Cabinet Office minister Gummer loses seat as Tory gamble backfires

So what does this mean for Verify? Oh wait...

UK Cabinet Office minister Ben Gummer, architect of the Conservative Party's manifesto and the man responsible for "digital transformation", has lost his seat in the general election.

Gummer was one of the most high-profile Tory causalities of the poll, losing his Ipswich seat to Labour's Sandy Martin with a wafer-thin majority of 831.

The UK now faces the prospect of a hung Parliament after a disastrous night for the Tories, in which they failed to achieve a majority of 326.

Former Lib Dem leader and ex-deputy prime minister Nick Clegg also lost his Sheffield Hallam seat to the Labour Party. Meanwhile, Home Secretary Amber Rudd held on to her seat with a margin of just 346.

Gummer was made Cabinet Office minister in July 2016, succeeding Matt Hancock.

As architect of the Tory manifesto, he was responsible for including a number of pledges to make government digital.

Much to the surprise of anyone who has been following the government's failed online identity authentication platform Verify, the Tories promised to roll it out to all online services by 2020 in their manifesto.

Gummer had previously described the government's long-delayed digital strategy as "the most ambitious programme of change of any government anywhere in the world". ®