Wakefield MP found guilty of sexual assault on 11 April says delay caused by Easter and HR issues
Imran Ahmad Khan has said he has now resigned as Wakefield’s MP and will no longer be a parliamentarian from this Saturday, two and a half weeks after being found guilty of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy.
Ahmad Khan told the Guardian he had submitted his resignation on Monday and that it was effective from 30 April. That means he will be paid his salary in full for April.
Continue reading...Last week’s byelection result laid bare the growing anger felt towards the PM – both from outside and within his own party
Shortly after Owen Paterson resigned as the Tory MP for North Shropshire in early November, Helen Morgan, who had been trounced when she stood as Liberal Democrat candidate at the last general election, rang her party’s HQ in London with a message that took senior officials by surprise.
“She told us that we really had a chance in the byelection, that we had to throw everything at it. Initially there was a lot of scepticism,” said a party official. “Nobody really believed it.”
Continue reading...Analysis: It’s not Downing Street, it’s him, says a minister, amid fears the PM’s strengths have become weaknesses
Asked on Friday whether he took personal responsibility for the disastrous North Shropshire byelection result, Boris Johnson suggested the problem was that everyone else was talking about the wrong issues. “My job as prime minister is to get the focus on to the things that matter for all of us,” he said.
Yet after weeks of self-inflicted crises and the drip, drip of stories about lockdown-busting parties at the heart of Downing Street, many of his MPs believe it is Johnson himself who is the real problem – and some are warning he is now on borrowed time.
Continue reading...Poll reveals huge public cynicism, with just 5% of respondents believing politicians work for public good
Trust in politicians to act in the national interest rather than for themselves has fallen dramatically since Boris Johnson became prime minister, according to figures contained in a disturbing new study into the state of British democracy.
The polling data from YouGov for the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) shows a particularly sharp fall in trust in the few weeks since the Owen Paterson scandal triggered a rash of Tory sleaze scandals.
Continue reading...Louie French becomes MP for suburban London seat, but Tories’ majority of nearly 19,000 cut to 4,478
The Conservatives have held the safe seat of Old Bexley and Sidcup in the first in a series of closely watched parliamentary byelections.
Louie French was elected as the new MP, replacing the well-liked former cabinet minister James Brokenshire, who died in October from lung cancer.
Continue reading...People in Old Bexley and Sidcup say their faith has been undermined but they are still likely to vote Tory
Residents in Old Bexley and Sidcup are vacillating over whether to return the Conservatives to power in an upcoming byelection that will test their loyalty following the high-profile corruption allegations that have beset the party.
Gillian Moore, 64, a poll clerk and retired bank receptionist, said the sleaze row and the government’s mishandling of the pandemic response had undermined her faith in the Conservatives.
Continue reading...Sister of murdered MP Jo Cox holds West Yorkshire seat for party, easing pressure on leader Keir Starmer
Labour has narrowly won the Batley and Spen byelection, holding on to the West Yorkshire seat after a hotly contested campaign.
Labour won 13,296 votes with the Tories recording 12,973, according to official results. Kim Leadbeater defeated Ryan Stephenson, the Conservative candidate, by 323 votes. George Galloway, representing the Workers Party of Britain, came third with 8,264 votes.
Continue reading...Sarah Green takes formerly safe Buckinghamshire seat despite senior Tories’ canvassing
The Liberal Democrats have pulled off an extraordinary victory in the Buckinghamshire constituency of Chesham and Amersham, taking the formerly safe seat from the Tories in a byelection.
In a shock result, Lib Dem Sarah Green secured 21,517 votes, leaving the Conservative Peter Fleet trailing with 13,489, and giving the Lib Dems a majority of 8,028.
Continue reading...Jane Dodds beats Tory incumbent Chris Davies, and says her first act will be to tell prime minister to rule out no-deal Brexit
Boris Johnson has suffered a major blow after the Tories were beaten by the Liberal Democrats in the Brecon and Radnorshire byelection.
The victory by Liberal Democrat candidate Jane Dodds means the new prime minister’s working majority in the House of Commons has been cut to just one and will be seized on as a sign voters are concerned by Borish Johnson’s pledge to leave the EU without a deal if necessary.
Continue reading...Labour leader says ‘not yet’ to calls for people’s vote, urging Tories to call general election
Jeremy Corbyn has indicated he will not bow to party pressure and move immediately towards demanding a second referendum, after Labour narrowly beat the fledgling Brexit party in the Peterborough byelection.
Corbyn – arriving in the Cambridgeshire city after the party’s candidate Lisa Forbes won by 683 votes, leaving the Tories trailing in third position – called for the “squabbling contenders” within the Conservative party to give the public a general election.
Continue reading...Labour’s Lisa Forbes says result shows ‘the politics of division will never win’
Labour has held on to the marginal seat of Peterborough, overturning predictions that the contest could deliver a first byelection victory for Nigel Farage’s Brexit party.
The victorious Labour candidate, Lisa Forbes, told her supporters after the count early on Friday: “Tonight’s result is significant because it shows that the politics of division will never win.”
Continue reading...A decade ago it was the UK’s fastest growing city, but hit by cuts and buy-to-let, support for Nigel Farage’s party is high
On Thursday, voters in Peterborough will take part in one of the most intriguing parliamentary byelections in recent memory. The constituency saw a knife-edge duel between Labour and the Conservatives at the 2017 general election and at last month’s European poll, 38% of voters in the city backed the Brexit party. A first seat in the House of Commons for Nigel Farage’s party is a distinct possibility. If that happens, it will send tremors through middle England, of which Peterborough is typical in many ways, not just geographically.
Economically, Peterborough performs averagely amid struggles with productivity. Wages are stagnant and it has been reshaped by migration, with foreigners arriving to work in the surrounding farmlands and distribution depots, contributing to a decade as the UK’s fastest growing city between 2001 and 2011.
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