The Liberal Democrats are now favourites with every single major bookie to win next week’s North Shropshire by-election.
Momentum has swung firmly behind the party’s candidate, Helen Morgan, as the final weekend of campaigning approaches in what is traditionally an ultra-safe Conservative seat.
Growing public outrage over a series of government scandals – most notably, the now infamous Downing Street Christmas Party – has seen Ladbrokes, Paddy Power and William Hill all slash their odds on Ms Morgan, a 46-year-old parish councillor, winning the seat off the Tories.
She is now the favourite with all four of those, while Betfred and Betway have her and blue candidate Neil Shastri-Hurst as joint favourites.
“What’s been in the news this last week, it has made life so difficult,” says Geoff Elner, a local Tory councillor in Shropshire who spent Friday morning campaigning with Dr Shastri-Hurst. “You are trying to distance yourself from events that happen 170 miles away, and it’s wrong. People here are working their butts off to try and do some good but it has not been easy.”
Asked how damaging apparent lies told over last year’s alleged Christmas Party had been, the 66-year-old Elner replied: “Everyone of the parties twists the truth somewhere along the line and the Conservatives are certainly high on the list doing that right now.”
If the bookies do have it right and the Lib Dems win, it would constitute one of the most stunning by-election results in history.
The poll was sparked in November after the seat’s previous Tory MP Owen Paterson resigned following a lobbying scandal. Yet, given he won a near-23,000 majority in 2019, the Conservatives were still expected to romp home here.
The area is rural, relatively prosperous and voted for Brexit in 2016. It has been a Tory strong hold for more or less 200 years.
Yet the mood in the yellow camp is now one of growing confidence with leader Ed Davey briefly joined the campaign trail on Friday.
“We’re feeling very positive,” a campaign source said. “We’ve been going into the real true blue towns the last couple of days and we’ve got former Conservatives switching in their droves while Labour supporters are backing us tactically.”
But he added: “It’s still too close to call, though.”
The Labour Party remain third favourites with most bookies.
