The Battle for Hartlepool


On paper, the parliamentary by-election caused by the resignation today of Hartlepool’s MP, Mike Hill, should not pose too many problems for Labour. After all, the party has won every election their since the seat was first contested at the February 1974 election, its most notable MP being one Peter Mandelson, one of the architects of the New Labour project.

And yet Labour HQ will be nervous as it prepares for the first parliamentary election under Keir Starmer.

The trend in the seat has been clear. Having secured a high watermark of a majority of 17,508 in 1997, by December 2019 Mike Hill, then Labour’s candidate, had a majority over the Conservatives of just 3,595. His share of the vote, at 37.7% was down 14.8% compared to 2017.

It’s a seat that is surrounded by a number that constituted the breaking of Labour’s ‘Red Wall’ in 2019, with nearby seats including Redcar, Stockton South, Sedgefield, Darlington and Bishop Auckland all having flipped Conservative.

The election will likely take place on the same day that voters in the area elect also the Mayor for the Tees Valley, a role which the incumbent Conservative, Ben Houchen, is generally thought to have performed well in.

Add to that the Chancellor having confirmed in his Budget that the new northern base for the Treasury will be in nearby Darlington, the over 10,500 votes that were cast for the Brexit Party in 2019 in the seat and polling pointing to a clear Conservative bounce on the back of the successful roll out of the COVID-19 vaccine and it is not difficult to understand why Labour HQ will be nervous.


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