Local elections live blog: Khan returned as Mayor of London | Conservative Home

5.00pm

• Conservative MP Paul Scully says the Conservatives ran an “incredibly underwhelming campaign” in the capital, and “gifted” Khan the win.
• Labour holds the West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner post. Also the Merseyside Police and Crime Commissioner post.

4.30pm

• Stroud remains under no overall control. the Conservatives lost 13 seats here.
• Labour hold North Tyneside.
• With 106 of 107 councils to declare the Conservatives have net losses of 473. That is broadly in line with predictions. But Labour only has net gains of 185. Independents, the Lib Dems and the Green Party have also advanced.

4.00pm

Despite all the speculation of an upset or a narrow result, Sadiq Khan has been comfortably re-elected as Mayor of London. He has secured a third term with an increased majority. He won with 44 per cent of the vote, beating Conservative Susan Hall on 33 per cent. This will be a relief not only to the Labour Party but also to the opinion pollsters. Commiserations to Susan Hall, the Conservative candidate, who had to put up a lot of personal abuse and misrepresentation. It is worth noting that Khan has still performed very poorly compared to what would be expected of a Labour candidate in London. There was a YouGov poll for The Times on Thursday which had Labour 26 points ahead nationally. Labour would be expected to do much better in London than nationally – not much worse.

3.30pm

• David Sidwick has been returned as the Conservative Police and Crime Commissioner for Dorset. He wrote a piece for us about fighting the drugs menace in his county last week.  Our congratulations to him.

3.15pm

• Andy Burnham has won another term as Greater Manchester Mayor for Labour with more than 420,000 votes.
• Labour’s Tracy Brabin has been elected Mayor of West Yorkshire with 50.4 per cent of the vote.

3.00pm

• Counting in the Greater Manchester mayoral race is underway. The turnout here was 32.1 per cent.
• Labour has held Warrington.

2.30pm

• Matthew Barber has been re-elected as the Conservative Police and Crime Commissioner for Thames Valley. Philip Seccombe has been re-elected as the Conservative Police and Crime Commissioner for Warwickshire. Congratulations to both.

1.45pm

• The BBC is reporting that the West Midlands Mayoral race “is on a knife edge.”
• Further declarations in the Mayor of London election. For West Central (which covers Westminster, Hammersmith and Fulham and Kensington and Chelsea) Sadis Khan won 54,481 to Susan Hall’s 43,405. That’s a swing to Labour in that area. The result for North East (Hackney, Islington, Waltham Forest) also shows an increased Labour victory. So it now looks likely that Khan will be back with an increased majority despite all the speculation about an upset result.

1.00pm

Labour’s Mayor of South Yorkshire has been re-elected by an increased margin.

12.45pm

• Labour’s Steve Rotheram has won re-election as Mayor of the Liverpool City Region. The Conservatives held on to second place.

12.30pm

• The declarations for the Mayor of London election so far point to a clear victory for Sadiq Khan. The Merton and Wandsworth’s result had Khan on 48.3 per cent with Susan Hall on 28.6 per cent. Greenwich and Lewisham voted for Khan 46.5 per cent with Hall on 26.2 per cent. Those are larger leads for Khan than last time.

Noon

• The Conservatives have held Epping Forest.
• Counting is underway for the Mayor of the Liverpool City Region. The turnout was 23.7%.

10.30am

• Counting is underway in the West Midlands for the Mayoral election.
• Kate Fergusson, Political Editor at The Sun on Sunday, tweets: “Sadiq Khan is ahead in Wandsworth but neck and neck in Merton, according to sources…. Health warning – the count is ongoing!” The Conservative gained a by-election in Wandsworth this week so disappointing if that’s correct. But the rumour from Merton is encouraging as Labour is usually well ahead of the Conservatives there.
• Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has gone to Mansfield in the East Midlands to celebrate his Party’s Mayoral victory there.

10.00am

The counting of votes for the Mayor of London and London Assembly elections is under way. It started at 9am and is taking place at 14 London Assembly constituency count venues across London. Verification took place yesterday so we do have the turnout figures. They are below. There has been much-fevered speculation as to whether the higher turnout in more Conservative areas will be enough to deliver Susan Hall an upset victory. Rather tiresomely we have the figure for London Assembly constituencies rather than for individual boroughs. So, for instance, we can see that Brent and Harrow have a combined turnout of 37.09 per cent. But what to make of that? A high turnout in Harrow would be good for Hall – it has a Conservative Council and is her home borough. A high turnout in solidly Labour Brent would be a more discouraging signal. I do think the figures still provide some cautious grounds for optimism.

