Shortly after 2am, Helen Hurford locked herself inside a dance studio at the Crediton sports centre. Never to be seen or heard of again, other than in a trivia quiz question as the Tory candidate who had the biggest majority overturned in byelection history. In the end, the result wasn’t even close in Tiverton and Honiton, with the Lib Dems coasting to victory by more than 6,000 votes. Nor was the news from Wakefield much better for the government. On a much smaller turnout, Labour comfortably won that byelection with a 4,000 majority. Happy sixth Brexit birthday to you, Boris.
After that, things moved fast, with Oliver Dowden announcing his resignation as Tory party chairman at about 5.30am. Something that will have been as much of a shock to Dowden as it was to everyone else. Because the whole point of Olly was that he has no sense of shame. He is a man without conscience, a once passionate remainer who erased his own history and reinvented himself as a lifelong Brexit supporter, who was only given the job of Tory chair as he could be relied on to eat shit and do whatever the Convict needed. So to find that Dowden did have a breaking point was a watershed moment.
