Nadine Dorries likes attention. She titillated British politics for 78 days with two non-events: Boris Johnson’s breach of promise over a much-desired peerage and her desire to cease serving her constituents as MP for Mid-Bedfordshire.
Dorries must be disappointed that her long-anticipated departure from the Commons barely makes it onto the front pages this week. She did not go quietly. Her spiteful 1777-word resignation letter, in which she tells the Prime Minister: “You have abandoned the fundamental principles of Conservatism. History will not judge you kindly”, was released as a feature to The Mail on Sunday. She followed up with an equally disloyal interview on Talk TV, the other media outlet that pays her. Few seemed to care.
The parliamentary by-election that she has precipitated in the home counties is likely to bring her some comfort. It will be big news. While we wait for the general election, it will attract intense, possibly disproportionate, scrutiny as we attempt to divine the political mood of the nation.
All three main political parties have something to lose in this contest.
There is every indication that support for the Tories will be dramatically down on the 59.79 per cent, 24,664 vote majority, Dorries won in 2019.
But the Conservatives could yet cling on. In part because it would require record-breaking swings for either Labour or Liberal Democrats to capture such a strongly held Conservative bastion. Mid Beds is the 97th safest Conservative seat out of 365 in terms of percentage majority. Professor Michael Thrasher says this by-election will be “a good test of the tactical voting conundrum”. If both main opposition parties push their claims, “these point to an improbable Con hold”.
Unlike in the previous by-election seats of this parliament which have been snatched from the Conservatives, there has been no unspoken agreement between the opposition parties quietly to allow one of them to take precedence in the campaign. Labour was thin on the ground in Chesham & Amersham, North Shropshire, Tiverton & Honiton and Somerton & Frome, all captured by the LibDems with massive swings of 25 per cent, 24 per cent, 30 per cent and 29 per cent. Similarly, the Liberal Democrats barely featured in the Labour gains in Wakefield and Selby and the hold in Batley & Spen. They lost their deposit in Uxbridge & South Ruislip but that still was not enough for Labour to take Boris Johnson’s vacated constituency, with a modest 6 per cent swing.
Labour has less of a spectacular track record at by-elections than the Liberal Democrats. This is what emboldens Ed Davey to claim that his party have a good chance in Mid Beds. Statistically, it looks like Labour’s the challenger; Labour was a comfortable second at the last election with 21.68 per cent of the vote, far ahead of the LibDems on 12.63 per cent.
The phoney war so far has been the exception, in that LibDem leaflets have not featured dubious bar charts claiming “Only We” can beat the Tories. Instead, they have fallen back on the claim that they are “the bookies’ favourites”. Bookmakers have their own commercial reasons for setting the odds and they are notoriously unreliable predictors of election outcomes. Mark Peck, a LibDem activist and pollster, has also done his best to question the only hard bit of polling evidence so far, which favours Labour.
On 2 July, days after Dorries announced her intention of standing down, Opinium Research’s figures in Mid Beds were Lab: 28 per cent (+6), Con: 24 per cent (-36), Independent: 19 per cent (New), LibDem: 15 per cent (+2), Reform: 10 per cent (-). Around the same time, Sir Keir Starmer despatched Peter Kyle, Shadow Northern Ireland secretary and a rising star, to run the campaign in Mid Beds. Labour does not want to repeat the reputational damage and disruption it suffered after falling short in Uxbridge. Starmer’s leadership also faces an equally important test of credibility, this time against the SNP, in the other imminent by-election in Rutherglen & South Hamilton.
As yet Labour is not overclaiming on its chances in Bedfordshire and it is deliberately not going negative against its opponents. Nonetheless, Labour strategists believe the LibDems would be well advised to back off. They argue that Mid Beds is not a leafy shire where the LibDems are the only palatable alternative for traditional Tory voters, as was the case in the by-elections this parliament to the west of London which the LibDems have won and in the disgraced Owen Patterson’s old seat in Shropshire, where they came from third place.
The Conservatives have held Mid Beds continuously since 1931. Its affluence indicators are above average, Labour concedes, but it is neither rich nor posh, and neither economically nor socially liberal. The constituency comprises two small towns and more than fifty villages, occupied by people priced out of the nearby metropolises of Luton, Milton Keynes and Bedford, let alone London.
Labour followed Dorries’s final demarche by releasing a video online of Starmer’s recent visit to the constituency. Seated in his modest parlour, Ken, a local voter, tells the Labour leader, accompanied by his deputy Angela Rayner and the candidate Alistair Strathern: “I am commonly known as a disillusioned disaffected Tory. I really thought Boris was going to be the man and I am so disappointed…The Labour party appears to have the finger on what I want, bills are going up….you, in person, seem to be the right person for the job. I will vote Labour”. So far, Labour reports it has planted more than two hundred “garden stake” billboards on private property with the consent of the owners, three-quarters of them straight switchers from the Conservatives.
As so often in by-elections the candidates’ local credentials are being closely examined – and all of them have some genuine claims. The Liberal Democrat Emma Holland-Lindsay says she is “third generation Bedfordshire”; she is press officer for the Women’s Institute. Labour’s Strathern has been attacked by his opponents as the “candidate from London”, where he is a councillor and Bank of England employee. He both went to school and worked as a teacher locally. The chair of Central Bedfordshire Council Gareth Mackey, has confirmed he is standing as an independent and could well cost the Tories votes.
Festus Akinbusoye, the Conservative candidate, embodies the deep splits in Conservative ranks. A Mormon of Nigerian descent, he previously stood for parliament in West Ham and backed Remain in the EU referendum. He is now Bedfordshire Police and Crime Commissioner. He has previously been endorsed by Dorries and appeared on social media with her but now says he is “delighted” that the by-election is taking place.
Most of Dorries’ resignation letter, with its bitter personal attacks on Rishi Sunak and disparagement of the government’s record, could be printed straight onto his opponents’ campaign literature. Akinbusoye will be repeatedly challenged on where he stands.
Opposition canvassers report that “Ken” typifies the mood in Mid Beds. For now, hard hard-pressed voters are “done with the Conservatives”. But there are many “don’t knows”. They are spoilt for suitors and have yet even to commit to “a fling” with either Labour or LibDems, safe in the knowledge that they could go back to the Conservatives at a general election in a matter of months.
Sunak has gambled on pushing Dorries out now because if she goes on “dossing” she will only make things worse for him. He also knows that, whatever the opinion polls say, it will be a setback for Labour if it fails to clear this very high bar in Mid Beds.
The date chosen for the by-election will be a sign of how confident the Conservatives are of hanging on when they move the writ, as expected, next week. A short campaign could get it out of the way before the Conservative Party conference at the end of this month and embarrass Labour who follow with their conference in the second week of October. Delaying until then would indicate nervousness.
Professor Thrasher points out: “if Labour win it they’ll start singing ‘Things Can Only Get Better’ again and demonstrate momentum in southern England”. The sometime Conservative cabinet minister Nadine Dorries will be remembered in the political history books – for all the wrong reasons.
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