The Business Secretary responds to Sophy Ridge’s question about whether defeats next week should prompt a change of tack from the Government.
Collaboration was key to our success. The competitive political context of Cambridgeshire meant we had a long history of supporting neighbouring associations.
According to the columnist and presenter, “voters just won’t turn out, and that’s going to be the biggest problem.”
A by-election in the predecessor seat to Tamowrth in 1996 saw a Tory majority of 12.5 per cent become a 31.6 per cent Labour one.
The A list and its successors haven’t kept a golden generation out of Parliament. Many of those who might have made it up aren’t putting themselves forward for selection in the first place.
Bear in mind that if a week is a long time in politics, 16 months is an eternity. A lot can happen between now and October 2024, surely the earliest date for the general election.
He is a Hillingdon Borough Councillor, representing South Ruislip – and is also a Deputy Chairman of Uxbridge & South Ruislip Conservative Association.
Our editor speaks to the Today programme about how the Conservative Party should handle the former prime minister.
He joins Dorries and Johnson in leaving Parliament.
Sceptics will make valid points about this finding but there are good reasons to accept the picture at face value. It has him taking 50 per cent of the vote to Labour’s 33 per cent.
Together with other recent by-elections, it is broadly in that electoral territory – but it is also consistent with a least one recent survey suggesting a wipeout for the Conservatives.
Now a safe seat, in 2015 this was one of the most marginal constituencies in Britain – and in 2010 it returned a Conservative MP.
Denying the South East what it needs to grow and prosper with the misguided intention of being ‘fair’ to the rest of the country is detrimental to all in the end.
To the MPs involved, I misquote Obi-Wan Kenobi: strike Johnson down, and he will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.
People in all three places had a pretty clear view about the unorthodox circumstances giving rise to the contests.