Conservatives have taken the highly symbolic seat of Workington, home of the voter identified as their key target in the battle to break into the Labour strongholds of the north.
The Cumbrian seat has been held by Labour since 1918, apart from a three-year tenure for Conservatives following a by-election in 1976.
But think-tank Onward came up with the concept of Workington Man as the archetype of the white working-class voter in “rugby league towns” across the north, who traditionally identified with Labour but backed Brexit and had no time for the metropolitan leftists around Jeremy Corbyn.
Tory candidate Mark Jenkinson overturned a 9.4 per cent Labour majority from the 2017 election to eject shadow environment secretary Sue Hayman by a margin of 4,136 votes in one of the early upsets of the night.
Mr Jenkinson took 20,448 to Ms Hayman’s 16,312, with other parties trailing far behind.
