UK
Worst by-election defeat for Tories since Second World War as Labour seizes Tamworth
Benedict Smith
Thu, October 19, 2023
Labour MP Stephanie Peacock and newly elected Labour MP Sarah Edwards after she was declared the Member of Parliament for Tamworth following Thursday's by-election
The Tories have suffered their worst by-election defeat to Labour in modern history after losing control of Tamworth.
Sarah Edwards took the Staffordshire seat with a majority of 1,316 and one of the party’s largest ever by-election swings as her Conservative rival bolted from the count after the result was announced.
It means Sir Keir Starmer has become the first Labour leader to win Tamworth since the days of Tony Blair, reversing a Tory majority that has increased in every election since 2010.
By overturning a commanding majority of 42.6 per cent, it is Labour’s biggest by-election victory against the Conservatives since the Second World War.
Ms Edwards pitched herself as a “fresh start” against a governing party that is flagging in the polls and struggling locally after its former MP, Chris Pincher, was found to have groped two men in a private members’ club. He denies the claims.
In her victory speech, delivered as Tory candidate Andrew Cooper made a hasty exit through a back door, she demanded that the Prime Minister call a general election and end years of “national decline”.
She said: “The people of Tamworth have voted for Labour’s positive vision and a fresh start.
“They sent a clear message to Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives that they’ve had enough of this failed Government which has crashed the economy and destroyed our public services. The people of Tamworth have made it clear it’s time for change.
“People feel worse off after 13 years of the Conservatives and don’t feel like the Government has a plan to address the big issues that face our country.”
Sarah Edwards announced as the MP for Tamworth - PA
Finishing her speech with a direct challenge to Mr Sunak, she said: “My message to the Prime Minister is get in your government car, drive to Buckingham Palace, do the decent thing and call a general election.”
According to Martin Baxter, the founder of Electoral Calculus, Labour could expect a majority of roughly 200 seats if it repeats its performance in Tamworth in the next general election.
Mr Cooper, a Tamworth councillor, attempted to fight the by-election campaign on his local credentials.
However, he attracted controversy when a social media post from 2020 was unearthed, where he suggested out-of-work parents who struggled to feed their children but paid for phone contracts should “f--- off”.
Mr Cooper, who earned 10,403 votes to Ms Edwards’ 11,719, just spent minutes on stage at the final count, arriving late as the declaring officer apologised for the “brief intermission”.
He exchanged a terse handshake with the Labour candidate before rushing through a back door as the results were read out, pursued by a press pack. Ms Edwards later said his early exit was “disappointing”.
Lord Hayward, the Tory pollster, suggested Tamworth had a pool of Labour supporters whose support had been underestimated because they had not turned out in recent elections as they would for Sir Keir Starmer.
He said the Conservatives had benefitted in 2017 and 2019 from a dip in the Labour vote, dragged down by the unpopularity of former leader Jeremy Corbyn.
“There is a very substantial pool of Labour voters, more there than the actual majority implied,” he told The Telegraph.
The anti-Labour vote appeared to have been split with Reform, the successor to Nigel Farage’s Brexit party. Taken together, the Conservative and Reform votes would have been enough to secure a narrow victory in the seat.
None of the other third parties - including the Liberal Democrats - managed to keep their deposit as their share of the vote was squeezed out by the Tories and Labour.
Turnout was lower than in recent by-elections, although Ms Edwards denied that her victory owed more to Tory indifference than a wave of support for Labour. Earlier in the night, the Conservative’s local campaign chief suggested this showed Sir Keir had failed to energise the electorate.
Pointing to the party’s 23.9 per cent swing, Ms Edwards told The Telegraph: “Conservatives voted for Labour because they could no longer tolerate the awful situation they had been placed in both locally and nationally.”
‘Political earthquake’ as Tories lose two major seats in by-elections
Nick Gutteridge
Fri, October 20, 2023
Sir Keir Starmer says his party is 'redrawing the political map' - Jeremy Selwyn
Labour inflicted two of the heaviest ever by-election losses on the Tories on Friday morning, in what the party claimed was a “political earthquake”.
Sir Keir Starmer said his party was “redrawing the political map” after overturning enormous Conservative majorities in Tamworth and Mid Bedfordshire.
Rishi Sunak was warned the Tories faced being ousted following the dismal results in Nadine Dorries and Chris Pincher’s former seats.
