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

Published

2 weeks 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.

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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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Jeremy Hunt to promise further tax cuts as pre-general election battle hots up

Published

14 hours ago

May 16, 2024

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Jeremy Hunt to promise further tax cuts as pre-general election battle hots up

Jeremy Hunt will promise further tax cuts if the Tories win the next general election and will accuse the Labour Party of not being honest about how it will fund its spending pledges.

The chancellor will give a speech in London on Friday in which he will accuse his shadow, Rachel Reeves, of resorting to “playground politics” with her criticism of the high levels of taxation on UK households.

Mr Hunt will also reiterate his ambition to eradicate the national insurance tax – which the Tories have already slashed twice in a bid to move the polls – where they currently lag 20 points behind Labour.

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Labour has attacked the policy as an unfunded £46bn pledge and likened it to the policies that saw Liz Truss resign from office after just 44 days as prime minister.

The chancellor was previously forced to make clear that his desire to abolish the “unfair” national insurance tax would not happen “any time soon”.

The chancellor described national insurance as a “tax on work” and said he believed it was “unfair that we tax work twice” when other forms of income are only taxed once.

The overall tax burden is expected to increase over the next five years to around 37% of gross domestic product – close to a post-Second World War high – but Mr Hunt will argue the furlough scheme brought in during the pandemic and the help the government gave households for heating both needed to be paid for.

“Labour like to criticise tax rises this parliament thinking people don’t know why they have gone up – the furlough scheme, the energy price guarantee and billions of pounds of cost-of-living support, policies Labour themselves supported,” he will say.

“Which is why it is playground politics to use those tax rises to distract debate from the biggest divide in British politics – which is what happens next.

“Conservatives recognise that whilst those tax rises may have been necessary, they should not be permanent. Labour do not.”

James Murray, Labour’s shadow financial secretary to the Treasury, said: “There is nothing Jeremy Hunt can say or do to hide that fact that working people are worse off after 14 years of economic failure under the Conservatives.”