8 May 2021 • 12:01am
Boris Johnson with an inflatable version of himself in Hartlepool, a constituency now held by the Conservatives for the first time since it was formed in 1974
Credit: LEE SMITH /Reuters
SIR – The Hartlepool by-election result confirms that voters want a party that respects the Brexit vote. They also want a party they believe can level up the country, rejecting the “us and them” of the identity politics of the Labour Left. No amount of Boris Johnson’s furnishings can paper over the cracks of this present Labour Party.
Jeremy Thompson
SIR – The result is a crushing defeat for the BBC news team, which had spent two weeks trying to make Wallpapergate the No 1 election issue.