It means that the Conservatives have surrendered seven constituencies in the last three years, a run of losses not seen since Sir John Major was in power.
In the space of half an hour Labour won in Tamworth, the 55th safest Tory seat in the country, and overturned its biggest majority since 1945 in Mid Bedfordshire.
The Labour leader said: “Winning in these Tory strongholds shows that people overwhelmingly want change and they’re ready to put their faith in our changed Labour Party to deliver it.”
In Mid Bedfordshire his party scored the best ever result by an official opposition party against a sitting Government, overturning the Conservatives’ huge 42 per cent majority.
The by-election was called there after Ms Dorries, the MP since 2005, decided to step down after she was refused a peerage in Boris Johnson’s exit honours list.
It had been in Tory hands since 1931 and was traditionally seen as one of the safest blue seats in the country, with the party holding it by 24,664 votes in 2019.
Alistair Strathern, the Labour candidate whose campaign was plagued by criticism of his past eco-activism, achieved a 20.5 per cent swing and took it with a 1,192 majority.
Peter Kyle, the shadow science secretary who ran the Mid Bedfordshire campaign, said: “Make no bones about it, this is a political earthquake that has unfolded here. This is the biggest by-election shock in history.”
Alistair Strathern achieved a 20.5 per cent swing in Mid Bedfordshire - Joe Giddens/PA
News of the result came half an hour after Labour learnt that it had also pulled off another enormous win in the West Midlands town of Tamworth.
There the by-election was called after the Tory MP Chris Pincher quit in disgrace after being found to have drunkenly groped two men at London’s Carlton Club.
It was Mr Johnson’s handling of the scandal that ultimately led to his downfall as prime minister, unleashing one of the most turbulent periods in the party’s history.
The Conservatives saw their huge 19,634 majority in the seat wiped out, with the Labour candidate Sarah Edwards going on to win it by 1,316 votes.
Professor Sir John Curtice, the leading pollster, said the twin results showed the Tories were “staring defeat in the face” at next year’s expected general election.
He pointed out the historic parallels with the last by-election in Tamworth, which was previously called South East Staffordshire, that took place in 1996.
On that occasion Sir Tony Blair won the seat with a 22 per cent swing before going on to achieve a huge general election victory a year later.
Sir John also pointed out the danger to Mr Sunak of getting “caught in a pincer movement” between Labour and Reform UK, losing Brexit voters to both.
Reform UK, the successor to Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party, won more votes than the new Labour majority in both Mid Bedfordshire and Tamworth.
Ahead of the results George Osborne, the former chancellor, had warned that if Mr Sunak lost both by-elections then “armageddon is coming for the Tory Party”.
Andrew Bowie, the nuclear minister, insisted that the Prime Minister could still win next year and said despite the losses “there is no groundswell of support for the Labour Party”.
He told Sky News that voters “do actually agree with our priorities “but are reserving judgment when it comes to who they’re going to vote for in the next general election”.
“Obviously, we’ve got to take notice and listen to what the voters are telling us,” he added. “We’ve got to take notice and listen to what the voters are telling us.
“But we are absolutely determined that we are on the right course, we’re delivering for the British people and people are going to start feeling that very soon.”
Labour plays down ‘moonshot’ chances of winning ‘super-safe’ Tory seats in double by-election
Adam Forrest
Thu, October 19, 2023
Labour has played down its chances of winning the “super-safe” Tory seats of Tamworth and Mid Bedfordshire as voters head to the polls in two by-election tests for Rishi Sunak.
Sir Keir Starmer’s spokesman the “moonshot” chances would require Labour to overturn results larger than those seen in Selby, north Yorkshire.
“Winning either of these seats would be a moonshot for us so it’s worth keeping a sense of perspective around just how safe these Tory seats are – neither of them are on our target list,” he said.
But as the expectation management game continued, Tory party chairman Greg Hands also dismissed his party’s chances. “Governments don’t win by-elections,” he told The Times.
But both Conservative and Labour officials now believe Mr Sunak’s party has a decent chance of hanging on to Nadine Dorries’ Mid Bedfordshire seat despite a big slump in the Tory voter.
The Tories have held Mid Bedfordshire since 1931 and Ms Dorries held on to it in 2019 by 24,000 votes over second-placed Labour.
Polling guru Sir John Curtice said: “We can’t discount the possibility that the Tories hang on to both of them” – but said a 20-point vote swing away from the party would mean “they are in trouble”.
