RISHI'S RICHMOND BLUES?

Rishi will say farewell to Number Ten, but what of his constituency?

Two things are nailed on certainties in this election - the Tories will be hammered and Rishi Sunak will resign as party leader on Friday.  Sunak will rightly take the blame for his party's utter humiliation, but it was actually his predecessor Boris Johnson who bears much of the responsibility.  Johnson made it all too easy for the media to hang him out to dry following the shitshow of the scamdemic, during which he descended us towards a globalist Hell of nanny state absurdity.

After the all-too-brief intermission of Liz Truss, Sunak never looked like reversing the Tories' poll deficit.  He continued Johnson's lurch to the left of Labour, failed to stop the boats and was almost less inspiring than Keir Starmer himself.  On Friday he will be replaced by his dull opponent Starmer in one of the most absurd electoral turnarounds in history.  An 80 seat majority will not just be turned on its head, it will be ground into dust.

Rishi will leave Downing Street, but will he maintain his place on a Westminster gravy train that is small fry to Sunak?  Five years on the backbenches may turn out to be a distraction for one of the richest men in Britain and we strongly suspect he won't see it through.  That is, of course, were he to hold onto his seat...

Following a relatively minor boundary change, Richmond in North Yorkshire has been remodelled as Richmond and Northallerton for this election.  A mostly rural and affluent constituency, it is perhaps very apt that mega rich Rishi was parachuted in here to replace William Hague in 2015.  The Tories have held Richmond since 1910 and Sunak is defending a 27,210 majority from 2019, which is the biggest ever Tory majority in the seat's history.

Labour have been a distant second here in the last two elections and it is hard to see them mount a serious challenge.  Reform will be contesting this seat for the first time and will likely poll well, but are no threat to Sunak's majority.  Rich boy is likely to hold, but we expect him to stand down within two or three years when he tires of political play.

As one would expect for a sitting Prime Minister, the ballot paper in Richmond is a long one.  The usual jokers are there - Binface and the Loons - plus three independents, the Yorkshire Party and a somewhat odd appearance from George Galloway's Workers Party of Britain.  The workers' revolution is not likely to find too many roots in Richmond and Northallerton.

Jason Barnett (Ind)

Count Binface (Bin)

Daniel Callaghan (LDem)

Angie Campion (Ind)

Louise Dickens (WPB)

Kevin Foster (Grn)

Rio Goldhammer (Yrks)

Niko Omilana (Ind)

Brian Richmond (Ind)

Sir Archibald Stanton (Loon)

Rishi Sunak (Con)

Lee Taylor (RefUK)

Tom Wilson (Lab)

BTLP seat prediction: Con WIN (new seat)