This election is going to be particularly discombobulating for the ex-Tory MPs who are now independents. Even though all three of them – David Gauke, Anne Milton and Dominic Grieve – have been through at least four elections each (Grieve has been an MP since 1997, while Gauke and Milton were elected in 2005), this is the first time they are standing without the help of a party apparatus.
For Grieve and Gauke, this is the first time they will be fighting the sort of election campaign that their colleagues in marginal seats are perfectly used to: one full of uncertainty, very long hours, and never quite enough money, local support or sleep.
Philip Hammond yesterday announced he wouldn’t be standing in his Runnymede and Weybridge seat because it would be a ‘direct challenge’ to his old party, which refused to restore the whip to him.
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