“We may discover it’s a 19 percent swing and the Tories just hang on. That would not indicate any particular rescue for the Tories,” he told Politico. A Lib Dem activist said there was “a really good chance” that the Tories come through the middle and hang on.
Labour and Lib Dems expected to split anti-Tory vote in three-way contest in Mid Bedfordshire (PA)
A leaked Tory memo revealed that the party expects to lose half their vote share at two by-elections. The Tories expect their vote share to be cut from 59 per cent to 29 per cent in Mid Bedfordshire.
But pollsters believe it may be enough to cling on to the “blue wall” seat because of Labour and the Lib Dems splitting the vote. Prof Curtice told The Independent that “it may be that Labour won’t pick it up because of the split vote”.
The two-way Labour-Tory contest in Tamworth appears on a knife-edge. The leaked Conservative memo also predicts the Tories would win between 28 per cent and 33 per cent of the vote in Tamworth.
Mr Sunak’s party is defending a 19,600 majority in the Midlands seat – vacated by Chris Pincher, the former deputy chief whip found to have groped two men.
The Tory candidate for Tamworth Andrew Cooper has apologised for suggesting some parents using food banks could “f*** off”. He told Channel 5 News he was “sorry if” anyone was offended by the flowchart he shared back in 2020.
“Obviously it is not something I would share now in today’s world,” said Mr Cooper. “We obviously mature and have different opinions than we do three years ago.”
Tory Tamworth candidate Andrew Cooper has apologised for food bank comments (Conservative Party)
Sir Keir’s spokesman said: “If we were to win Tamworth and had that swing at a general election, it would mean that the Tories will be down to fewer than 60 seats at the next general election.”
Then PM’s press secretary told reporters that “mid-term by-elections are extremely tough for incumbent governments” but said the Tories were “fighting for every vote”.
Polls in both constituencies will open at 7am on Thursday, with the results likely to be known in the early hours of Friday.
Sir Keir’s party hold at least a double-digit lead over the Tories in the polls. That gap was borne out in a huge by-election win in Selby in July when Labour overturned a blue 20,000 majority on a 21 per cent swing.
Meanwhile, Sir Keir received another boost when the boss of BlackRock, one of the world’s leading financiers, gave his backing – arguing that the Labour leader offers a “measurement of hope” to British politics.
Larry Fink, chairman and chief executive of the major asset manager, told the Wall Street Journal that Sir Keir had shown “real strength” in bringing Labour back to the centre ground.
Benedict Smith
Thu, October 19, 2023
Labour MP Stephanie Peacock and newly elected Labour MP Sarah Edwards after she was declared the Member of Parliament for Tamworth following Thursday's by-election
The Tories have suffered their worst by-election defeat to Labour in modern history after losing control of Tamworth.
Sarah Edwards took the Staffordshire seat with a majority of 1,316 and one of the party’s largest ever by-election swings as her Conservative rival bolted from the count after the result was announced.
It means Sir Keir Starmer has become the first Labour leader to win Tamworth since the days of Tony Blair, reversing a Tory majority that has increased in every election since 2010.
By overturning a commanding majority of 42.6 per cent, it is Labour’s biggest by-election victory against the Conservatives since the Second World War.
Ms Edwards pitched herself as a “fresh start” against a governing party that is flagging in the polls and struggling locally after its former MP, Chris Pincher, was found to have groped two men in a private members’ club. He denies the claims.
In her victory speech, delivered as Tory candidate Andrew Cooper made a hasty exit through a back door, she demanded that the Prime Minister call a general election and end years of “national decline”.
She said: “The people of Tamworth have voted for Labour’s positive vision and a fresh start.
“They sent a clear message to Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives that they’ve had enough of this failed Government which has crashed the economy and destroyed our public services. The people of Tamworth have made it clear it’s time for change.
“People feel worse off after 13 years of the Conservatives and don’t feel like the Government has a plan to address the big issues that face our country.”
Sarah Edwards announced as the MP for Tamworth - PA
Finishing her speech with a direct challenge to Mr Sunak, she said: “My message to the Prime Minister is get in your government car, drive to Buckingham Palace, do the decent thing and call a general election.”
According to Martin Baxter, the founder of Electoral Calculus, Labour could expect a majority of roughly 200 seats if it repeats its performance in Tamworth in the next general election.
Mr Cooper, a Tamworth councillor, attempted to fight the by-election campaign on his local credentials.
