Clutching at straws, Conservatives in the UK have been trying to blame catastrophic defeats in two safe-seat by-elections on typically low by-election turnout (44 and 36 per cent), and their supporters’ failure to come out to vote. It begged the question why did they not come out? And, will they be any more likely to do so in a general election?
In Tamworth and Mid Bedfordshire historic swings to Labour – of 23.9 per cent and 20.5 per cent respectively – showed clearly that, turnout notwithstanding, national polls are right: Labour appears to be heading for Downing Street next year with a momentum comparable to Tony Blair’s 1997 landslide.
Labour will take comfort from its vote surge comfortably outpacing the Liberal Democrats in the Mid Bedfordshire three-way contest, while the Tories will have noted another bad omen. A new force to their right, Reform UK, polled enough (3.7 in Mid Bedfordshire and 5.4 per cent in Tamworth) to deprive them of both seats.
“No government,” election pundit Sir John Curtice noted, “has hitherto lost to the principal opposition party in a by-election seat as safe as Tamworth”. Another pollster described the night as “close to the worst case” for the Tories.
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Despite the caveat that by-elections are often lost by governments and are not a reliable guide to general elections, the Tories’ loss of four in just three months, and the sheer scale of last Thursday’s defeats, piles remorseless pressure on prime minister Rishi Sunak, only a year in the job.
His desperate efforts to rebrand the party, notably in a supposedly break-out speech at the Tory conference two weeks ago, have not succeeded in shaking the reputational damage done by Boris Johnson and Liz Truss. Voters do not even trust him on his forte, the economy. A recent Observer poll found Sunak ranked below David Cameron, Theresa May and Boris Johnson, with only 27 per cent thinking that his Conservatives are handling the economy well. Scrapping the northern end of the HS2 rail link and a few concessions to motorists will not do the trick.