Boris Johnson is losing his grip on power. Only a third of those who voted Conservative in North Shropshire at the last election turned up to support his party in yesterday’s by-election. The supporters he could once rely on are leaving.
A combination of apathy, disgust, tactical voting and protest votes saw an historic 34% swing to the Liberal Democrats – the seventh-largest swing in any by-election since World War Two.
Yet this should have been solidly Conservative territory: a Leave-voting, rural shire seat of small, picture-postcard market towns, which has elected Tory MPs since 1904.
