Conservative MPs have held the seat of Mid-Bedfordshire continuously since 1931.
If the Conservatives are beaten at the polls in both Mid-Bedfordshire and Tamworth on Thursday, it would mean 10 seats have changed hands at parliamentary by-elections in the past three years – eight of them being defeats for the Government.
But the swing in the share of the vote that would spell defeat for the Tories is similar in size to the swings achieved by Labour and the Liberal Democrats at recent by-elections.Tamworth was created at the 1997 general election and held by Labour for 13 years before being gained by the Conservatives in 2010.
Swings of 20 points or higher used to be rare at parliamentary by-elections but there have been no fewer than six of them in the last three years. The other three examples have all involved the Lib Dems taking seats from the Conservatives, and all on enormous swings: Tiverton & Honiton in June 2022 , North Shropshire in December 2021 and Chesham & Amersham in June 2021 .
Then, as now, the Conservatives went into the contest defending a large majority – only to see Labour win the seat on a huge swing of 22.1 percentage points.The other by-election taking place on Thursday appears to be less of a two-way fight than the poll in Tamworth.
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