 

9.30am

Boris Johnson has written for the Daily Mail about the challenges of casting his vote with the new requirement for photo ID:

“You remember what the lefties all said when we brought in the new laws on voter ID.

They said it was a naked attempt to discriminate against Labour voters. They said it was all a Tory plot. They said it was blatant gerrymandering. They were talking total rubbish…

So I want to pay a particular tribute to the three villagers who on Thursday rightly turned me away, when I appeared in the polling station with nothing to prove my identity except the sleeve of ‘Prospect’ magazine, on which my name and address had been printed.

I showed it to them, and they looked very dubious. ‘Prospect’ their faces said. ‘No one reads that round here.’ Within minutes, I was back with my driving licence and voted Tory.”

Saturday 8am

Good morning

A few results to catch up on from last night.

• The Conservatives have lost control of Gloucester. The Council is now under no overall control after the Conservatives lost seats both to Labour and the Lib Dems.
• The Lib Dems have gained Dorset from the Conservatives. That is an important victory for them.
• Elmbridge stays under no overall control.
• Labour holds West Lancashire.
• Bristol remains under no overall control. The Green Party gained seats there.
• Lib Dems gain Tunbridge Wells.
• Wokingham remains under no overall control.
• Reigate & Banstead remains under no overall control.
• Labour has held Stevenage.
• The Conservatives lose Havant to no overall control. They lost 17 sets there.
• The Conservatives lose Dudley to no overall control.
• Worcester remains under no overall control.
• The Lib Dems hold Woking
• Labour gains Tamworth

Here are the estimates on declarations for results today:

 12.00pm Liverpool City Region (Mayor ). Hertfordshire (PCC )

1.30pm London (Mayor )

2.00pm South Yorkshire (Mayor ). Thames Valley (PCC)

2.30pm Warwickshire (PCC). West Midlands (PCC)

3.00pm West Midlands (Mayor ). Cheshire (PCC). Dorset (PCC). West Yorkshire (Mayor )

3.30pm Merseyside (PCC)

4.00pm North Tyneside. Stroud. Warrington. Greater Manchester (Mayor ). Wiltshire (PCC )

5.00pm  Salford (Mayor)

7.00pm

• Labour has gained the PCC position in Nottinghamshire.
• Worcester remains under no overall control. The Conservatives have lost six seats there.
• Maidstone remains under no overall control.
• Labour gains Tamworth.

I’m knocking off now to have some supper and go to bed. But I will bring more exciting updates tomorrow…

6.30pm

6.00pm

• Some more PCC results. Conservative Home columnist is back in Surrey. Donna Jones is back in Hampshire. Chris Nelson is back in Gloucestershire (he wrote for us about tackling anti social behaviour here.) Roger Hirst is back in Essex. So those are all Conservative holds. But Labour has gained the position in Northamptonshire.
• The Lib Dems have held Mole Valley.
• Runnymede remains no party in overall control.
• Tandridge remains under no overall control.

5.45pm

• Labour holds Sandwell.
• Labour holds Crawley.
• Labour gains Cannock Chase from no overall control.
• Labour holds Bradford.
• Lib Dems hold St Albans.
• Cherwell remains under no overall control.
• Oxford remains under no overall control. Labour lost seats to independents.

5.30pm

• The counting for the Mayor of London election takes place tomorrow. But we do have some turnout figures. For the strongly Conservative territory of Bexley and Bromley it is 48.38 per cent. Last time it was 44 per cent. For the strongly Labour territory of City and East (which covers Barking and Dagenham, City of London, Newham, Tower Hamlets) it was 31.17 per cent. Last time it was 35 per cent. In 2021 Sadiq Khan defeated Shaun Bailey by less than five per cent on first preferences. That is the relevant comparison as we have now switched to first past the post. So it certainly looks as if Susan Hall is in with a shout.

5.15pm

• Labour has gained Nuneaton & Bedworth from the Conservatives. The Conservatives lost 14 seats.
• Rugby stays under no overall control.
• Labour has gained the Police and Crime Commissioner posts in Lancashire and Norfolk. But Ben Adams has held on for the Conservatives in Staffordshire.