However, he attracted controversy when a social media post from 2020 was unearthed, where he suggested out-of-work parents who struggled to feed their children but paid for phone contracts should “f--- off”.
Mr Cooper, who earned 10,403 votes to Ms Edwards’ 11,719, just spent minutes on stage at the final count, arriving late as the declaring officer apologised for the “brief intermission”.
He exchanged a terse handshake with the Labour candidate before rushing through a back door as the results were read out, pursued by a press pack. Ms Edwards later said his early exit was “disappointing”.
Lord Hayward, the Tory pollster, suggested Tamworth had a pool of Labour supporters whose support had been underestimated because they had not turned out in recent elections as they would for Sir Keir Starmer.
He said the Conservatives had benefitted in 2017 and 2019 from a dip in the Labour vote, dragged down by the unpopularity of former leader Jeremy Corbyn.
“There is a very substantial pool of Labour voters, more there than the actual majority implied,” he told The Telegraph.
The anti-Labour vote appeared to have been split with Reform, the successor to Nigel Farage’s Brexit party. Taken together, the Conservative and Reform votes would have been enough to secure a narrow victory in the seat.
None of the other third parties - including the Liberal Democrats - managed to keep their deposit as their share of the vote was squeezed out by the Tories and Labour.
Turnout was lower than in recent by-elections, although Ms Edwards denied that her victory owed more to Tory indifference than a wave of support for Labour. Earlier in the night, the Conservative’s local campaign chief suggested this showed Sir Keir had failed to energise the electorate.
Pointing to the party’s 23.9 per cent swing, Ms Edwards told The Telegraph: “Conservatives voted for Labour because they could no longer tolerate the awful situation they had been placed in both locally and nationally.”
‘Political earthquake’ as Tories lose two major seats in by-elections
Nick Gutteridge
Fri, October 20, 2023
Sir Keir Starmer says his party is 'redrawing the political map' - Jeremy Selwyn
Labour inflicted two of the heaviest ever by-election losses on the Tories on Friday morning, in what the party claimed was a “political earthquake”.
Sir Keir Starmer said his party was “redrawing the political map” after overturning enormous Conservative majorities in Tamworth and Mid Bedfordshire.
Rishi Sunak was warned the Tories faced being ousted following the dismal results in Nadine Dorries and Chris Pincher’s former seats.
It means that the Conservatives have surrendered seven constituencies in the last three years, a run of losses not seen since Sir John Major was in power.
In the space of half an hour Labour won in Tamworth, the 55th safest Tory seat in the country, and overturned its biggest majority since 1945 in Mid Bedfordshire.
The Labour leader said: “Winning in these Tory strongholds shows that people overwhelmingly want change and they’re ready to put their faith in our changed Labour Party to deliver it.”
In Mid Bedfordshire his party scored the best ever result by an official opposition party against a sitting Government, overturning the Conservatives’ huge 42 per cent majority.
The by-election was called there after Ms Dorries, the MP since 2005, decided to step down after she was refused a peerage in Boris Johnson’s exit honours list.
It had been in Tory hands since 1931 and was traditionally seen as one of the safest blue seats in the country, with the party holding it by 24,664 votes in 2019.
Alistair Strathern, the Labour candidate whose campaign was plagued by criticism of his past eco-activism, achieved a 20.5 per cent swing and took it with a 1,192 majority.
Peter Kyle, the shadow science secretary who ran the Mid Bedfordshire campaign, said: “Make no bones about it, this is a political earthquake that has unfolded here. This is the biggest by-election shock in history.”
Alistair Strathern achieved a 20.5 per cent swing in Mid Bedfordshire - Joe Giddens/PA
News of the result came half an hour after Labour learnt that it had also pulled off another enormous win in the West Midlands town of Tamworth.
There the by-election was called after the Tory MP Chris Pincher quit in disgrace after being found to have drunkenly groped two men at London’s Carlton Club.
It was Mr Johnson’s handling of the scandal that ultimately led to his downfall as prime minister, unleashing one of the most turbulent periods in the party’s history.
The Conservatives saw their huge 19,634 majority in the seat wiped out, with the Labour candidate Sarah Edwards going on to win it by 1,316 votes.
Professor Sir John Curtice, the leading pollster, said the twin results showed the Tories were “staring defeat in the face” at next year’s expected general election.
He pointed out the historic parallels with the last by-election in Tamworth, which was previously called South East Staffordshire, that took place in 1996.
