On the assumption that the Conservative party soon suffers a rout and Labour at last takes power, one place will be seen as the battleground where the Tory malaise finally became terminal: Wellingborough.
Last Thursday also saw a byelection in the Bristol suburb of Kingswood, where the Tories’ vote share came down by about 20 percentage points, and Labour easily triumphed. But in Northamptonshire, the figure was a jaw-dropping 38 percentage points: the worst slump the Conservatives have ever suffered in such a contest. The local campaign was defined by the sleazy fall of the Tory MP Peter Bone, and the surreally stupid decision to make his girlfriend the prospective Conservative replacement, both of which spoke of a party in a state of awful decay; nationally, the sense of a government gripped by failure and infighting completed the picture. Were the local swing from Tory to Labour to be replicated nationally, political pundits gasped, the Tories would be left with only four seats.
