Co-operation Key for the Conservatives to Lose in Mid Bedfordshire
Amidst speculation that Nadine Dorries' peerage would be delayed to prevent a by-election, the Mid Bedfordshire MP today made the surprise announcement that she was standing down anyway with immediate effect. This paves the way for a by-election in what would ordinarily look like a solid Tory seat. At the last election, the Conservatives won just under 60% of the vote, with Labour the nearest challenger on 21.7%. Even with the current state of polling, based on a Uniform National Swing, it looks like it could well stay in Tory hands.
However, electoral history from the past few years paints a different picture as the last by-elections have tended to go against the Tories. Most recently, Labour won in Wakefield and the Liberal Democrats in Tiverton and Honiton. When these elections took place, the national polling picture was not dissimilar to the current state of play. Labour had a lead of around 14%, compared to a lead today of 15.6%. Applying the swing from Tiverton and Honiton to Mid Bedfordshire would see a likely Conservative loss, however this is not the case for Wakefield. What's more in both of these by-elections, unlike Nadine Dorries, the incumbent Conservatives resigned amid scandal - which may have added to the opposition vote share.
Applying similar swings to the other two most recent Conservative by-elections, North Shropshire and Chesham and Amersham, would also each result in a Tory loss. However, again, local factors were at play in these results.
To add to complication, recent by-election oustings have owed a lot to tactical voting - in Wakefield the Liberal Democrats even lost vote share, on the same day it increased by 38.1% in Tiverton - and the situation isn't so clear cut in Mid Bedfordshire. As a solid Tory seat in the South of England, the Liberal Democrats would want to stake their claim as the main challenger, however this is made difficult when Labour has consistently finished second. The Liberal Democrat case may also be helped by the fact their seen as a more credible options for Conservative-leaning voters wanting to give the government a mid-term kick.
As our model shows, a national swing would put opposition parties on a comparable vote share to the Conservatives, and this could feasibly be surpassed in a mid-term election. Savanta's MRP, giving Labour a 3% lead in December when the Tory vote share was far worse, paints at a similarly close picture. Although recent history shows a Conservative loss in Mid Bedfordshire is more than possible, it may well depend on how well opposition parties can co-operate.