On that occasion Sir Tony Blair won the seat with a 22 per cent swing before going on to achieve a huge general election victory a year later.
Sir John also pointed out the danger to Mr Sunak of getting “caught in a pincer movement” between Labour and Reform UK, losing Brexit voters to both.
Reform UK, the successor to Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party, won more votes than the new Labour majority in both Mid Bedfordshire and Tamworth.
Ahead of the results George Osborne, the former chancellor, had warned that if Mr Sunak lost both by-elections then “armageddon is coming for the Tory Party”.
Andrew Bowie, the nuclear minister, insisted that the Prime Minister could still win next year and said despite the losses “there is no groundswell of support for the Labour Party”.
He told Sky News that voters “do actually agree with our priorities “but are reserving judgment when it comes to who they’re going to vote for in the next general election”.
“Obviously, we’ve got to take notice and listen to what the voters are telling us,” he added. “We’ve got to take notice and listen to what the voters are telling us.
“But we are absolutely determined that we are on the right course, we’re delivering for the British people and people are going to start feeling that very soon.”
Labour plays down ‘moonshot’ chances of winning ‘super-safe’ Tory seats in double by-election
Adam Forrest
Thu, October 19, 2023
Labour has played down its chances of winning the “super-safe” Tory seats of Tamworth and Mid Bedfordshire as voters head to the polls in two by-election tests for Rishi Sunak.
Sir Keir Starmer’s spokesman the “moonshot” chances would require Labour to overturn results larger than those seen in Selby, north Yorkshire.
“Winning either of these seats would be a moonshot for us so it’s worth keeping a sense of perspective around just how safe these Tory seats are – neither of them are on our target list,” he said.
But as the expectation management game continued, Tory party chairman Greg Hands also dismissed his party’s chances. “Governments don’t win by-elections,” he told The Times.
But both Conservative and Labour officials now believe Mr Sunak’s party has a decent chance of hanging on to Nadine Dorries’ Mid Bedfordshire seat despite a big slump in the Tory voter.
The Tories have held Mid Bedfordshire since 1931 and Ms Dorries held on to it in 2019 by 24,000 votes over second-placed Labour.
Polling guru Sir John Curtice said: “We can’t discount the possibility that the Tories hang on to both of them” – but said a 20-point vote swing away from the party would mean “they are in trouble”.
“We may discover it’s a 19 percent swing and the Tories just hang on. That would not indicate any particular rescue for the Tories,” he told Politico. A Lib Dem activist said there was “a really good chance” that the Tories come through the middle and hang on.
Labour and Lib Dems expected to split anti-Tory vote in three-way contest in Mid Bedfordshire (PA)
A leaked Tory memo revealed that the party expects to lose half their vote share at two by-elections. The Tories expect their vote share to be cut from 59 per cent to 29 per cent in Mid Bedfordshire.
But pollsters believe it may be enough to cling on to the “blue wall” seat because of Labour and the Lib Dems splitting the vote. Prof Curtice told The Independent that “it may be that Labour won’t pick it up because of the split vote”.
The two-way Labour-Tory contest in Tamworth appears on a knife-edge. The leaked Conservative memo also predicts the Tories would win between 28 per cent and 33 per cent of the vote in Tamworth.
Mr Sunak’s party is defending a 19,600 majority in the Midlands seat – vacated by Chris Pincher, the former deputy chief whip found to have groped two men.
The Tory candidate for Tamworth Andrew Cooper has apologised for suggesting some parents using food banks could “f*** off”. He told Channel 5 News he was “sorry if” anyone was offended by the flowchart he shared back in 2020.
“Obviously it is not something I would share now in today’s world,” said Mr Cooper. “We obviously mature and have different opinions than we do three years ago.”
Tory Tamworth candidate Andrew Cooper has apologised for food bank comments (Conservative Party)
Sir Keir’s spokesman said: “If we were to win Tamworth and had that swing at a general election, it would mean that the Tories will be down to fewer than 60 seats at the next general election.”
Then PM’s press secretary told reporters that “mid-term by-elections are extremely tough for incumbent governments” but said the Tories were “fighting for every vote”.
Polls in both constituencies will open at 7am on Thursday, with the results likely to be known in the early hours of Friday.
Sir Keir’s party hold at least a double-digit lead over the Tories in the polls. That gap was borne out in a huge by-election win in Selby in July when Labour overturned a blue 20,000 majority on a 21 per cent swing.
