North shropshire

Wednesday

Steerpike

Former Tory MP gets revenge on Boris

Partygate may be what does for Boris but it was the North Shropshire by-election which triggered the landslide. The fallout from the disastrous decision to contest Owen Paterson’s suspension by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards has fuelled the anger and discontent which now leaves Johnson clinging on the precipice. For in losing a constituency which had returned Tories for more than 100 years, the PM spooked nervy backbenchers into thinking their seats could be next. Now though, the latest publication of the register of members’ interests has revealed the schadenfreude which others are deriving from Johnson’s North Shropshire woes. For the newly-elected Helen Morgan has declared £28,000 in donations since her triumph there,

Friday

Francis Elliott

How Boris Johnson survives

When the Conservative party looks in the mirror what does it see? Beyond the bruising, what face peers back from the glass? The problem for the party is that no two MPs can agree – and that just might be Boris Johnson’s best chance of survival. Contradictions shatter a unified surface that might once have offered the chance of self-reflection for the Conservative party. Some of the cracks are obvious, such as the one running through Downing Street over the proper size and limits of the state, for example, or that which separates No. 10 from many of its backbenches over Covid public health measures and liberty. It has been obvious

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The joy of Boris’s bungled by-election

By any reasonable standard the result in the North Shropshire by-election must be reckoned the funniest in years. Perhaps even decades. All governments need checking from time to time and desserts are always served justly. So this is a welcome result and not just because it is, viewed objectively, hilarious. Nevertheless, it is quite an achievement to lose a seat held by the Conservatives, in one shape of another, for 120 years. To do so just two years after winning more than 60 per cent of the vote and a majority of almost 23,000 votes is quite something. To do so to the Liberal Democrats, who took just ten per

James Forsyth James Forsyth

If the Tories can lose in Shropshire, they can lose anywhere

The Tory defeat in North Shropshire is a far worse result for the party and Boris Johnson than their loss in Chesham and Amersham. Chesham and Amersham could be put down to local anger about HS2 and disquiet over planning reform. It was also a seat ripe for tactical voting given it had voted Remain and the Lib Dems were a clear second. North Shropshire, by contrast, is a heavily voting Leave seat where the Liberal Democrats were in third place. There was also no single policy driving voters away from the Tories in the way that planning reform did in Chesham and Amersham. If the Tories can lose this

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Tory defeat in North Shropshire as Lib Dems take former safe seat

Ministers are waking up this morning to a big Tory upset in North Shropshire. In the by-election sparked by the Owen Paterson sleaze row, the Liberal Democrats have won the seat from the Conservatives overturning a majority of 22,949. In what has long been regarded as a safe seat for the Tories (they have come out on top in the area for almost 200 years), the Liberal Democrats won 17,957 votes with the Conservatives managing just 12,032 votes. This gives the Lib Dems a majority of 5,925. Labour came third with 3,686 votes. This result clearly will be tied to Boris Johnson’s leadership and the difficult time the Prime Minister

Wednesday

Steerpike

Will Brexit play a part in North Shropshire?

Can Boris Johnson’s month get any worse? Plagued by mutinous backbenchers, Omicron variants and Pippa Crerar, the beleaguered PM’s unhappy double-act of doom tonight with Chris Whitty will have done little to lift the gloom around No. 10. The consensus among Tory MPs appears to be that the Christmas recess has saved their leader. Most now expect him to lead them through the winter when he can (hopefully) reset his flatlining premiership, once again. But all that could change by Friday morning, depending on how the North Shropshire by-election goes. The Tory safe seat, which returned Owen Paterson last time by a majority of more than 22,000, is regarded by the bookies as ‘too