Byelection results in Tamworth and Mid Bedfordshire represent new lows for a Conservative government that will soon be obliged to confront its mortality.
Even allowing for the capacity of byelections to produce startling results, the scale of collapse was jaw-dropping. The swing of 23.9% in Tamworth was the second largest Conservative-to-Labour shift we have seen, as a 19,634 majority was removed. Only 53 seats were safer for the Conservatives than Tamworth at the 2019 general election.
With a 20.5% swing from the Conservatives to Labour, Mid Bedfordshire was not far behind in the “wow” stakes. It lay among the Conservatives’ 100 safest seats, a constituency held by the Tories since 1931.
