Double poll defeat could end Corbyn’ Labour fear as UKIP chief fights to be MP
AT least 16 people were killed when a bus taking teenagers home from a ski trip crashed in a fireball.
A hero gym teacher was burned as he repeatedly pulled youngsters from the blaze on a motorway exit near Verona, Italy.
Police said 26 of the 39 survivors were injured, some seriously.
The coach hit a barrier and pillar after the driver lost control. Investigators found no brake marks.
A trucker who was behind the coach said he had tried to alert the driver to a problem with a wheel.
Last night a black flag few over the school in Budapest, Hungary, which organised the trip to France.
Prime Minister Viktor Orban said: “With my prayers, I am with the families and friends shocked by the tragedy.” DEFEAT for Labour in two by-elections next month could spell the end of leader Jeremy Corbyn, senior party sources predict.
Its slim majorities in Stoke Central and Copeland, Cumbria, are under threat in the polls on February 23.
A senior backbencher said: “If we get beaten, there would have to be some sort of action in Parliament to replace the leader with one with whom people can connect.” The menace in Stoke is from UKIP, whose leader Paul Nuttall revealed yesterday that he will stand in the seat he called “the capital of Brexit”.
He said: “In the referendum last year about 70 per cent of voters from Stoke voted to leave the European Union. This was the highest vote share for Leave in any city.”
Tristram Hunt, who is leaving to be director of London’s Victoria and Albert museum, had a 5,179 majority over UKIP at the last election.
It would take a 17 per cent swing for UKIP to take a seat where Labour had a 49.5 per cent majority in 1997. In Copeland, the major threat hreat is from the Conservatives, beaten aten by just 2,564 votes at the last election. lection.
MP Jamie Reed is leaving ving to work at Sellafield nuclear plant. ant.
A Labour backbenchercher said: “Many others in the seateat work in the defence and nuclearar industries – areas that the Labour r leadership has a problem with.
“It means the Tories don’t have to do anything except sit back and watch our vote collapse.” .”