5.00pm

• Conservative MP Ben Bradley has lost his bid to become Mayor of the East Midlands despite a vigorous campaign. Labour has won this new post with former MP Claire Ward elected. She won with a majority of over 50,000. But turnout was only 27.6 per cent.
• Labour has lost overall control of Kirklees Council. Both the Conservatives and Labour lost seats while independents, the Green Party and the Lib Dems made gains.
• Labour has held Cambridge.
• Reform UK has not had any councillors elected. But their leader Richard Tice gives an upbeat message: “In Sunderland, we beat the Tories in two-thirds of seats and even polled an incredible 32.3% in one ward. We also saw fantastic results in Barnsley, Wigan and Lancashire to name just a few.”

4.45pm

SIR JOHN CURTICE HAS SPOKEN.

With around 675 of the BBC’s key wards now declared, the BBC is estimating that, if the whole country had had an election on Thursday and behaved in a similar manner to those places that did, the outcome would be:

Labour: 34%
Conservatives: 25%
Lib Dems: 17%
Others: 24%

This result is similar to last year’s estimates, though both the Conservative and Labour figures are down 1%, while the Lib Dem’s is down by 3%. At 25%, the Tory figure is at an equal record low, last recorded in 2013. They were also at that level in 1995. This means that the Labour lead over the Conservatives is 9 points: the same as last year.

Make of that what you will. Nine points is a significant lead. It is also much lower than Labour’s current opinion poll leads.

4.30pm

• Tim Passmore has been returned as the PCC for Suffolk. Read his piece for us here. John-Paul Campion held on for the Conservatives as PCC in West Mercia. As did Darryl Preston in Cambridgeshire. So far Conservatives are beating Labour in the Police and Crime Commissioner elections. Congratulations to the victorious candidates – especially our contributors.
• Labour holds Coventry.
• The Conservatives have lost control of Basildon.

4.15pm

• At The Spectator, Eliot Wilson suggests Labour has been lucky in the north east: “Under the surface, though, there is much disenchantment. Reform may not have won any seats in Sunderland, but in Redhill, one of the city’s most deprived areas, Conservative support collapsed and Reform won a third of the vote from a standing start.”
• Brentwood stay under no overall control. The Conservatives lost a couple of seats but are still the largest party.
• In the Police and Crime Commissioner elections, Labour has gained Cleveland which is hardly surprising. But Rupert Matthews has retained Leicestershire and Rutland for the Conservatives. He wrote about his campaign for us here. Alison Hernandez has retained Devon and Cornwall for the Conservatives, read her recent piece for us on her innovative policies here. Jonathan Evison, another Conservative candidate, retained Humberside – not obvious Conservative territory.

4.00pm

• The Conservatives have held Solihull. They have gained a seat there from the Green Party.
• Labour has gained control of Milton Keynes. The Conservatives lost seven seats.
• Labour has held Leeds.
• Hastings remains under no overall control. The Green Party gained four seats here.
• Labour has held Rossendale.

3.45pm

• Labour has held Manchester.

3.30pm

• With more than half the councils declared, the Conservative net losses have risen to 233. Labour net gains are at 98. The independents have made net gains of 77.
• Labour has held Wolverhampton.

3.15pm

• Labour holds Calderdale. The Conservatives lost three seats to Labour here.
• Lib Dems have held Three Rivers in Hertfordshire. The Lib Dems lost a seat to the Green Party.
• Pendle in Lancashire remains under no overall control. Both Labour and the Conservatives lost seats to the independents.

3.00pm

• Labour hold in Rochdale. The Workers Party of Britain only won two seats of the 20 being contested.
• Labour gain Adur from the Conservatives.

2.45pm

• Labour has won the York and North Yorkshire mayoral race. A blow to Rishi Sunak who is one of the local MPs.
• The Conservatives have held Walsall. Congratulations to Cllr Mike Bird, the Council leader, who wrote for us about the contest last week.
• Labour has held Halton.
• The Conservatives have lost all their seat on Castle Point. It didn’t help that 13 Conservative candidates had their nominations annulled due to administrative errors. The Council is now composed entirely of independents.

2.30pm

• I have been hearing lots of rumours that Susan Hall may well be elected Mayor of London. I have treated that with caution as it would be a sensational upset. But here is a tiny piece of hard data to back up the soft data. There was a Council by-election yesterday in Hillingdon which the Conservatives won. The turnout was 47 per cent, which was relatively high. The Conservative vote share was 58.1 per cent, up +0.6 per cent on last time, 2022. The Labour vote share was 27.2 per cent, down -8.7 per cent on last time.

