Shropshire Star

Boris Johnson writes in The Sun that Conservatives win Labour Clwyd South seat

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson backed Theresa May's leadership of the Conservative Party by citing success in the Clwyd South constituency – the seat of Labour's Susan Elan Jones.

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Boris Johnson

The Conservative MP made the mistake in a piece he had written for The Sun online.

In the piece published online on Sunday night, Mr Johnson wrote: "I am delighted to see that we Tories have just won Clwyd South - the seat where I was first defeated in the great Blair landslide of 1997."

When in fact Labour MP Mrs Jones beat Conservative candidate Simon Baynes in Thursday's election by 4,356 votes – gaining a total of 19,002 votes in total.

But by this morning the incorrect line had simply been removed with the Foreign Secretary instead simply saying: "Yes, he (Jeremy Corbyn) picked up Kensington - but then he also lost Mansfield."

Mr Johnson faced a Twitter backlash following his error and Mrs Jones was quick to retaliate to the inaccuracy, referring to it as "tripe".

On Sunday night she tweeted: "Memo to @BorisJohnson - you may be "delighted" to see the Tories have won Clwyd South: slight factual problem, you didn't #BorisJohnson."

While in a later tweet, she said: "I''m not letting @BorisJohnson get away with the 'tripe' about Tories winning Clwyd South!"

Mr Johnson stood in the seat in 1997, when he lost by more than 13,000 votes to the Labour Party's Martyn Jones.

Today Theresa May is facing a showdown with her MPs as she fights for political survival after the Conservatives had their majority wiped out in the General Election.

The Prime Minister is to appear before the backbench 1922 Committee later today where she will be faced with the task of staving off a Conservative civil war.

The Clwyd South constituency straddles the authorities of Denbighshire and Wrexham. Main population centres includes the Wrexham suburbs of Ruabon, Chirk, Rhosllannerchrugog, Cefn Mawr and Coedpoeth, and Llangollen and Corwen further up the Dee valley to the west.