After a decent conference speech, there was some hope among the Tories that Kemi Badenoch had finally turned the corner. Her PMQs performances are much more assured and there have been some notable Labour scalps secured by the party’s fabled ‘dark arts’ team. But this improvement appears not to have been recognised by the electorate, who continue to turf out Tories in various elections across the country.
Last night represented a continuation of this trend. Three Tory ‘big beasts’ suffered poor results in each of their respective patches. In Devon, Sir Mel Stride’s Conservatives saw the third Lib Dem gain in his seat in recent months. Across the country, Badenoch’s local branch lost the Shire ward on Saffron Walden parish council to a local residents’ group. And in the East Midlands, Robert Jenrick’s Tories suffered not one, but two defeats, in the Castle and Balderton North and Coddington wards on Newark council. None of the aforementioned seats were held by the Conservatives. A senior Reform source told Steerpike: ‘The Reform election machine is only getting stronger by the week, as Robert Jenrick found out tonight. The countdown to May is on.’
Elsewhere Reform gained a seat in Leicestershire and finished a decent second in Fife too, ahead of May. It means that Nigel Farage’s party has now won a total of 54 additional wards since the last local elections six months ago. How many more will they have gained by next May?
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