Tough by-elections for Tories may reignite criticism from Sunak’s right

Good morning. Forget Shrove Tuesday and Valentine’s Day, finally we’ve arrived at the apex of the week: by-election day. 

Voters are heading to the polls in both Wellingborough in the Midlands and Kingswood in the south-west between 7am and 10pm — with the Tories bracing for defeats in both.

In more bad news for Rishi Sunak, GDP figures published this morning showed that Britain entered a technical recession at the end of 2023. It’s another setback for his now-notorious five pledges, this time regarding his vow to grow the economy, and his campaign narrative about competence. 

Guess it’s just us and the tumbleweed

We all know the Conservatives are languishing far behind Labour in the national polls — by an average of about 19 points, according to the FT’s poll of polls (shown at the foot of this newsletter).

But is that any justification for essentially “giving up” on two blue seats? That’s the allegation levied against Tory chiefs by some disgruntled party insiders.

Usually in a by-election, Conservative MPs are ordered to spend between one and three days campaigning on the ground, but no such instructions materialised ahead of the ballots taking place today.

As such, left to their own devices, few Tories have taken up the mantle. Only a clutch of MPs have paid a visit to Wellingborough in recent weeks — and even fewer have deigned to promote their presence on social media.

Members of the Reform UK party claim that it fell to them to invite to the pub one lonely Tory councillor who travelled up from Surrey to help campaign last weekend, so bereft of company was the activist at the end of a day’s pavement-pounding.

By stark contrast Labour officials boast that more than 100 of the party’s MPs have turned out to support their candidate Gen Kitchen, including party leader Keir Starmer, shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves and a host of other shadow cabinet ministers.

As I write in my dispatch from the seat this week, the by-election has arisen in far from auspicious circumstances for the Tories.

Last October a parliamentary watchdog found that then-incumbent Tory MP Peter Bone had verbally bullied, physically struck and exposed himself to an employee.

Bone denied the allegations, branding them false and untrue, but the House of Commons approved a recommended six-week suspension, which in turn prompted a recall petition. Just over 13 per cent of local electors signed it, clearing the 10 per cent threshold required to trigger a ballot.

Another chapter of intrigue followed when the constituency Tory party selected Helen Harrison as its replacement candidate. The 51-year-old local councillor is Bone’s girlfriend. Rishi Sunak declined to endorse her, insisting selection was a matter for the local party.

All in all, it has not been an ideal position from which to defend incumbency.

Still, the Conservatives won a robust 18,540 vote majority at the last general election, and this is a part of the country that psephologist Lewis Baston describes as “a traditional bit of Midlands urban England” that is “very non-metropolitan”. It shouldn’t be a seat easily swept by Labour, now the bookmakers’ favourite to win.

The Tories’ decision to run a “tumbleweed” campaign has, perhaps unsurprisingly, prompted party figures’ grumbles to surface in the local paper, the Northamptonshire Telegraph.

It has also perplexed many Conservative MPs and activists. “There have been no whips’ organised days of campaigning. Beats me why,” said one MP, mulling over the party’s handling of both by-election campaigns.

In Kingswood, the by-election is the result of incumbent Tory MP Chris Skidmore quitting the Commons in protest at the UK government’s plans to drill for more North Sea oil.

Tory officials explain away the low key campaigns by appealing to the fact that Wellingborough will be fought again shortly at the general election, while the seat of Kingswood will disappear in its current format under the boundary changes. “Not thought to be a good use of £200,000,” was the verdict of one Conservative insider.

More cynical explanations have been aired by Sunak’s critics on the right of the party, however. One claimed that the prime minister’s allies had decided to fight the contests less aggressively in a bid to lower expectations and thereby lower the salience of any dismal results.

Further, the rightwing rebel insider suggested Tory chiefs may also have wanted to avoid sending MPs out on the ground where they would have been exposed to voters’ complaints about the party.

These grievances are focused heavily on Sunak himself, as well as his administration’s failure to crack down on immigration, the argument among many on the right goes.

Although in no way a scientific survey, discontent with Sunak’s leadership, the cost of living, the health service and migration did indeed abound in many of my conversations with voters outside the Swansgate shopping centre in Wellingborough on Tuesday.

While it is Labour that is hopeful of victory in the constituency, I was also struck by the number of local residents who told me Reform — a party polling just below 10 per cent nationally — had snared their attention.

Asking these voters how they had come across Nigel Farage and Richard Tice’s party, the answer was uniform: the rightwing broadcaster GB News. The station clearly has more purchase in some parts of the country than I had previously realised.

The PM’s detractors have muted their criticism of him in the past three weeks, a strategy designed to underscore the claim they have given him a “clear run” ahead of the by-elections and to avoid blame in the event of devastating defeats.

Of course, it has been a mightily tough week for Keir Starmer and the Conservatives could yet outperform expectations. But if not, we could see this period of silence from the Tory right end tomorrow. Watch this space . . . 

Now try this

I enjoyed Jez Butterworth’s new female-centric play The Hills of California, which opened in the West End last month, about four sisters and their mother in mid-20th century Blackpool.

I found it a sympathetic portrayal of compromised women and an affecting story about thwarted dreams, sexual abuse, shame and motherhood.

My husband was less convinced, however, and I’ve clocked a similar gender split in the opinions of friends who’ve seen it. There’s even a hint of such a divide among the critics: the FT’s Sarah Hemming awarded it five stars, while The Times’ Clive Davis gave it only three.

I’m off to the theatre again tonight to see Standing at the Sky’s Edge, the improbable-sounding musical set in a brutalist housing estate in Sheffield.

My colleague George Parker was in the audience last night and gave it a rave review — “touching and uplifting . . . a social history of modern Britain with great tunes!”

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