How many CON Mps will join these 52 before the election?
Hardly a week goes by at the moment without news of more CON MPs announcing that they don’t plan to defend their seats at the general election.
Given the polls this is hardly surprising and I guess that we will see many more Tory MPs not wanting to defend their seats. Some might quit before the election thus causing by-elections. Others will just announce that they are not standing. Being a Tory MP fighting to defend your seat in the current political context does not look like a good experience and you can hardly blame them.
This is making the Tory challenge that much harder. For all the evidence suggests that incumbent MPs, especially those defending their seats for the first time, do significantly better than their parties.
It is hard to see the blue team winning an election for at least a decade.