Relying on wedge issues like Ulez won’t save Tories from wipeout

Good morning. Three different by-elections have yielded three different winners. The Liberal Democrats have taken Somerton and Frome while Labour has won Selby and Ainsty, the second-largest swing from Tory to Labour at a by-election ever. But the Conservatives have held Ruislip and Uxbridge by 495 votes. So, something for everyone there. Some thoughts on what it all really means below.

You win some, Ulez some

The people have spoken, but what they’ve said is up for debate.

You are seeing a snapshot of an interactive graphic. This is most likely due to being offline or JavaScript being disabled in your browser.

The least interesting of the three results is in Somerton and Frome, a seat the Liberal Democrats have held in the past. The constituency’s former Conservative MP, David Warburton, had resigned following a string of high-profile allegations against him. If this by-election had taken place when the economy was growing at a clip, with inflation on target, with the clearest and sunniest global backdrop, and if the Conservatives were a box-fresh government, we would still have expected the Liberal Democrats to win here.

The Liberal Democrat victory here confirms that the party is back as a force again, capable of winning in by-elections and local elections, something that felt in some doubt one morning in 2015, when they went down to just eight MPs. But we knew that already.

The least surprising of the set is Selby and Ainsty. Yes, the result is a massive defeat for the Conservatives and a major coup for Labour. To give you an idea of the scale of the swing: if it was repeated at a general election it would mean the Tory party would be reduced to under 30 seats. And because of that, and because it was the last of the three to declare, I think it will be covered as some kind of shock result.

But every single scrap of evidence we had last night — the consistent Labour lead in the opinion polls, the very efficient anti-Tory voting we have consistently seen in local elections and by-elections in this parliament, the large number of downbeat economic indicators — pointed in the same direction: to a major defeat for the Conservatives and a return to government for the Labour party at the next election. And again, here, in an election in which there was essentially no big local subplot, and the big issues were all national ones, we have yet another sign of that. Labour is seeing record-breaking victories in seats like this one because that’s what we would expect, given everything else.

It’s the narrow Conservative victory in South Ruislip and Uxbridge that is the real shock. I think in this case the simplest explanation is the right one: it’s a reaction to Sadiq Khan’s looming expansion of the Ultra Low Emission Zone to London’s outer boroughs. Although comparatively few cars will actually be hit by the change, my experience speaking to constituents is that many more people believe they will be.

You can see the plausible Conservative line-to-take here: that it shows that when they find a decent wedge issue with the Labour party, Keir Starmer’s lead can be eroded. But you can see a plausible Labour one, too: that in Selby and Ainsty, when the focus is on national issues, as it will be at a general election, the Conservatives are on course for heavy defeat.

I think they’re both right, but I’d rather be in Starmer’s shoes than Rishi Sunak’s. It’s one thing to say “well, if we can find an issue people care about where we are on one side and Labour the other, we can eat away at the Labour lead”. It’s quite another to actually find that issue.

What is certain is that the results are a disaster for Conservative environmentalists and, by extension, climate politics in the UK. It will feed the internal argument that, when push comes to shove, for all British voters say they care about green politics, they will reject measures that impose a personal cost. It will also seem to some that the best route for a Conservative recovery at the next election will involve minimising, and perhaps even running away from, the net zero target. It is a message that will have a willing audience within the Tory party — and as Jim Pickard and Attracta Mooney detail here, one of the politicians who may be swayed by it is the prime minister.

Now try this

I’m off to see Oppenheimer and then Barbie at the cinema tonight: in that order, of course, because the world that Julius Robert Oppenheimer made is the one that made Barbie.

However you spend it, have a wonderful weekend!

Top stories today

• M&S spat with Gove | Marks and Spencer has accused Michael Gove of being “anti-business” and said it would review its future on London’s Oxford Street after the communities secretary blocked plans to rebuild its Art Deco flagship.

• Treasury bids to protect free speech | NatWest chief executive Alison Rose apologised to Nigel Farage for dropping him as a client of its private bank Coutts, as the UK government accelerated plans to clamp down on banks unfairly closing accounts. The debacle prompted the Treasury to push out new rules that it says will protect free speech.

• Truss in, Truss out | The cost of Britain’s recent political upheaval was revealed yesterday when Treasury accounts showed the extent of severance payments made to ministers, advisers and officials last year; Boris Johnson and Liz Truss each received £18,660 after resigning as prime minister.

• Price profiteering | The UK competition watchdog has warned supermarkets that it will examine any attempts to rebuild profit margins after the recent fall in inflation and called on the government to reform pricing policies to help consumers.