THE GUARDIAN: Frustrated MPs across the party have little reason to support the prime minister unless he can quickly repair his rift with voters
After the local elections in May, cabinet ministers and supporters of Boris Johnson were keen to talk up a new decade of “Johnsonism”. The idea was that the Tories taking Hartlepool from Labour in the byelection was proof that the 2019 Tory electoral triumph was no blip. Instead, it was part of a wider political alignment that could see the prime minister outlast Margaret Thatcher.
After the result of the North Shropshire byelection, that hypothesis is looking rather optimistic. Overnight the Liberal Democrats have managed to overturn a majority of more than 20,000 in a seat that has been Tory since it was re-established in 1983. What’s more, the Lib Dems did so with votes to spare – earning a majority of 5,925.
Given the Lib Dems only came third in the seat in 2019 – with Labour second – it is more than a shock result. The polling expert John Curtice has described it as 8.5 on the Richter scale. In other words, a political earthquake. » | Katy Balls | Friday, December 17, 2021
No party could be worth the hangover Boris Johnson is now suffering: Humiliation upon humiliation is being piled on to the prime minister right now. Could a leadership contest be next? »
