By-election polls close as Rishi Sunak faces twin tests

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his party face a nervous wait for results after polls closed in two by-elections.

Labour is seeking to overturn large Conservative majorities in the Tamworth and Mid Bedfordshire contests, triggered by the resignations of MPs Chris Pincher and Nadine Dorries.

The Liberal Democrats are also hoping for a good night, after focusing their efforts on Mid Bedfordshire.

The results are due in the early hours of Friday.

As voting ended, a Conservative Party spokesman said the by-elections were "always going to be challenging" and "the rule of thumb is that governments don't win them".

Labour said its candidates in both seats "have worked extraordinarily hard" to put the party "in the race for what are usually safe Tory seats".

The Liberal Democrats said they felt their vote had "surged in true blue villages across Bedfordshire, as former lifelong Conservative voters choose to send this government a message".

Ms Dorries formally resigned as an MP in August, more than two months after pledging to quit "with immediate effect".

The former culture secretary launched a blistering attack on Mr Sunak in her resignation statement, accusing the prime minister of abandoning "the fundamental principles of Conservatism".

Mr Pincher stood down from his seat in September, after Parliament's standards committee found he groped two men at London's exclusive Carlton Club.

The case and how it was handled triggered the wave of ministerial resignations that brought down Boris Johnson's government last year.

The results of these by-elections will indicate the mood of voters after Mr Sunak pitched himself as an agent of "change" at the Conservative Party conference earlier this month.

In his conference speech, he outlined a number of policy shifts, including scrapping the northern leg of the HS2 rail line between Birmingham and Manchester.

In Mid-Bedfordshire, the Conservatives are facing a strong challenge from Labour and the Liberal Democrats are vying to take the seat.

In Tamworth, it is a two-way race between the Conservatives and Labour.

The Conservatives have held Mid Beds since 1931 and Ms Dorries won in 2019 by 24,664 votes, with Labour a distant second.

Mr Pincher won with a majority of 19,600 in Tamworth, and had been the MP in a seat that has been a good indicator of the national vote since 2010.

Mr Sunak will be in the Middle East when the results are announced. He travelled to Israel to meet its Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, following Hamas's deadly attack on 7 October, and is now in Saudi Arabia.

The prime minister's press secretary told reporters that "mid-term by-elections are extremely tough for incumbent governments" but said the Tories were "fighting for every vote".

Labour has a commanding lead in national opinion polls, ahead of a general election expected next year.

The party will be hoping for a repeat of its huge by-election win in Selby and Ainsty, North Yorkshire, in July, when it overturned a 20,000 majority.

But as ever before elections, Labour - like other parties - has been keeping expectations low.

A party spokesman said neither of the seats feature on "our target list for the general election".

The Labour spokesman said: "These are in super safe Tory seats that would require for us to overturn results larger than those which we overturned in Selby."