Conservative had 'excrement posted in letterbox' in General Election fallout

A Conservative parliamentary candidate has said "excrement" was posted through the letterbox of her constituency office - warning the culprits they had picked on “the wrong person”.

And Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride has sprung to Katherine Fletcher’s defence, describing the incident as “disgraceful” and “utterly shameful”.

Katherine Fletcher, who is standing for re-election in South Ribble for the Conservatives after the dissolution of Parliament yesterday, said the act was an "attempt to bully me".

She said a volunteer discovered the substance, adding that and police are looking into the matter. In a video posted to X on Thursday, Ms Fletcher said: "Today the police are at my office because somebody has put excrement through the letterbox.

"One of my volunteers had to find that this morning. Now, I understand that women get more than their fair share in political environments, but this attempt to bully me will not work because it is not the decent or right thing to do.

"I'm working hard for South Ribble. I've delivered loads - I want the opportunity to do more. And so to the bully that did this: not the right person."

Speaking to GB News, Mr Stride said: "This is just a disgraceful thing and whoever did that, it is utterly shameful.

"I would like to see the same kind of energy generally from the public in terms of expressions of disgust for this kind of behaviour, whichever political party is impacted."

He added: "I think society generally has to call this out. In terms of support for Katherine she's a fantastic colleague, she's a very resilient and capable lady, and she will come through this absolutely fine.

"She has the support totally of her ex-parliamentary colleagues on her side of things, and I've absolutely no doubt that the party centrally will be providing her with whatever support she needs.

“But this is absolutely disgraceful, and people should be taking to the twittersphere now in their thousands and thousands to call this out."

A £31 million package to boost security measures for politicians - including providing MPs with a dedicated police safety liaison - was introduced by the Government in February. It follows heightened tensions caused by protests around the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza.

Justice minister Mike Freer, who is not standing at the General Election because of threats to his safety, said the extra cash was "not actually going to the root cause" of why people were targeting MPs.

Ms Fletcher, who served as transport minister and minister for women under Liz Truss in 2022, has represented the South Ribble constituency in Lancashire since 2019.