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‘Lib Dems will raze this place to the ground’: Mid Beds byelection duel could gift seat to Tories
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 16 Sep 2023
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This is the best summary I could come up with:
On a sunny morning in the village of Barton-le-Clay, Emma Holland-Lindsay, the Liberal Democrat candidate in next month’s Mid Bedfordshire byelection, is arguing that her party is best placed to overturn the huge Tory majority in the seat.
In this sprawling constituency, which is home to small towns, farms, new-build estates and dozens of villages, it is clear that support has flooded away from the Tories since Nadine Dorries, the outgoing MP, secured almost 60% of the vote and a majority just shy of 25,000 at the last election.
Complaints about access to GPs, the cost of living and Dorries’s alleged lack of presence in the seat regularly come up as the Labour and Lib Dem contenders knock on doors.
Yet the moment Dorries indicated she was resigning back in June, Labour’s high command saw it as a chance to show that Starmer’s new-look party could also compete for supposedly safe Tory seats.
They say there is considerable demographic change, with younger families moving into a significant amount of new-build housing, and lots of them commuting to the likes of London, Luton, Bedford and Milton Keynes.
Peter Kyle, the increasingly influential shadow cabinet minister who is overseeing the campaign, says the data he checks every morning suggests Labour is clearly the better-placed party – though he acknowledges the Tories could end up benefiting from a split vote.
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