2.15pm

• LABOUR HAVE WON THE NORTH EAST MAYORALTY. The incumbent Jamie Driscoll was elected as Labour last time but was deselected and stood as an independent. Kim McGuinness the Labour candidate defeated him by more than 185,000 votes.

2.00pm

• Labour has held Worthing.
• Labour has held the post of Police and Crime Commissioner in North Wales.
• Labour has held the post of Police and Crime Commissioner in South Wales.
• Plaid Cymru has held the post of Police and Crime Commissioner in Dyfed-Powys.
• Labour has gained the post of Police and Crime Commissioner from the Conservatives in Bedfordshire.
• Labour has held Sheffield. The Conservatives have lost their only seat there.

1.45pm

• Labour has gained Hyndburn. The Conservatives lost three seats to Labour and one to the Green Party.
• Encouraging news for the Labour Party in the North East mayoral contest. The County Durham results have Labour candidate Kim McGuinness with 43,084 votes ahead of the incumbent (former Labour now independent) Jamie Driscoll on 25,074.

1.30pm

• Burnley remains under no overall control.
• Labour holds Knowsley

1.15pm

• Welwyn Hatfield remains under no overall control. The Conservatives lost ten seats here – eight to Labour and two to the Lib Dems.
• West Oxfordshire remains under no overall control.
• Labour has held the post of police and crime commissioner for Gwent. Jane Mudd won with 28,476 votes, versus 21,919 for the Conservatives, 9,864 for Plaid Cymru and 8,078 for the Liberal Democrats. The turnout was low at 15.63 per cent.

1pm

• Labour holds Preston
• Labour holds Wakefield
• Basingstoke & Dean remains under overall control. The Conservatives lost a seat to the Women’s Equality Party.
• Labour holds Barnsley

12.45pm

• Labour holds Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council. Both Conservatives and Labour lost seats to independents.

12.30pm

• BEN HOUCHEN HAS BEEN RE-ELECTED AS THE MAYOR OF TEES VALLEY. He won in all five of the local authority areas. The full result was Ben Houchen (Conservative) 81,930 (53.6 per cent) Chris McEwan (Labour ) 63,141 (41.3 per cent) Simon Thorley (Lib Dem) 7,679 (5 per cent)

12.15pm

• More encouraging news for Houchen in Tees Valley. He has won Middlesbrough by 13,285 votes to Labour’s 12,749.

Noon

• Rob Mayor, the Political Editor of BBC News Midlands tweets: “Labour sources tell me they believe they have lost the West Midlands Mayoral election, with their campaign severely dented by the issue of Gaza. They think independent Akhmed Yakoob will come third in some areas.”

11.45am

• Further encouraging news on Houchen’s prospects in Tees Valley. He was won in Redcar and Cleveland with 15,987 to 12,015 for the Labour candidate.
• Dame Andrea Jenkyns MP has written in the Daily Telegraph urging Sunak to be “bold” with tougher Conservative policies. She had already written a letter of no confidence in him but was one of only two MPs to do so publicly. Now she suggests that Sunak changes the Cabinet and strengthens his policy offering would be a better option than a scenario where “my colleagues may panic and submit enough letters to trigger a vote of no confidence that Mr Sunak would probably win given the size of the payroll vote, leaving us in a state of paralysis.” She doesn’t say that she has withdrawn her letter though.

11.30am

• The Lib Dems have held Watford and gained a seat from Labour there.
• A positive initial result for Ben Houchen, who is hoping to be re-elected as Mayor of Tees Valley. He has won in the Hartlepool area. The Tees Valley Combined Authority covers Darlington, Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, Redcar and Cleveland, and Stockton-on-Tees. Houchen beat Labour in the Hartlepool part of it by 10,074 to 8,732.

