Conservative campaign leaflets and advertising for the upcoming by-elections reportedly omit any mention of Boris Johnson.
A pamphlet distributed by Helen Hurford, the Tory candidate in Tiverton and Honiton, featured no reference to her party on the front page.
The Telegraph reported that inside the pamphlet the Conservative party is not mentioned until page four, while the prime minister is not mentioned at all.
A pamphlet distributed by Nadeem Ahmed, the Tory candidate in Wakefield, also featured no reference to Mr Johnson nor photos of him, the paper said.
It also said six Facebook advertisements shared by Ms Hurford do not mention the prime minister and only refer to the Tory party to declare it as the source of funding.
The prime minister’s reputation in the wake of the Partygate scandal has haunted the two by-election campaigns so far.
Ms Hurford was recently booed by a crowd when she sidestepped a question about Mr Johnson’s moral character. She recently declined to say if he was honest during an interview with The Guardian. “I think Boris thinks that he is an honest person,” she said.
When asked byThe Telegraph if she was a “Boris Johnson Conservative” she said “I’m a Helen Hurford Conservative”.
In Wakefield, the Labour party said their most successful advert of the campaign has been one referrring to the recent vote of confidence in Mr Johnson in which 40 per cent of Conservative MPs voted against him.
It comes as Tories have warned that defeats in the two by-elections on Thursday would further damage Mr Johnson’s authority as leader.
MPs from across the party told The Independent they were privately expecting a “big defeat” in Wakefield, where a recent poll by JL Partners put Labour 20 points ahead in the West Yorkshire seat.
A senior Tory MP said the loss of Tiverton and Honiton, where the party has a large majority, “would be a disaster”.
Voters head to the polls in Yorkshire and Devon less than two weeks after the prime minister narrowly survived a confidence vote called amid an ivestigation into whether he misled parliament over his knowledge of parties in Downing Street during the Covid lockdown.
Ms Hurford refused to say which side she would have taken in the confidence vote, labelling the question “irrelevant”.
The Tiverton and Honiton candidate is defending a 24,239 majority that would require a 20-point-plus swing to the Lib Dems for the Tories to lose the seat. The Conservatives however fear a loss in Devon is well within likelihood.
A senior MP said most of his colleagues expected a Lib Dem victory. “Look at North Shropshire. It’s a further opportunity for people to send a message to Downing Street that they are not happy,” they warned.
The same MP said Wakefield was “gone, gone, gone”. Speaking to The Independent, polling expert Professor Sir John Curtice agreed, suggesting the party’s 3,358 majority was a “write-off”.
He said it was “very difficult for any government to defend, and it doesn’t matter if it’s red wall, blue wall, pink wall, or purple wall, you only need a 3.5 per cent swing”. He added: “It should be inconceivable that the government hangs on to it.”
