After a crushing week, MPs fear they will need a miracle to hold on to power
As Keir Starmer embarked on a triumphant victory dash, first to Bedfordshire then to Tamworth in Staffordshire on Friday morning, Tory MPs sitting at home digesting the bombshell byelection news had hit rock bottom.
One Tory MP with a majority over Labour of almost 20,000 in his partly rural, partly urban seat in south-east England, said that virtually every Conservative-held area – however secure at elections past – was now up for grabs. “You can’t put any other gloss on it other than that it is bloody awful,” he said.
The prime minister, after almost 12 months in office, would define himself more clearly as the candidate of “change”, and it would be game on, or so his team of Downing Street strategists claimed. Gavin Barwell, former chief of staff to Theresa May, had an entirely different and far more negative assessment of his party’s performance, saying the Tories were now in “deep, deep trouble in terms of the election.”
Labour strategists point to other factors. One senior source said that it “was incredible just how badly Sunak personally has screwed things up over recent months”. Kyle added that on doorsteps, people wanted to engage with Labour. “They wanted a conversation with Labour. There was no door-slamming. Just very focused engagement and very civilised conversations with us. It was very exhilarating.”
Senior figures on the right are pointing out that the share of the vote secured by Reform, which campaigns on “doing Brexit properly”, was bigger than the Labour majority in both polls on Thursday.
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