Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives on Friday suffered two crushing UK parliamentary by-election defeats but averted a “3-0” drubbing by unexpectedly holding on to Boris Johnson’s old Uxbridge seat.
The grave problems facing the British prime minister were highlighted when the opposition Labour party secured its biggest-ever by-election win in the once-safe Tory seat of Selby and Ainsty in Yorkshire.
Earlier the centrist Liberal Democrats demolished a massive Tory majority to win the seat of Somerton and Frome, opening up a dangerous new front for Sunak in the Tory heartlands of England’s South West.
Shall we also mention the swing? From a fairly good majority of 7,200 in a constituency that been very Tory even in its previous boundaries going to a majority of 495 votes after a recount that is not a resounding victory for the tories but a close escape.
I saw some people pointing out that Uxbridge has a big university and all the students have just gone home for the summer. We shouldn’t put too much emphasis on hypotheticals but it genuinely could’ve swung the by-election for Labour if it had been held during term time.
Students couldn’t possibly vote by post. They couldn’t possibly!
Fair point. Like I said, we shouldn’t put too much on hypotheticals.
Don’t students vote in their home constituencies, not the ones where they study?
They can choose either!
Up to them where they want to register (unless it’s changed since I were a lad)
You can actually register in both, which is useful for local elections where you can vote in both. But in a general election, you can only vote in one. I assume that you can vote in any byelections.