Friday 17th December 2021
Tory loses seat in the House of Commons
Johnson’s party fails on mood test
Because of a lobbying affair, the Tory MP Paterson has to give up his seat in the British House of Commons. Prime Minister Johnson wanted to save him from resigning – to no avail. In the by-election for Paterson’s post, Johnson’s party now suffers a historic setback.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s party has lost an important mood test. In a by-election for a seat in the House of Commons, voters in the rural North Shropshire constituency of Central England voted clearly for the Liberal Democratic candidate, Helen Morgan, according to official results from the morning. This broke the decades-long dominance of the Tories in the constituency for the first time.
Morgan won by nearly 6,000 votes. The turnout was just 46.3 percent – far from the 62.9 percent in the last elections in 2019. At that time, the Conservative MP Owen Paterson had won with a large majority. The by-election had become necessary because Paterson had resigned after a good 24 years in parliament because of a lobbying affair.
The defeat threatens to further increase the pressure on Johnson. The prime minister got involved in the Paterson affair in early November and tried to stop disciplinary proceedings against the Tory MP. Since then, the pressure on the head of government has increased: on Tuesday, he suffered a severe setback in a vote in the lower house. Almost a hundred Tory MPs voted against his government’s new corona rules.
Johnson is probably enjoying drinks in lockdown
Johnson and his government are criticized within their own ranks for a party donation affair and alleged violations of the self-imposed corona rules. In particular, reports of a Christmas party by Johnson’s closest employees last year in the middle of the corona lockdown had caused outrage.
Reports in the newspapers “The Guardian” and “The Independent” about possible violations by Johnson himself fueled the displeasure yesterday Thursday. Accordingly, the Prime Minister is said to have briefly participated in a drink in Downing Street on May 15, 2020, despite the corona restrictions in force at the time.