The Tories appear to be resigned to losing yet another seat in a by-election this week as the party puts little effort into campaigning.
The party is defending a majority of more than 11,000 on Thursday in a vote caused by the resignation of former minister Chris Skidmore.
But the betting is heavily on Labour to win – and the Tories seem to to agree. Analysis by MailOnline shows that fewer than a dozen Tory MPs have visited the South Gloucestershire seat to campaign for local councillor Sam Bromiley in the run-up to the by-election.
The most high profile has been Lee Anderson, the former party chairman who quit last month over Rishi Sunak’s immigration policies.
Mr Sunak himself passed within 10 miles of the seat last week as he travelled from a campaign visit to Plymouth to his home in North Yorkshire, but did not drop in.
In contrast more than 30 Labour MPs including leader Sir Keir Starmer and shadow chancellor Rachel Rees have visited to back Damien Egan, who was raised in the area but is currently mayor of Lewisham in London.
Today Security Minister Tom Tugendhat appeared to confirm he had not visited, in an appearance on Good Morning Britain today.
Pressed on whether he had campaigned in the seat in the suburbs of Bristol, 120 miles from Westminster, he said: ‘Kingswood is a long way away.’
It was put to him that this may ‘tell us something’, to which he replied: ‘It tells you that I’ve been speaking at different events across the country. I’ve been supporting people in different areas.’
Kingswood is one of two seats the party is expected to lose when voters go to the polls on Thursday. They are also contesting Wellingborough, where the party is also in danger of losing a seat vacated by the removal of MP Peter Bone over sexual misconduct.
The party has installed his girlfriend, Helen Harrison, as its candidate in Northamptonshire.
In Kingswood, in South Gloucestershire, Mr Skidmore stood down before Christmas in protest at Rishi Sunak‘s green retreat on climate change issues, rather than hang around for a few more months until the general election later this year.
Privately Tories do not rate their chances of holding onto the seat. They blamed the way Mr Skidmore had quit so close to a general election, saying its was seen as ‘pretty self-indulgent’ not to wait until the national vote, landing the taxpayer with a £250,000 bill.
One Tory campaigner admitted the effort put in by MPs was ‘proportionate’ to the party’s chances of winning the seat.
They said that voters were not switching to Labour in large numbers but there were signs from canvassing that Tory voters planned to simply stay at home on Thursday night.
‘It is not as bad as you might expect, I had to pinch myself,’ they told MailOnline.
‘It probably says more about the good manners of the Bristol electorate. But the good news on the doorstep is that they are staying at home, they are not turning to Labour.’
They did not think it was bad that Rishi Sunak had not visited as ‘he has a country to run’.
Part of the apathy can be traced to the fact that Kingswood will disappear as a constituency at the next general election. It is being split up and its constituent parts added to local seats.
Mr Egan is already planning to run in one of the successor seats, Bristol North East. But Mr Bromiley revealed at the weekend that holding Kingswood for a few months is the limit of his national political interests.
Asked by the Telegraph at the weekend if he would also run in a new seat at the general election he said: ‘No, I’m absolutely not.
‘What appealed to me in this one was the fact that I can really send a clear message but not spend the next two years away from my son in London. I can actually still be local and embedded in the community which I love.’
A Labour source said: ‘Kingswood has a huge Tory majority that was always going to be a challenge for Labour to overturn. But local people deserve better than more Tory failure after 14 years of disaster and if Rishi Sunak is too frightened to call a General Election, Labour will throw everything we can at securing a fresh start with Damien Egan.’
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David Wilcock
