Will voters in Nadine Dorries’ old constituency vote for a Black man?

The upcoming by-election in my neighbouring constituency, Mid Bedfordshire, may be the barometer by which we can measure how the UK is really doing when it comes to race relations, writes Ava Vidal

Festus Akinbusoye, the Conservative candidate in the Mid Bedfordshire by-election, gets on his bike (Festus Akinbusoye/PA)

At the Conservative Party conference in Manchester last week, Kemi Badenoch, the business secretary who is also equalities minister (because why not?) gave a speech that won her plenty of congratulatory headlines. It ought to have shocked every Black person in the country.

For Badenoch declared that “nowhere is better than Britain to be Black”.

As delegates were preparing for their long weekend away, Hubert Brown, a 61-year-old Black man, died from a stab wound on the streets of Bristol in an alleged race hate attack.