‘Safe’ Tory seat of Huntingdon predicted to go red
Sunday, June 30, 2024 at 14:30 According to an election predictor app on the Telegraph website, the Conservatives are set to lose Huntingdon, the constituency in which I live, to Labour.
To be fair, there have been boundary changes so this is technically a new constituency, but for decades Huntingdon was one of the safest Tory seats in the country.
To lose a seat previously held by John Major (who even in 1997 had a majority of 18,140) and, more recently, Jonathan Djanogly (whose 2019 majority was 19,383), would be remarkable.
As it happens the new Conservative candidate, Ben Obese-Jecty, seems a decent guy well suited to Parliament.
A former British army officer, a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, he’s also worked in the private sector and is a former Conservative association chairman, which suggests a commitment to the party noticeably lacking in some former MPs.
Meanwhile his Labour opponent looks young enough to be his daughter. OK, that’s an exaggeration (and probably ageist!) but I think it highlights a problem we’re going to have in the new Parliament.
There are going to be hundreds of MPs who, I suspect, never expected to win their seats when they were selected as candidates.
A few (including the Labour PPC for Huntingdon) may rise to the challenge of their new job, but many more are going to be hopelessly out of their depth, and the repercussions for Parliament, local constituencies, and the country at large could be enormous.
Personally, I’m still torn on whether or not to vote at all, and I’ve never ever felt like that ahead of a general election.
Although I don’t want to reward the Conservatives or Rishi Sunak with my vote, I can’t bring myself to vote for anyone else so it’s difficult.
I toyed with the idea of voting for Reform but I just can’t do it, and a major factor was a convincing article by Annunziata Rees-Mogg, a former Brexit Party MEP.
Based on first hand experience of Farage and Richard Tice, she shares her thoughts on Reform and uniting the right after the election. (Good luck with that!)
Do read it if you can - Why I’m backing the Tories over Reform (The Spectator).
PS. Interestingly, as you can see below, the Telegraph app is predicting that Reform will come third in Huntingdon, thereby splitting the Conservative vote and handing the seat to Labour.
How often will that scenario play out on Thursday?
Update: The Conservatives held Huntingdon, albeit with a much reduced majority (1,499, down from 19,383).
The Lib Dem vote fell from 9,432 to 4,821, which suggests some tactical voting although the votes didn’t all go to Labour which only increased its vote by 3,755.
Reform attracted 8,039 votes and came third - almost but not quite enough to unseat the Tories.
What is clear is that, in this previously safe Conservative seat, the local party is going to have to work much harder to retain or regain support.
Although my village is overwhelmingly Conservative (or conservative), judging by newspaper sales in the local shop, I can’t remember the last time a Tory candidate canvassed the area, even though the previous (Conservative) MP lives just around the corner.
If you take people’s support for granted it will eventually come back and bite you.
Update: The Conservative candidate Ben Obese-Jecty won the seat with 18,257 votes, a slim majority of 1,499 compared to 19,383 in 2019.
Labour came second with 16,758 votes, and Reform was third with 8,039.
Reader Comments (1)
There is only one party who would almost certainly stop the further persecution of smokers and possibly even reverse the relentless banning of anything related to tobacco and that of course is Reform UK so I find it astonishing that the one person who is supposed to stand up for smoker's rights finds himself unable to vote for them.
It says rather a lot about someone who many smokers regard as merely an apologist.