Spooner was chosen as the Radical candidate to contest the ensuing by-election, but was defeated in a straight fight by the Whig, Thomas Beaumont.
The Birmingham Daily Post described his conversion: "...from having been a bold and uncompromising Liberal, became ultimately one of the most determined, immovable and obstructive members of the ultra-Tory party.
Spooner was again the Tory candidate and was opposed by William Scholefield, son of the deceased MP, who was expected to hold the seat for the Radicals.
[1] It was noted that the "personal liking felt for the man was temporarily permitted to outweigh the general resentment at his political apostasy".
[1] [7] Having lost his seat at Birmingham in July 1847, Spooner was immediately nominated as a Conservative candidate for the two-member Northern Division of Warwickshire where polling was not held until August.
He was a proponent of protectionism and a strong Anglican, opposing any measures of relief to Roman Catholics, "Dissenters" or Jews.
In his later years he was considered a figure of fun, with his annual (and barely audible) speech denouncing the renewal of the grant to Maynooth Seminary treated with derision.
[1] In his obituary his later parliamentary contributions were summarised: "...every proposal which in his early life would have elicited his most strenuous approval, received in his old age his most vehement opposition".