With few activists and little local messaging, it doesn’t seem particularly likely to thrive in such contests, at least compared to what we normally expect from smaller parties.
Other Conservative seats that have been lost in recent by-elections may have had bigger majorities, but they will have been on the receiving end of much less Whitehall benefaction.
Labour held the seat from 1997 to 2019.
CCHQ insists that “there is no chicken run” and that a Party panel has approved the procedure. But what will other Conservative MPs and Tory activists make of it?
A review should strike the right balance between protecting the vulnerable and not spoiling the enjoyment of people who enjoy a bet perfectly safely.
He will be seeking to overturn Gordon Marsden’s majority of 2,523 at the next election.
Two of the four were lost last year; two more were last held over 25 years ago. All are now non-southern marginals – or should be.
We can’t win a workable majority without breaking through in more seats in the urban and suburban North and Midlands.
In the aftermath of the election, we revisit our regional profiles to see how the parties fared compared to expectations.
In the first of our series looking at May’s electoral battlegrounds, we explore the fierce fights which are taking place across the North West.