11.00am

• Labour has held Swindon, gaining a couple of seats from the Conservatives.
• David Wilcock, the Deputy Political Editor on Mail Online tweets: “Speaking as a local lad, there was a time when hell would freeze over before Rushmoor/Aldershot ‘the home of the British Army’ would vote Labour. But there ain’t much army there any more, and a lot of the former military land is now thousands of starter homes.”
• Ben Obese-Jecty, tweets of the Blackpool South: “Talk of the “swing” once again makes for misleading headlines. Turnout in Blackpool South was 32.5 per cent. Labour won with 1,700 votes fewer than they came second with in 2019.” I’m sure that’s right. The problem is not mostly Conservatives switching to Labour, or even to Reform UK. It is Conservatives abstaining. The mistake is to assume they are merely apathetic and will fall back into line automatically at a General Election. Many combine still regarding themselves as Conservatives while being angry with the Conservative Party – something I have reflected on before.

10.45am

• The Green Party made modest gains overnight. They gained seats from Labour in South Tyneside, Newcastle, Exeter and Sefton. Also a seat from the Conservatives in Peterborough and a seat from the Lib Dems in Southend. According to the BBC, they have made net gains of 13 so far.
• Andrew Jefferies, the outgoing Conservative leader of Thurrock Council says that Rishi Sunak needed to “give people a reason to vote Conservative” after Labour gained control of the Council. But Jeffries is not calling for Sunak to go as he adds: “I believe the Prime Minister will set out and give people that reason again.”

10.30am

The founder of this website, Tim Montgomerie, tweets:

“Going to bed now after a night of punditry but the evidence is clear: things are getting worse rather than better under Sunak. The Tories continue on the same path at their peril.”

But so far I do not know of any new calls for Sunak to go. Tim has been an outspoken critic for some time. So has David Campbell Bannerman, the Chairman of the Conservative Democratic Organisation, who tweets that even if Susan Hall becomes Mayor of London (there are rumours it could be a close contest with a low turnout in Labour parts of the capital) Sunak should still resign.

10.00am

Professor Sir John Curtice declares that the Conservatives facing loses of 500 seats would be “one of the worst, if not the worst’ performances by the party in 40 years.” That is broadly true but it really says more how resilient the Conservatives have been in local elections over those 40 years than how badly they did this week.

In 1995, under John Major’s premiership, the Conservatives lost over 2,000 seats in the local elections. A year later, the Conservatives lost another 600 seats. But since then they have gone pretty well. While Labour were winning landslide election victories under Tony Blair, the Conservatives were making substantial gains in the town halls under the leadership of William Hague and others. During the Coalition Government, the Conservatives made gains from the Lib Dems that offset losses to Labour. When Jeremy Corbyn became Labour leader that usually saw another boost the Conservative councillor tally. Then as noted earlier when these seats were last contested in 2021, the Conservatives were well ahead of Labour. The previous pattern of the Government of the day facing a drubbing on local elections happened under the last Labour Government but hasn’t really happened to the Conservatives since 2010 – until last year (when there were losses of over a thousand seats) and now.

This chart from the House of Commons Library illustrates what has happened. The Conservatives have had a pretty good run in local elections for a pretty long time.

9.45am

• After the news earlier that Labour have gained the Police and Crime Commissioner post in Cumbria we have two other PCC results. In Avon and Somerset, Labour has gained the post from the Conservative incumbent Mark Shelford, with a majority of 4,976. But in Lincolnshire, Marc Jones has been re-elected for the Conservatives with 39,639 votes to 31,931 for Labour.
• Richard Holden, the Conservative Party Chairman, has told the BBC that the Party had an “overall disappointing” night and that his “heart goes out” to Tory colleagues who have lost their seats overnight.

9.30am

As has been noted most results, include the most high-profile contests, have yet to be declared. Here is a (very) rough estimate of expected timings:

11.00am  Norwich

12.00pm Blackburn with Darwen. Walsall. North East (Mayor)

12.30pm Castle Point. Havant. Tees Valley (Mayor)

1.00pm Cannock Chase. Manchester. Watford. Welwyn Hatfield. Gwent (PCC). North Wales (PCC)

1.30pm Burnley. Preston. Sheffield. West Oxfordshire. Humberside (PCC)

2.00pm Basildon. Brentwood. Hyndburn. Knowsley. Nuneaton & Bedworth. Rossendale. Cambridgeshire & Peterborough (PCC). Hampshire (PCC). Suffolk (PCC).

