Keir Starmer makes £50 bet that Lee Anderson will lose his seat at the election

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Sir Keir Starmer has taken a £50 bet that former Conservative Party deputy chair Lee Anderson will lose his seat at the basic election.

The Labour chief put down the wager after being requested by a journalist if he thought Mr Anderson would dangle on to his constituency at the subsequent nationwide ballot.

“No I don’t,” Sir Keir informed the Mirror journalist and a gaggle of different staff at the paper when he visited its newsroom earlier this week.

“Bet on it?” the journalist then asks earlier than the Labour accepts with a handshake, a video clip of the trade reveals.

“Although Jonathan Ashworth just lost a tenner didn’t he recently,” Sir Keir then mentioned in a light-hearted quip referencing a colleague who not too long ago misplaced cash on a bet.

Mr Ashworth, the shadow paymaster basic, earlier this month made a bet reside on TV that Rishi Sunak would name a basic election on 2 May however the prime minister has since dominated out a snap spring ballot.

Mr Anderson, the MP for Ashfield, not too long ago defected from the Tories to the Nigel Farage-founded Reform UK get together after he was suspended for making Islamophobic remarks about Labour’s Sadiq Khan, the London mayor.

A former miner, Mr Anderson represents Ashfield, Nottinghamshire,  situated in the ‘red wall’ – a historically working class,  Labour-supporting set of round 40 seats principally in the north and Midlands.

The constituencies have been key to Boris Johnson’s landslide victory in 2019 and analysts say the Conservatives will have to carry on to most of them to have any likelihood of successful a majority at the subsequent election, which should happen by January 2025 at the newest.

Redfield & Wilton Strategies newest polling on the Red Wall, from 20 March, discovered that Labour was main the Conservatives by 24 per cent –  unchanged from its earlier ballot performed final month and the joint-largest lead for Labour in these seats since late August.

It was the Tories’ lowest vote share since Mr Sunak grew to become PM and solely three factors above the lowest vote share (21 per cent) they’ve ever recorded in Redfield & Wilton Strategies purple wall polling.

The survey additionally confirmed that Mr Sunak’s approval ranking was -25 per cent whereas Sir Keir’s recognition stood at -1 per cent.

Mr Anderson grew to become Reform UK’s solely MP when he defected to the get together, telling a press convention to announce the transfer “I just want my country back”.

Redfield & Wilton Strategies March ballot had Reform on 16 per cent – a file excessive and up two factors from February.

Some 21 per cent of 2019 Conservative voters mentioned they’d vote for Reform UK if a basic election have been held tomorrow.