contest means it will be a scrappy fight to the end.
Read more here:
Rishi Sunak arrives in Tel Aviv and warns against escalation of the conflict
Sam Jones
Rishi Sunak has arrived in Tel Aviv. As mentioned earlier, the British prime minister is due to meet his Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the Israeli president. Sunak is also expected to ask for aid to be allowed into Gaza and for Britons stranded there to be allowed to leave the area.
Reuters has these early remarks from the British prime minister.
After landing in Tel Aviv, Sunak told reporters:
Above all, I’m here to express my solidarity with the Israeli people. You have suffered an unspeakable, horrific act of terrorism and I want you to know that the United Kingdom and I stand with you.
In an early statement, he said the Gaza hospital blast on Tuesday that caused mass Palestinian casualties should be “a watershed moment for leaders in the region and across the world to come together to avoid further dangerous escalation of conflict”, adding that Britain would be at “the forefront of this effort”.
Sunak will also urge the opening up of a route to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza from Egypt as soon as possible, and to enable British nationals trapped in Gaza to leave.
“Every civilian death is a tragedy. And too many lives have been lost following Hamas’s horrific act of terror,” Sunak said.
At least seven British nationals have been killed and at least nine are still missing since the attack on Israel, Sunak’s spokesperson said on Wednesday.
The British foreign secretary, James Cleverly – who visited Israel last week – will travel to Egypt, Turkey and Qatar over the next three days to discuss the conflict and to seek a peaceful resolution, his office said.
You can follow our dedicated Israel-Hamas war liveblog, where my colleague Sam Jones will be covering more from Sunak’s visit, here:
My colleague Peter Walker has this report on the byelections today. The Conservatives are defending large majorities but given Rishi Sunak’s dismal poll ratings, the other parties have a chance to take the seats.
Voting has opened in Mid Bedfordshire and Tamworth in byelections seen as crucial in gauging the electoral fate of Rishi Sunak, but difficult to predict.
The Conservatives are defending majorities of nearly 25,000 in Mid Bedfordshire and close to 20,000 in Tamworth, which would normally point to an easy hold. However, their chances will be hampered by the party’s dismal poll ratings and the records of departing MPs.
The Mid Bedfordshire vote was triggered by the resignation of the former culture secretary Nadine Dorries in protest at her lack of a peerage from Boris Johnson’s resignation honours. Her protracted departure drew attention to her seemingly limited involvement in local affairs.
In Tamworth, Chris Pincher, the former deputy chief whip, stepped down from his seat after losing an appeal against an eight-week suspension from parliament for groping two men at a private members’ club in the summer of 2022.
Tamworth is a straight fight between the Conservatives and Labour. The latter held the Staffordshire seat between 1997 and 2010, when Pincher was first elected.
Sarah Edwards, the Labour candidate in Tamworth, is the bookmakers’ favourite to defeat the Conservatives’ Andrew Cooper, but this would need a swing of more than 21 percentage points.
Cooper has not helped his case after it emerged that in 2020 he shared a Facebook photo of a flowchart which said parents should only seek help with their finances if they were employed and gave up their TV and mobile phone contracts.
A Labour win would not be without precedent: a byelection in 1996 in South East Staffordshire, the previous seat in the area, saw Labour defeat the Conservatives with a swing of nearly 22 percentage points.
Mid Bedfordshire is even harder to call, given that both the Liberal Democrats and Labour have flung huge resources at the byelection.
Labour came a fairly distant second to Dorries in the 2019 general election, and argue this makes them the obvious challengers. The Lib Dems in turn say the seat’s largely rural demographics and the need to tempt wavering Tory voters to change sides mean they are better placed.
Read the full story here:
Welcome to today’s liveblog. I’m Nicola Slawson and I’m covering for Andrew Sparrow today. Do drop me a line if you have any questions or comments. I’m on nicola.slawson@theguardian.com or @Nicola_Slawson on the site formerly known as Twitter.
Reminder: Please don’t tell us how you voted in the comments section – Election law (specifically section 66A of the Representation of the People Act 1983) makes it an offence to publish before the polls close at 10pm. Many thanks.
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