Tories facing fight to keep its foothold across county after by-election blows
Opposition parties are gunning for Shropshire following double by-election defeats over the Conservatives.
As the Conservatives lick their wounds from national and local by-election misery the big question is what it means for a General Election.
Boris Johnson’s 2019 victory saw the Tories win every available Shropshire seat, along with Mid Wales’ Montgomeryshire.
But four years on and the picture looks very different, with not even the most positive of Conservatives is predicting anything close to Johnson’s 163-seat majority when Rishi Sunak decides to go to the polls.
Labour secured big wins by taking Tamworth and Bedfordshire from the Tories, while in Shropshire the Tories lost the Shropshire Council seat for Alverley and Claverley to the Lib Dems in a by-election – the second in as many months.
The general election may be some time away but the phoney war is well underway and the omens do not look good for the government as it faces being wiped from power. Only last week the President of Ludlow Conservative Association, Lord Hamilton of Dalzell, warned “there are no safe seats for the Conservatives in rural Britain”.
One national prediction website presents a mixed picture for the county – and a few surprises, although the matter is slightly complicated by the fact that a number of seats will be changing as a result of a boundary review.
