This morning, despite losing 7.5% of the vote share, Labour’s Leadbeater narrowly clung to the Batley & Spen seat with a majority of just 323. The vote share swung towards the Tories by 2.9%, which wasn’t enough to turn the tide…
Batley & Spen has been a Labour seat since 1997, and it’s significant that Tory candidate Ryan Stephenson even got a look in. However, Conservative MPs had been quietly confident, claiming for the last week that Ryan was a shoo in. Government ministers and members of the commentariat have been quick to speculate why Ryan Stephenson failed to snatch the seat. Guido has collated the excuses. Amanda Milling, government minister on this morning’s media round, was quick defend the loss. Arguing with LBC’s Nick Ferrari, Milling claimed “it was disappointing but actually we didn’t lose, we just didn’t win”. No, the Tories lost the election.