It’s only the beginning of a long weekend of election results, but so far so bad for Rishi Sunak’s Tory party. Even the veteran Tory commentator Tim Montgomerie has had enough, telling the BBC that the ‘results are so bad’ that Sunak ‘should go’. Meanwhile polling guru John Curtice predicts this weekend’s results will be ‘one of the worst, if not the worst, Conservative performances in local government elections for the last 40 years’. Ouch. And now, to add insult to injury, the Tories came a distant second to Labour in Blackpool South’s constituency by-election — only 117 votes ahead of Reform UK. Talk about being hit where it hurts…
In a career-ending newspaper sting, the area’s former Tory MP Scott Benton was caught offering to lobby ministers for the gambling industry. Promptly suspended from his party, the circumstances of the Tory rule-breaker’s dismissal didn’t leave the Conservatives in a particularly strong position going into the by-election. Meanwhile, Mr S noted some rather nervous commentary throughout the early hours as the prospect of Reform UK coming in second place to Labour was talked up. While the Conservative’s David Jones scraped ahead of Reform’s Mark Butcher a smidgen tightly, it’s a rather worrying sign of things to come for Sunak. Reform only stood candidates in one in seven council seats — but plans to stand 630 across the country in the upcoming national poll.
Indeed, Reform’s party leader Richard Tice couldn’t help himself from gloating on the airwaves. Telling BBC Radio 4’s Nick Robison that the situation was ‘neck-and-neck’ ahead of the result, Tice was confident that ‘this will be our best by-election result by a considerable margin’ adding: ‘We’re rapidly becoming the real opposition to the Labour Party in the North of England.’ Watch your back, Rishi…
Making no secret of his disdain for his competitors, the Reform leader blasted the tax-happy Tories: ‘There’s no difference between the two forms of socialism: ‘ConSocialism’ and Labour socialism.’ Unfazed by accusations that Reform UK could be helping pave the way to a Labour majority, Tice doubled down when quizzed by LBC’s Iain Dale:
Look there’s no difference between the two main parties. They’re two variants of socialism: high taxes, high government spending, mass immigration, unnecessary huge regulation, pro net zero. You can’t tell the difference between the two. The reality is we’ve got no growth, we’ve got the longest recession per person [for 70 years] and that’s what actually matters to individuals and households.
It’s a message that’s certainly cutting through to some voters, anyway…
Watch the clip here:
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