Meanwhile, Sir Keir received another boost when the boss of BlackRock, one of the world’s leading financiers, gave his backing – arguing that the Labour leader offers a “measurement of hope” to British politics.
Larry Fink, chairman and chief executive of the major asset manager, told the Wall Street Journal that Sir Keir had shown “real strength” in bringing Labour back to the centre ground.
Biggest by-election swings of all time: Labour shocks Tories in Tamworth and Mid Bedfordshire
Nuray Bulbul
Fri, 20 October 2023
Biggest by-election swings of all time: Labour shocks Tories in Tamworth and Mid Bedfordshire
One of Britain's top electoral analysts has predicted that the Conservatives would lose the next general election more severely than they did in Tony Blair's landslide victory in 1997, following Labour's two historic by-election victories on Friday.
Labour achieved a great swing of 23.9 points in Tamworth, Staffordshire, which is high enough to be ranked as the second highest swing by Labour at a by-election since 1945.
Mid-Bedfordshire was also taken by Sir Keir Starmer's party, which managed to overthrow the highest numerical Conservative majority (24,664).
In the wake of the results, Sir John Curtice, a professor of politics at Strathclyde University, said on BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "It is reasonable to argue that the Conservative Party faces the serious prospect of losing the next General Election heavily, and maybe even more heavily than they did in 1997.”
Here are some of the biggest by-election swings.
What is a by-election?
When an MP resigns from their House of Commons seat during a parliament, either by resignation, death, disqualification, or expulsion, a local election known as a by-election is held.
The biggest by-election swings
1983 Bermondsey by-election - 44.2
On February 24, 1983, a by-election was conducted in the South London constituency of Bermondsey as a result of Labour MP Bob Mellish's departure. Simon Hughes was the Liberal Party candidate, and Peter Tatchell was the Labour Party candidate.
With the majority of votes cast, the Liberals won the seat after a fierce campaign in which they made significant gains. Labour's share of the vote dropped from 63.6 per cent in May 1979 to 26.1 per cent as Tatchell finished well behind. Robert Hughes, the Conservative candidate, received only fourth place and lost his deposit.
The Bermondsey by-election in 1983 continues to have the biggest swing in British political history, at 44.2 per cent.
2014 Clacton by-election - 44.1
Douglas Carswell, the Conservative MP for Clacton, defected to UKIP and then resigned his seat to run for re-election as its candidate, which sparked the by-election.
Retaining his seat with 59.7 per cent of the vote, Carswell then became UKIP's first elected Member of Parliament. Conservative finished second, followed by Labour. The outcome was the largest rise in the vote share for any party in any by-election in history, according to Strathclyde University politics professor John Curtice.
1973 Lincoln by-election - 43
Dick Taverne, a Labour MP for Lincoln, was re-elected in the March 1, 1973, Lincoln by-election after the Lincoln Constituency Labour Party rejected him due to his pro-Common Market stance.
Although Taverne helped fuel a lot of talk following the by-election on the potential creation of a new centrist party, Taverne was unable to sustain his lead.
1967 Hamilton by-election - 37.9
After Tom Fraser, the former Labour MP, resigned to become the chairman of the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board, a by-election was held.
From 1945 until 1966, when only the Conservatives had stood up to them, the constituency had been a safe seat for Labour, which had received almost two-thirds of the vote there.
Winnie Ewing of the Scottish National Party unexpectedly won the election. With a swing of almost 38 per cent, the SNP defeated the Labour Party to capture the seat, garnering 46 per cent of the vote in a constituency that they had not even run in the 1966 general election. Although Ewing lost her seat in the subsequent general election, the SNP has maintained constant representation in the House of Commons ever since.
2012 Bradford West by-election - 36.6
The result, which George Galloway of the Respect Party dubbed the "Bradford Spring" (by comparison with the Arab Spring), saw Galloway defeat the Labour Party candidate by a significant majority, surprising everyone. The outcome of the election, according to Galloway, was Bradford's "peaceful democratic uprising" equivalent of the August 2011 riots that erupted across England.
The Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust commissioned a report to examine the campaign due to the unexpected outcome.
1993 Christchurch by-election - 35.4
On July 29, 1993, a by-election was conducted in the Christchurch British House of Commons seat in response to the passing of Conservative MP Robert Adley.
The outcome showed that the Liberal Democrats had gained more than 60 per cent of the vote, about twice as many as the Conservatives, and were noteworthy for having made the swing needed to win such a strong Conservative seat.