2.30pm Crawley. Rochdale. Solihull. East Midlands (Mayor)

3.00pm Barnsley. Hastings. Kirklees. Maidstone. Rotherham. Three Rivers. York & North Yorkshire (Mayor). Bedfordshire (PCC). Devon & Cornwall (PCC). Dyfed-Powys (PCC). Norfolk (PCC). Surrey (PCC)

3.30pm Halton. Milton Keynes. Sandwell. Trafford. Leicestershire (PCC)

4.00pm Adur. Bury. Calderdale. Cheltenham. Epping Forest. Pendle. St Albans. Swindon. Tunbridge Wells. Woking. Wokingham. Essex (PCC). Lancashire (PCC). Northamptonshire (PCC) South Wales (PCC). Staffordshire (PCC)

4.30pm Dudley. Leeds. Wakefield. Northumbria (PCC)

5.00pm  Basingstoke & Deane. Bradford. Cambridge. Coventry. Oxford. Runnymede. Tandridge. Worthing. Cleveland (PCC). Durham (PCC). Gloucestershire (PCC) . Nottinghamshire (PCC)

5.30pm  Rugby. Wolverhampton. Worcester. Cherwell

6.00pm  Mole Valley. North Hertfordshire. Reigate & Banstead. Stevenage. Tamworth. Derbyshire (PCC). West Mercia (PCC)

6.30pm  Bristol. Elmbridge

7.00pm  Dorset

8.00pm  West Lancashire

10pm  Gloucester

8am

Most results are still to come but already there have been substantial Conservative losses. Last night Lord Hayward, the Conservative peer and elections guru, predicted Conservative losses of “upwards of 400 seats.” Others have talked of the Conservatives losing around half of the 919 seats won last time they were contested in 2021. The BBC scoreboard so far suggests a reverse on the scale, the Conservatives are on 116 seats from the Council that declared overnight, down 122.

Rallings and Thrasher’s National Equivalent share of the vote will be keenly awaited, especially this year given a General Election only a few months away. In 2021 the Conservatives were ten points ahead of Labour on that measure. The initial indications are that this time Labour will be ahead by that sort of margin. Substantial but not as great as the opinion polls indicate.

Labour gained Redditch, Hartlepool, Thurrock and Rushmoor councils. It also won the Cumbria Police and Crime Commissioner election with a 22 per cent swing from the Conservatives.

Congratulations to Cllr Dan Swords, the Leader of Harlow Council, on the Conservative victory there. This was significant for two reasons. Firstly, it was a key Labour target. Sir Keir Starmer went to campaign there. The Essex town is a classic marginal constituency. Winning Harlow means the Conservatives can keep hope alive. Secondly, it suggests that people will vote for you if they have a reason to do so. Harlow has frozen Council Tax. They have pledged to keep it frozen. This has been achieved by rigorous financial management and running services efficiently. If Conservative councils just join Labour and increase the Council Tax by the maximum possible without a referendum then it is harder for the electorate to spot the difference.

But Harlow is an exception. In most of the results so far Labour are winning where they need to. Yet while we are seeing an emphatic retreat for the Conservatives the advance for Labour is uneven. As mentioned the Conservatives are currently down 122 seats. But Labour are only up by 52. In South Tyneside, Labour lost ten seats, mostly to independents promising to cut back on the number of councillors. Labour lost control of Oldham, which is understood to be due to Gaza rather than local issues. In Peterborough, Portsmouth and elsewhere most of the Conservative losses went to independents rather than Labour. Some of Labour’s advances in Sunderland and Hartlepool reflected there being a division between Reform UK and the Conservatives for the anti-Labour vote – rather than real enthusiasm for the Labour Party. The low turnout in many areas also reflects this.

The Conservatives gained a seat from the Lib Dems in Newcastle Upon Tyne. This is the first time the Conservatives have held a seat in Newcastle since 1992. Congratulations to Cllr Doc Anand.

There was also, of course, a Parliamentary contest with the Blackpool South by-election. This saw Labour win by a huge margin, though the Conservatives will have a sense of relief at not being beaten into third place by Reform UK.

The circumstances of the by-election were clearly difficult as Scott Benton, who was elected as the Conservative MP last time, had the whip withdrawn and then resigned after a lobbying scandal. But there is a deeper concern that despite substantial spending on “levelling up” projects prosperity has not returned to this seaside town. Perhaps a free enterprise approach of a low tax zone would be more effective. Or lifting the ban on shale. Or a more robust approach to welfare reform. But spraying around money on “regeneration” schemes does not seem to have done the trick. At any rate, the voters there do not seem very appreciative of such Whitehall largesse.