One sign the Conservatives think they are going to lose the election is the number of their MPs who have chosen to retire rather than defend their seats.
The Guardian reported this morning:
So far, 90 of 650 sitting MPs have announced they will not be seeking re-election. Of those, 14 are former secretaries of state – 11 of them Tory – and nine are select committee chairs.
This is the highest number of departing MPs since 2010, with more retirements expected to come. The exodus is greater on the Tory benches, which are on track for their biggest wave of departures since the 1997 Labour landslide.
Disappointingly, the report doesn't give the number of Tories standing down, but a tweet from Dick Newby this morning said that so far 58 of their MP have thrown in the towel.
Of course, some retirements because of age or disenchantment are inevitable, but the higher numbers this time suggests there are plenty of Tories who don't fancy a spell in opposition or are resigned to defeat and want more time to look for a new career.
The number of former Tories secretaries of state standing down, says the Guardian, is worrying the party:
One Tory source said: “There’s this question of how much experience the new intake will have … We’re grappling with two huge foreign affairs crises. Where are the foreign affairs experts?”
I can help them with that question: Boris Johnson drove them out of the Commons. The Conservative Party will still be suffering because of that years from today.
The Tories may find that lack of expertise is not the only problem with their new intake. As I suggested last month:
the average Tory activist is now less likely to be a pillar of the local business community than a keyboard warrior or social media troll.