The 35.4 per cent swing, as of December 2021, is still the sixth-biggest swing in British politics history.
Other large by-election swings:
2021 North Shropshire - 34.2, Conservative to Liberal Democrats
1988 Glasgow Govan - 33.1, Labour to SNP
1972 Sutton and Cheam - 32.6, Conservative to Liberal
1979 Liverpool Edge Hill - 30.2, Labour to Liberal
2022 Tiverton and Honiton - 29.9, Conservative to Liberal Democrats
Nuray Bulbul
Fri, 20 October 2023
Biggest by-election swings of all time: Labour shocks Tories in Tamworth and Mid Bedfordshire
One of Britain's top electoral analysts has predicted that the Conservatives would lose the next general election more severely than they did in Tony Blair's landslide victory in 1997, following Labour's two historic by-election victories on Friday.
Labour achieved a great swing of 23.9 points in Tamworth, Staffordshire, which is high enough to be ranked as the second highest swing by Labour at a by-election since 1945.
Mid-Bedfordshire was also taken by Sir Keir Starmer's party, which managed to overthrow the highest numerical Conservative majority (24,664).
In the wake of the results, Sir John Curtice, a professor of politics at Strathclyde University, said on BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "It is reasonable to argue that the Conservative Party faces the serious prospect of losing the next General Election heavily, and maybe even more heavily than they did in 1997.”
Here are some of the biggest by-election swings.
What is a by-election?
When an MP resigns from their House of Commons seat during a parliament, either by resignation, death, disqualification, or expulsion, a local election known as a by-election is held.
The biggest by-election swings
1983 Bermondsey by-election - 44.2
On February 24, 1983, a by-election was conducted in the South London constituency of Bermondsey as a result of Labour MP Bob Mellish's departure. Simon Hughes was the Liberal Party candidate, and Peter Tatchell was the Labour Party candidate.
With the majority of votes cast, the Liberals won the seat after a fierce campaign in which they made significant gains. Labour's share of the vote dropped from 63.6 per cent in May 1979 to 26.1 per cent as Tatchell finished well behind. Robert Hughes, the Conservative candidate, received only fourth place and lost his deposit.
The Bermondsey by-election in 1983 continues to have the biggest swing in British political history, at 44.2 per cent.
2014 Clacton by-election - 44.1
Douglas Carswell, the Conservative MP for Clacton, defected to UKIP and then resigned his seat to run for re-election as its candidate, which sparked the by-election.
Retaining his seat with 59.7 per cent of the vote, Carswell then became UKIP's first elected Member of Parliament. Conservative finished second, followed by Labour. The outcome was the largest rise in the vote share for any party in any by-election in history, according to Strathclyde University politics professor John Curtice.
1973 Lincoln by-election - 43
Dick Taverne, a Labour MP for Lincoln, was re-elected in the March 1, 1973, Lincoln by-election after the Lincoln Constituency Labour Party rejected him due to his pro-Common Market stance.
Although Taverne helped fuel a lot of talk following the by-election on the potential creation of a new centrist party, Taverne was unable to sustain his lead.
1967 Hamilton by-election - 37.9
After Tom Fraser, the former Labour MP, resigned to become the chairman of the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board, a by-election was held.
From 1945 until 1966, when only the Conservatives had stood up to them, the constituency had been a safe seat for Labour, which had received almost two-thirds of the vote there.
Winnie Ewing of the Scottish National Party unexpectedly won the election. With a swing of almost 38 per cent, the SNP defeated the Labour Party to capture the seat, garnering 46 per cent of the vote in a constituency that they had not even run in the 1966 general election. Although Ewing lost her seat in the subsequent general election, the SNP has maintained constant representation in the House of Commons ever since.
2012 Bradford West by-election - 36.6
The result, which George Galloway of the Respect Party dubbed the "Bradford Spring" (by comparison with the Arab Spring), saw Galloway defeat the Labour Party candidate by a significant majority, surprising everyone. The outcome of the election, according to Galloway, was Bradford's "peaceful democratic uprising" equivalent of the August 2011 riots that erupted across England.
The Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust commissioned a report to examine the campaign due to the unexpected outcome.
1993 Christchurch by-election - 35.4
On July 29, 1993, a by-election was conducted in the Christchurch British House of Commons seat in response to the passing of Conservative MP Robert Adley.
