With Labour already being given a 92% chance at the bookies, Tory candidate Nadeem Ahmed is facing an uphill battle in Wakefield, and needs all the support he can get from the local party. Unfortunately for him, he might be in trouble there as well…

It was only in July of last year that Ahmed was unceremoniously booted from his role as Wakefield Council’s Conservative group leader, after losing an anonymous vote of no confidence at a party meeting. According to reports, he just wasn’t up to the job, although at the time his allies disputed that he’d been underperforming. Still, doesn’t exactly look good…

The by-election campaign on the ground hasn’t been great either. A co-conspirator sent Guido one of the Tories’ leaflets posted around the constituency, and it turns out the party don’t seem to know the Wakefield constituency well. The front page boasts of “Getting on with the job in Wakefield“, and then lists Middleton as an area the Tories hope to improve. All well and good – except Middleton is actually 10 miles away, in Hilary Benn’s constituency…

Guido imagines it’s quite stressful for the Tory Wakefield candidate during this campaign. Not only is the probability of Labour winning 92%, according to the bookies, tensions must be fraught within the local party’s camp. Guido understands Andrea Jenkyns is very heavily involved in both the ground and air war of the party’s campaign, so presumes she must have had time to speak to candidate Nadeem Ahmed about his 2018 views that her call for a confidence vote of Theresa May was “blatantly showboating” and her conduct was “damaging” the party:

“She’s blatantly showboating. The way she’s going about it is very immature.”

“She said: “Come on we need a hat-trick! Boris Johnson let’s be having you! Time for true #Brexiteers to make it happen.”

Coun Ahmed said: “I looked at that, and thought, “You’d expect that from a seven or eight year-old.””

There’s also no word on whether Jenkyns has unblocked her local party adversary, with Nadeem telling the press in 2018 “She’s blocked me on Twitter since last week as well because I didn’t agree with her.” Responding to Ahmed’s attack at the time, Jenkyns told the BBC he should concentrate on “being a stronger opposition leader”. Hopefully they’re all one big happy family now…