By-elections latest: Boris Johnson blamed for Sunak’s ‘armageddon’ defeat in Tamworth and Mid Bedfordshire

George Osborne, the former Tory chancellor, had warned earlier in the night that losing Mid-Bedfordshire — a Tory seat since 1931 — would mean “Armageddon is coming for the Tory party”.

His podcast co-host Ed Balls, the former Labour shadow chancellor, said: “If Labour was to win Tamworth and mid-Beds it’s a political earthquake.”

Prof Curtice told the BBC: “No government has hitherto lost to the principal opposition party in a by-election a seat as safe as Tamworth.”

He added that the result shows the Tories “may get caught in a pincer movement between some of their former Leave voters wandering off to Labour but others going off to Reform UK”.

Prof Curtice said the two results were “extremely bad news” for the Conservatives and suggested Mr Sunak was on course for general election defeat.

“This isn’t destiny, but it is a pointer and it is a pointer that, unless the Conservatives can fairly dramatically and fairly radically turn things around, then they are in truth staring defeat in the face in 12 months’ time.”

Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives are “staring defeat in the face” after devastating back to back by-election losses in safe Tory seats.

Polling guru Professor John Curtice said the Conservatives have not faced a slew of such poor by-election results since the run up to the 1997 general election, in which Tony Blair’s Labour won a landslide.

And Sir John warned that without a “dramatic and radical” turnaround, the Conservatives are on course for defeat in the next election, expected in less than a year.

His comments came after Labour secured shock wins in the Tamworth and Mid Bedfordshire by-elections, which Sir Keir Starmer said showed he was “redrawing the political map”.

Read this joint report from Archie Mitchell and Kate Devlin:

Sir Keir Starmer claimed Labour was “redrawing the political map” by overturning huge Tory majorities in Tamworth and Mid Bedfordshire and dealing a double by-election blow to Rishi Sunak.

In Tamworth, Labour’s Sarah Edwards overcome a 19,000 majority and defeated Conservative rival Andrew Cooper by a majority of 1,316.

The result in the “red wall” Midlands seat saw a mammoth 23.9 per cent swing from the Tories to Labour. Polling guru Prof John Curtice said “no government has lost a seat as safe as Tamworth”.

In Mid-Bedfordshire, Alistair Strathern overcame a 24,000 majority by taking the seat by 1,192 votes over his Tory rival Festus Akinbusoye – a swing of 20.5 percentage points to Labour.

Our political correspondent Adam Forrest reports:

A Conservative defeat in Tamworth should be seen in context, says Tory spokesperson.

“This is a difficult result on much-reduced turnout,” the party spokesperson told BBC.

“But it’s important to see it in context. The government of the day rarely wins by-elections and there were specific reasons around the nature of the departure of the previous MP.”

“It’s disappointing that Andy Cooper has not won, he has lived there his whole life and knows the issues local people are facing,” the spokesman added.

“He will continue to fight for the people of Tamworth in his role as a local councillor.”

A Conservative minister has denied the party needs to change course in the wake of two historic by-election defeats overnight.

Andrew Bowie said there is “always room for improvement,” but insisted the Tories are “on the right course” despite the losses.

Tamworth and Mid Bedfordshire’s by-elections saw two of the biggest swings against the Conservatives since the second world war.

But Mr Bowie told Sky News: “We’ve got to take notice and listen to what the voters are telling us. But what’s been quite clear on the doorsteps is that people actually do agree with our priorities.”

But he added: “There is no groundswell of support for the Labour Party. What that tells me is that people are supportive of what we’re doing, but they just were not prepared to come out and vote for us.”

To win Tamworth, Labour needed a swing in the share of the vote of 21.4 percentage points: the equivalent of a net change of 22 in every 100 people who voted Conservative at the 2019 general election switching sides.

In the event, they pulled off an even bigger swing of 23.9 points: high enough to rank as the second largest swing recorded by Labour at a by-election since 1945.

The largest was 29.1 points at the Dudley West by-election in December 1994.

The Conservative majority overturned by Labour in Tamworth was 19,634: smaller than in Mid Bedfordshire, but still a sizeable number.

The Tories’ share of the vote dropped sharply from 66% at the 2019 general election to 41 per cent, while Labour’s share rose from 24 per cent to 46 per cent.

The Liberal Democrats finished in seventh place, behind a variety of parties including Reform and the Greens.

This is a very different outcome from their third-place finish in Mid Bedfordshire and suggests a degree of tactical voting might have occurred, with some Lib Dem supporters possibly voting Labour, having concluded that Labour had the best chance of defeating the Conservatives.

The outcome in Tamworth has an intriguing parallel with a by-election in the 1990s.

Before 1997, this area of the country was represented by the constituency of South East Staffordshire.

A by-election took place in South East Staffordshire in April 1996, roughly one year ahead of a general election.

Then, as now, the Conservatives went into the contest defending a large majority.

And then, as now, Labour won the seat on a huge swing: 22.1 percentage points, very close to the 23.9 point swing they achieved in Tamworth on Thursday.

Of the 10 seats to have changed hands at parliamentary by-elections in the past three years, eight of them involved swings of 20 percentage points or higher: a pattern that is unprecedented in recent political history.

Five of these eight swings have occurred in the past four months: Selby & Ainsty (23.7 points from Conservatives to Labour) and Somerton & Frome (29.0 points from Conservatives to the Liberal Democrats) in July; Rutherglen & Hamilton West (20.4 points from the SNP to Labour) earlier this month, and now Mid Bedfordshire (20.5 points) and Tamworth (23.9 points), both from Conservatives to Labour.

The others were Tiverton & Honiton (29.9 points) in June 2022, North Shropshire (34.1 points) in December 2021, and Chesham & Amersham (25.2 points) in June 2021, all from the Conservatives to the Liberal Democrats.

The remaining two seats to have changed hands at by-elections in the last three years are Wakefield, gained by Labour from the Conservatives in June 2022 on a swing of 12.7 points; and Hartlepool, gained by the Tories from Labour in May 2021 on a swing of 16.0 points.

Labour has made history by winning Mid Bedfordshire.

The result represents the largest numerical Conservative majority (24,664) to be overturned by the party at a by-election since 1945.

The seat has existed since 1918 and had elected Tory MPs continuously since 1931 - until now.

To win Mid-Bedfordshire, Labour needed a swing in the share of the vote of 19.1 percentage points.

In other words, a net change of 20 in every 100 people who voted Conservative in 2019 needed to switch sides to Labour.

They managed a swing of 20.5 points, almost matching the 20.4 point swing the party achieved at the Rutherglen & Hamilton West by-election earlier in October, when they won the seat from the SNP.

The Conservative share of the vote in Mid Bedfordshire fell from 38 per cent at the 2019 general election to 31 per cent, while Labour jumped from 22 per cent to 34 per cent.

The Liberal Democrats also improved on their performance in 2019, increasing their vote share from 13 per cent to 23 per cent.

Both Labour and the Lib Dems had presented themselves as the main challenger to the Conservatives in Mid Bedfordshire and such a three-way contest was always likely to deliver a close result.