Double despair - Byelection routs portend calamity for Sunak's Tories

Brutal as they were, last week's twin UK byelection losses in Tamworth and Mid Bedfordshire did not necessarily change the plight faced by the Conservatives. But they shone so bright a beam on the situation that even the most self-deluding Tory MP can no longer pretend.

- Peter Walker

It was only three months ago that a narrow victory in Uxbridge gave the Tories hope, with Rishi Sunak saying it meant the next general election was "not a done deal".

But last Thursday's results suggest the modest 6.7 percentage point swing in Uxbridge from the Conservatives to Labour was an outlier, apparently led by discontent in the outer London seat over the expansion of the city's ultra-low emission zone (Ulez).

Far more pertinent in retrospect was the Selby and Ainsty byelection on the same day, where Labour took the seat from the government with a 23.7-point shift - similar to the 23.9 swing in Tamworth, another leavevoting Tory stronghold.

Mid Bedfordshire saw a slimmer swing, 20.5 points, but Labour overturned a Conservative majority of 24,664, the biggest such margin in postwar byelection history.

Conservative ministers insisted that this was typical end-of-term government blues, involving Tory voters staying at home rather than enthusiasm for Keir Starmer's party.