Senior Tories predict loss in Blackpool by-election as counting gets under way

Published

1 year ago

May 2, 2024

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Senior Tories are predicting they will lose the Blackpool South by-election as counting gets under way.

Sources told Sky News’ political correspondent Tamara Cohen they did “not expect to hold” the seat – which they won with a 3,690 majority in 2019.

And they said the “stars could not be more aligned against us” following scandals hitting local MPs.

Follow live: Tories braced for potentially difficult night in local elections

The by-election was called after the former Conservative MP Scott Benton was caught in a sting by the Times newspaper, suggesting he was willing to break lobbying rules for money.

As a result, he was suspended from the Commons for 35 days, meaning he was subject to a recall petition in his constituency.

But instead of facing removal from his seat, Mr Benton resigned from parliament, triggering a vote for a new MP.

In an added painful twist for the Tories, the candidate standing to replace him, David Jones, was revealed as the chairman of the Fylde Conservatives – the area represented by the latest scandal hit MP Mark Menzies.

Mr Menzies hit the headlines after claims he misused campaign funds – including by calling a member of the local association to say he was locked in a flat by “bad people” and needed £5,000 as a matter of “life and death”.

Mr Jones denied he knew anything about the incident – which was allegedly reported to the Conservative Party three months ago – until it was revealed in the media.

Labour sources told Sky News they were confident of a win in Blackpool South, despite it being a seat held by the Tories for 57 of the 78 years it has existed.

However, Labour did hold the constituency between 1997 and 2019 – before Boris Johnson and the Conservatives won over a number of the so-called Red Wall seats in the north of England.

At the by-election, Labour claimed their activists on the doorsteps reported large numbers of former Tory voters saying they would be voting Labour for the first time.

The by-election comes at the same time as a range of local council, mayoral, and police and crime commissioner votes across both England and Wales.

Tory sources told Tamara Cohen they were expecting to lose upwards of 500 seats, which would be a big blow to the party ahead of a general election.

But Labour sources claimed the number would be far fewer – despite the party bounding ahead of the Conservatives in national polling.

Speaking to Sky News late on Thursday night, Labour Party chair Anneliese Dodds would not put a number on how many council seats would be a good result for her, saying: “I think the key thing is going to be to see whether Labour is moving forward in those areas where it’s really critical that we build support before the next general election.”

Follow our live coverage of the election results from midnight – find the full details here.

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Crypto’s path to legitimacy runs through the CARF regulation

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Rachel Reeves hints at tax rises in autumn budget after welfare bill U-turn

Published

19 hours ago

July 5, 2025

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Rachel Reeves hints at tax rises in autumn budget after welfare bill U-turn

Rachel Reeves has hinted that taxes are likely to be raised this autumn after a major U-turn on the government’s controversial welfare bill.

Sir Keir Starmer’s Universal Credit and Personal Independent Payment Bill passed through the House of Commons on Tuesday after multiple concessions and threats of a major rebellion.

MPs ended up voting for only one part of the plan: a cut to universal credit (UC) sickness benefits for new claimants from £97 a week to £50 from 2026/7.

Initially aimed at saving £5.5bn, it now leaves the government with an estimated £5.5bn black hole – close to breaching Ms Reeves’s fiscal rules set out last year.

In an interview with The Guardian, the chancellor did not rule out tax rises later in the year, saying there were “costs” to watering down the welfare bill.

“I’m not going to [rule out tax rises], because it would be irresponsible for a chancellor to do that,” Ms Reeves told the outlet.

“We took the decisions last year to draw a line under unfunded commitments and economic mismanagement.

“So we’ll never have to do something like that again. But there are costs to what happened.”

Meanwhile, The Times reported that, ahead of the Commons vote on the welfare bill, Ms Reeves told cabinet ministers the decision to offer concessions would mean taxes would have to be raised.

The outlet reported that the chancellor said the tax rises would be smaller than those announced in the 2024 budget, but that she is expected to have to raise tens of billions more.

It comes after Ms Reeves said she was “totally” up to continuing as chancellor after appearing tearful at Prime Minister’s Questions.

Criticising Sir Keir for the U-turns on benefit reform during PMQs, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said the chancellor looked “absolutely miserable”, and questioned whether she would remain in post until the next election.

Sir Keir did not explicitly say that she would, and Ms Badenoch interjected to say: “How awful for the chancellor that he couldn’t confirm that she would stay in place.”

In her first comments after the incident, Ms Reeves said she was having a “tough day” before adding: “People saw I was upset, but that was yesterday.

“Today’s a new day and I’m just cracking on with the job.”

Sir Keir also told Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby on Thursday that he “didn’t appreciate” that Ms Reeves was crying in the Commons.

“In PMQs, it is bang, bang, bang,” he said. “That’s what it was yesterday.

“And therefore, I was probably the last to appreciate anything else going on in the chamber, and that’s just a straightforward human explanation, common sense explanation.”