There is not enough gloss on shelves of B&Q to paint over how bad last night’s by-elections were for the Tories.
The Conservatives had long been resigned to losing Wakefield but they had hoped to hold off the Lib Dem surge in Tiverton & Honiton.
In the end they lost both seats by such a crushing margin the party chairman Oliver Dowden chose to quit rather than try to explain away the double disaster on this morning’s media round.
