Prime Minister Boris Johnson may be a historian, but I’m confident he can do the math dictated by the recent by-election that cut his parliamentary majority to one.
The Liberal Democrats’ Jane Dodds gave the Prime Minister a political headache as she overcame an 8,000-vote Conservative majority to take the Welsh seat for the Remainer party.
Disgraced expenses cheat Tory Chris Davies, whose conviction and expulsion via a recall petition forced the summer vote, held on to second with a better than expected showing despite the presence of the Brexit Party…. Ms Dodds, 55, secured a majority of 1,425 after a ‘Remain alliance’ with Plaid and the Greens, and Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson signalled this morning that she wants to extend the tie-up to a swathe of other winnable seats.
- Jane Dodds (Lib Dem): 13,826
- Chris Davies (Conservatives: 12,401
- Des Parkinson (Brexit Party) 3,331
- Tom Davies (Labour ) 1,680
- Lady Lily The Pink (Monster Raving Loony) 334
- Liz Phillips (Ukip) 242
A Leave alliance with the Brexit Party means the Conservatives will easily win the next general election, which looks increasingly likely for any of a variety of possible reasons. But it also means that the Conservatives have to stop faffing around with idiotic “increase legal immigration” talk and other nonsense that literally no one actually cares about. Of course, given the fact that they were foolish enough to try to convince the Brecon electorate to accept a convicted criminal who had been recalled by petition as their MP, they may not be capable of accepting the obvious political logic here.
The other interesting fact is the way in which Labour got absolutely destroyed. Its position as a weak Remain party appears to be untenable in the current circumstances.