Dorries Walks - Lib Dems Mobilise

News overnight is that while the resignation honours list proposed by disgraced formerly occasional Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson has been passed by his successor Rishi Sunak, some of the names therein have been removed. Of those removed, some may return later, while at least one should not be coming back at all. So what’s happening?

And it's goodbye from her

Bozo had apparently proposed a knighthood for his father Stanley, but here a serious problem entered: quite apart from accusations of nepotism - his brother Jo already got a peerage - Johnson père is known as a wife-beater, a skill he supposedly practiced even when young Bozo was in the vicinity and able to see his dad’s handiwork. So his name may not be coming back.

But two names which probably will return are Alok Sharma, at present MP for Reading West, and (yes, it’s her again) Nadine Dorries, still MP for Mid-Bedfordshire despite hosting a regular show for Murdoch noise floor occupant TalkTV. Both were, it seems, slated to go to the Lords, which would have triggered by-elections in their constituencies. So what’s the problem?

Sharma’s seat presents an obvious vulnerability for the Tories: his majority in 2019 was just over 4,100, with Labour in second place. The Tories had already lost Reading East in 2017, when Rob Wilson lost the seat. Labour increased their 2017 majority two years later. A by-election in Reading West would be the equivalent of a gimme for Labour. But Mid-Bedfordshire?

The fragrant Nadine is sitting on a majority of 24,600. Are the Tories frightened of losing a seat that safe? Well, in a word, yes. And it isn’t Labour that is frightening them. It’s the Liberal Democrats, despite Labour having been runners-up in 2015, 2017 and 2019. That’s because before the ill-advised Tory-Lib Dem coalition, the latter ran Ms Dorries the closest.

The Lib Dems got within 11,550 votes in 2005, and 15,150 five years after that. Which may seem a long way short, but, as the saying goes, that was then, but this is now. As in, after November 2021, which is when the Lib Dems won a by-election victory in North Shropshire: Helen Morgan had placed third, behind Labour, in 2019. The Tories were sitting on a 23,000 majority.

Ms Morgan turned that into a 5,900 majority for her party. On that kind of swing, whoever the Tories put up to succeed The Fragrant Nadine would almost certainly lose. Also, North Shropshire was not an isolated example: as with Owen Paterson having to step down in the former seat, the disgraced Neil Parish had to do likewise in Tiverton and Honiton last year.

Parish’s majority was 24,200. Once again, the Lib Dems advanced from third place to overturn that majority and create a 6,100 majority of their own. On those kinds of numbers, the Tories would lose Mid Bedfordshire, which they have held continuously since 1931. Moreover, there are two more reasons why the Tories would rather not face a by-election there any time soon.

One, in this year’s round of local elections, the Tories lost their majority on Central Bedfordshire Council, losing 21 of their 41 seats. The party had held a majority of seats since the council’s creation in 2009. And Two, Mid Bedfordshire is just down the road from the City of St Albans, held since 2019 by Lib Dem deputy leader Daisy Cooper, a formidable campaigner.

So this morning, Ms Dorries told TalkTV “The last thing I would want to do would be to cause a by-election in my constituency” and many observers took her at her word. But five hours later, all had changed: the BBC has now told that The Fragrant Nadine is standing down as an MP “with immediate effect”. “It means there will be a by-election in her Mid Bedfordshire constituency, where she has a majority of 24,664”. The Lib Dems are already mobilising.

Ms Dorries’ pals, the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog, suggest a Tory hold, but this is disingenuous claptrap: that was a General Election scenario, not a one-off by-election. North Shropshire, Tiverton and Honiton … and Mid Bedfordshire.

Is she doing it to spite Sunak? Who cares? More excellent spectator sport.

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