ANY Tory MP still clinging to the idea that the polls are wrong got two sharp shocks from the voters of Mid-Bedfordshire and Tamworth.
The gurus are calling it – on those swings, Labour is heading for a 1997-style landslide.
ReutersSir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party won over the voters of Mid-Bedfordshire and Tamworth[/caption]
On paper, thousands of Tory voters stayed at home, allowing Labour to win by putting just 811 votes on in Tamworth compared to 2019 and gain Mid Beds with 156 fewer votes – albeit on a reduced turn out.
But pollsters Survation say it’s worse than that for the Tories – plenty of 2019 Conservative voters said they would turn out – and half voted for someone else.
And as many 2019 Tory voters split for the right-wing Reform party as did for Labour: a right/left pincer.
The number of votes gained by the ‘Faragist’ pro-Brexit, low-tax rabble in both seats was bigger than either Labour majority.
Predecessors the Brexit Party stood aside in 2019, but that will not happen again – they are revelling in costing the Tories both seats.
And fury is mounting; “Rishi and his gang got rid of Boris and then got rid of Liz, but what was it for,” one senior Tory raged; “Because banning smoking and taxing everyone isn’t cutting it.”
No serious Tory is talking about a new leader, but noises off are growing about the future of the gloomy Chancellor.
Jeremy Hunt urgently needs to give some hope to seething Tories at next month’s Autumn Statement or calls for his head will be deafening.
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