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As many as 12 cabinet ministers and many other prominent Conservative members face being expelled from Parliament on July 4 unless Rishi Sunak leads the party to a miracle victory in the general election.
Usually around 100 seats are key to winning or losing a poll, but thanks to the political turmoil that has caused big swings in the fortunes of the major parties, even more seats will be at stake this time.
Twice as many MPs could be replaced within six weeks – and that’s bad news for many senior ministers who face the prospect of a tactical vote by local electorates in “blue wall” areas to drive them out of Westminster.
Moreover, a group of new Conservative MPs elected in 2019 in “red wall” seats in the north of England, the Midlands and north Wales stand to lose their seats to a resurgent Labour Party that hopes its traditional supporters will eventually return home.
The biggest scalp could be for Chancellor Jeremy Hunt in the new seat of Godalming and Ash in Surrey, where the Liberal Democrats have a slim lead in the opinion polls and could succeed in ousting Mr Hunt if they can wring out significant Labour support locally.
Michael Gove on Liberal Democrat target list
I It is understood the party has recently targeted more senior ministers as it believes it has a chance of achieving the 15 per cent rise in support needed to oust Michael Gove from the Surrey Heath suburb. A poll last month showed the Level Up Minister had just a one-point lead over the Liberal Democrats in the constituency she has represented for 19 years.
Penny Mordaunt, the Leader of the House of Commons, has run for the Conservative leadership twice and continues to be mentioned as a possible successor to Sunak. First she needs to hold onto her seat of Portsmouth North. She will hope that her high profile will save her. Current projections put Labour on track to achieve the 17% or more swing needed to remove her.
Another leadership candidate, Defence Secretary Grant Shapps, looks likely to lose Welwyn Hatfield to Labour, a constituency he won in 2005 and currently holds by 10,955 votes, and recent polls suggest Labour is on track to win Hertfordshire by almost twice the 10.5 points needed to win it back.
The Attorney General, Victoria Prentiss, is in a vulnerable position in Banbury, Oxfordshire, a constituency that has been dominated by the Conservatives for more than a century, and opinion polls show that Labour currently has a slight lead in the Oxfordshire constituency.
Labour is also optimistic it can make the 13.8 per cent jump it needs to defeat Veterans Minister Johnny Mercer in Plymouth Moor View, a constituency Labour won nine years ago.
The Conservatives’ woes are so severe that Education Secretary Gillian Keegan could find herself in hot water in Chichester, a district that has been Conservative-held for 100 years and where she won a majority of 21,490 votes in the 2019 election but faces a fierce challenge from the Liberal Democrats.
Lord Chancellor and Minister for Justice Alex Chalk looks doomed to defeat in Cheltenham, where he only has a majority of 981 votes over the Liberal Democrats. This month the Conservatives lost all their remaining seats in Cheltenham Council, leaving the Liberal Democrats with 36 of 40 seats.
Opinion polls also predict that Science Secretary Michelle Donnellan will be running second behind the Lib Dems in the Melksham and Devizes seat in Wiltshire.
In Wales, where the number of constituencies is set to be reduced from 40 to 32, two ministers face an uphill battle.
Simon Hart, a former Welsh minister and parliamentary leader, could come third in the redrawn constituency of Carfardine (formerly Carmarthen), which is being targeted by both Labor and Pride Cymru.
The current Welsh Secretary, David TC Davies, appears to be trailing Labor in the new seat of Monmouthshire.
Labour’s plan to take back the Red Wall
Labor is keen to pour resources into Redwall and win back constituencies such as all three Stoke seats, West Bromwich, Birmingham Northfield and Wolverhampton West in the West Midlands. It is aiming to win back seats in the North West, including Burnley, Leigh, Atherton and Bury, as well as Redcar, Keighley, Ilkley and Wakefield and Rothwell in Yorkshire.
Labour is also hoping to win back the four seats it lost in County Durham five years ago. Conservative chairman Richard Holden, who is currently the MP for the defunct North West Durham constituency, has not yet announced which constituencies he plans to stand in.
In the East Midlands, they have their sights set on Ashfield, led by former Conservative deputy chairman and now Reform UK MP Lee Anderson. Labour needs a six-point victory to win back the seat of Nottinghamshire from the Conservatives. They are also aiming to retake Bolsover, once the home of left winger Dennis Skinner, which would require a swing of just under six points.
If Labour’s strong support in London remains, it will defeat former Conservative leader Sir Ian Duncan Smith in Chingford and Woodford Green, leading the Conservatives in last year’s by-election to decide Boris Johnson’s successor. They should win Uxbridge and South Ruislip, which they barely held on to.
Labour is also likely to defeat former Speaker of the House of Commons Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg in Somerset North East and Hanham, and Northern Ireland Minister Steve Baker in Wycombe.
The Liberal Democrats are set to win the Esher and Walton constituency in Surrey, where former deputy prime minister Dominic Raab will not stand for re-election.
They are also pinning their hopes on Sheffield Hallam, once represented by former Labour returnee Sir Nick Clegg, and North West Conservatives Cheadle and Hazel Grove.
The Greens are likely to retain their only seat, Brighton Pavilion, despite the resignation of their previous leader, Caroline Lucas. Their next best bet is Bristol Central, which is currently Labour-controlled but where the Greens performed very well in the city council elections.
SNP under pressure in Scotland
If polls are correct, Scotland’s political map could change dramatically in July, with support for the Scottish National Party (SNP) plummeting.
YouGov predicted last month that Labour would win 28 of the 57 contested seats this time, after winning just one in 2019, and that the SNP would fall to 19 seats, down from 48 in the last election.
Labour is on track to retake many of its former Central Belt heartlands, including four of Glasgow’s six seats, Cowdenbeath, Kirkcaldy and East Lothian, where former cabinet minister Douglas Alexander needs just over two points to return to the House of Commons after nine years.
The Liberal Democrats are hoping to achieve a 1.7 percentage point increase in the vote to retake Mid Dunbartonshire, a seat then-leader Jo Swinson lost to the SNP by just 149 votes in 2019.
In Northern Ireland, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) holds eight seats, Sinn Féin seven seats, the SDLP two seats and the Alliance Party one seat.
One name that will not appear on the ballot paper is former DUP leader Sir Geoffrey Donaldson, who is set to resign as Lagan Valley MP.
He was charged in March with rape and 10 other historic sex offenses, which he vehemently denies.