Will Labour win a majority at the general election?

By-election victories in Tamworth and Mid Bedfordshire both saw swings of 20%-plus to Labour

Keir Starmer painting a map of the UK red
Keir Starmer needs only half the swing Labour enjoyed in Tamworth to win a majority of seats at the next general election
(Image credit: Illustrated / Getty Images)

The Labour Party has delivered a major blow to the Conservative Party's general election hopes after winning two parliamentary by-elections in former Tory strongholds.

Tamworth, Chris Pincher's former seat, saw a 23.9% swing to Labour, while Mid Bedfordshire, which was vacated by the former culture secretary Nadine Dorries in August, swung by 20.5%. 

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 Sorcha Bradley is a writer at The Week and a regular on “The Week Unwrapped” podcast. She worked at The Week magazine for a year and a half before taking up her current role with the digital team, where she mostly covers UK current affairs and politics. Before joining The Week, Sorcha worked at slow-news start-up Tortoise Media. She has also written for Sky News, The Sunday Times, the London Evening Standard and Grazia magazine, among other publications. She has a master’s in newspaper journalism from City, University of London, where she specialised in political journalism.