The outcome showed that the Liberal Democrats had gained more than 60 per cent of the vote, about twice as many as the Conservatives, and were noteworthy for having made the swing needed to win such a strong Conservative seat.
The 35.4 per cent swing, as of December 2021, is still the sixth-biggest swing in British politics history.
Other large by-election swings:
2021 North Shropshire - 34.2, Conservative to Liberal Democrats
1988 Glasgow Govan - 33.1, Labour to SNP
1972 Sutton and Cheam - 32.6, Conservative to Liberal
1979 Liverpool Edge Hill - 30.2, Labour to Liberal
2022 Tiverton and Honiton - 29.9, Conservative to Liberal Democrats
‘There’s No Votes Left’: The Conservatives Are Stuck in Denial After Huge By-Election Defeats
Conservative Chairman Greg Hands claims the record-breaking defeats do not suggest voters are at all unhappy with the Prime Minister
Rishi Sunak and Greg Hands. Photomontage: PA Images / Alamy
There are two routes the Conservative Party could have taken in response to their huge defeats in the Tamworth and Mid Bedfordshire by-elections.
The first was to make it clear that they accept that the historic defeats – two of the biggest swings against a governing party ever recorded – were a demonstration of deep public dissatisfaction with the country’s direction and to reassure voters that they have a clear strategy to change course.
The second route, which was the one taken by the party’s Chairman Greg Hands on the airwaves on Friday morning, is to claim that the defeats were not actually that big, and were merely due to “legacy issues” with the departing MPs.
“I’m not denying the fact that Labour won those two seats but the Labour vote was actually down in Mid Bedfordshire and only up by about 800 votes in Tamworth,” Hands told the BBC.
“This wasn’t the case of electors moving over to Labour.”
At best this is deeply misleading and at worst it is outright delusional. While it is true to say that Labour’s total vote was down in Mid Bedfordshire compared to the last general election, so was every other party’s for the simple reason that it was a by-election and voter turnout is always lower in by-elections.
And when you look at actual voter share, it is clear that Labour’s vote was actually up massively from 2019. Indeed the swing to Labour in Tamworth was among the largest ever recorded, while in Mid Beds the party overcame the biggest by-election majority they have managed since the Second World War.
As Britain’s leading pollster John Curtice told the BBC, no UK Government has ever lost a seat as safe as Tamworth to the opposition ever. This is not just mid-term blues. These are historically large defeats which signal that the party is heading, not just for opposition, but for a potential wipeout at the next general election.
EXCLUSIVE
Rishi Sunak is an ‘Upper Class’ Leader of an ‘Elite’ and ‘Out of Touch’ Party, Say Voters
Exclusive new polling finds voters are not convinced by the Prime Minister’s party conference claim to represent ordinary people’s concerns, Adam Bienkov reports
Yet rather than accept this reality, Hands went onto claim that the results were somehow an endorsement of the Prime Minister.
“The conversations I had in Mid Bedfordshire and Tamworth [show that] people were happy with the job that Rishi Sunak is doing as Prime Minister”, Hands told Sky News.
It’s unclear exactly who Hands was speaking to on the doorstep over the past few weeks, yet if results like these don’t signal to the Conservative Party that voters are unhappy with their Prime Minister and Government, then nothing ever will.
Of course many backbench Conservative MPs have long since woken up to what is happening and have announced their plan to stand down at the next election, and take up careers outside of politics.
Yet inside Downing Street,Sunak and his loyal advisers remain intent on a strategy that entirely ignores the reality of what is actually happening in the country.
So while voters again and again have made it clear that their biggest concerns are surging living costs and the state of the NHS, Sunak’s party have instead spent recent months obsessing over fringe issues like ’15 minute cities’, university free speech and gender neutral toilets.
Even when the Government does deal with the big issues, Sunak only seems to make matters worse. His decision to focus his entire party conference in Manchester on his decision to scrap the HS2 link to the city – thereby trashing his own Government’s central claims to be “levelling up” the country – will surely go down as one of the most baffling political decisions ever made.
In recent months Hands has become known for regularly sharing the famous note left by Labour’s Liam Byrne to his successor when the party last left office, in which he joked that there was “no money” left.
The way things are now going, Hands will be leaving a quite similar note to his successor as Conservative Party chairman, when he likely steps down after the next general election.
Except in this case, instead of apologising for the Conservative party’s lack of money, he will be apologising for their lack of votes and lack of MPs.
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