Can Labour's history man storm the Tories' Yorkshire stronghold?

IT'S the Cas Lass versus the Brough Boy, and history is on her side.

- PAUL ROUTLEDGE

But Rishi Sunak faces the biggest upset of his premiership in the Selby and Ainsty by-election, one of three taking place on Thursday, thanks to a Boris Johnson strop and Tory sleaze.

In what should be a rock-solid Tory constituency, Labour's Keir Mather is neck-and-neck with Conservative Claire Holmes, with just a few days to go.

She is 44, originally a miner's daughter from Castleford, West Yorkshire, and now a hotshot criminal barrister.

He is a 25-year-old Oxford history and politics graduate, a public affairs adviser with employers' organisation CBI, from Brough, East Yorks. His parents are careers advisers and back his vocation.

Both are Westminster novices, though he had a stint as a researcher for Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting, and she is an East Riding county councillor.

Keir is convinced he's on the brink of making political history, by overturning a 20,137 majority bequeathed by Boristoady Nigel Adams, who quit as MP in a fit of pique over not getting a peerage.

"This feels like a marginal, and we're fighting it like a marginal," Keir (the one without a knighthood) tells me on the stump around Selby. "After 13 years of Tory rule, people are looking for fresh ideas. People here want a fresh start.

"I've been fascinated by politics and the opportunity to change people's lives. The Labour Party seemed the best way to make that change."

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One poll put Labour ahead by a fraction, another by 12%.

But Keir's strategists admit privately that it's nip and tuck.

He should be up against a formidable vote-harvesting machine but when I go to the Tory campaign HQ in Selby, it is two men with a laptop.