With a general election due this year, the latest defeats are a major blow for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, whose party is trailing Labour in national polls.
The by-election was triggered after former Tory MP Peter Bone was ousted by voters in a recall petition, following his suspension from Parliament over bullying and sexual misconduct allegations, which he denied.
In his victory speech Damien Egan, who resigned as mayor of Lewisham in London to fight the seat where he grew up, said 14 years of a Conservative government had “sucked the hope out of our country”
Conservative MP and former cabinet minister Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, who represents the nearby seat of North East Somerset, said the Kingswood result was “not as bad as I’d expected”.
However, the results pile further pressure on the prime minister following the latest official figures on Thursday which showed the UK economy fell into recession at the end of last year.
It also comes at the end of a difficult week for Labour, after the party dropped its flagship pledge to spend £28bn a year on green projects and was forced to withdraw support for its candidate in the upcoming Rochdale by-election over comments he made about Israel and Jewish people.
The original article contains 691 words, the summary contains 206 words. Saved 70%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
With a general election due this year, the latest defeats are a major blow for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, whose party is trailing Labour in national polls.
The by-election was triggered after former Tory MP Peter Bone was ousted by voters in a recall petition, following his suspension from Parliament over bullying and sexual misconduct allegations, which he denied.
In his victory speech Damien Egan, who resigned as mayor of Lewisham in London to fight the seat where he grew up, said 14 years of a Conservative government had “sucked the hope out of our country”
Conservative MP and former cabinet minister Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, who represents the nearby seat of North East Somerset, said the Kingswood result was “not as bad as I’d expected”.
However, the results pile further pressure on the prime minister following the latest official figures on Thursday which showed the UK economy fell into recession at the end of last year.
It also comes at the end of a difficult week for Labour, after the party dropped its flagship pledge to spend £28bn a year on green projects and was forced to withdraw support for its candidate in the upcoming Rochdale by-election over comments he made about Israel and Jewish people.
The original article contains 691 words, the summary contains 206 words. Saved 70%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!