Yet polling experts believe that weaponising local “wedge” issues in constituencies where Labour is in charge, such as the Ulez in London or the NHS in Wales, will only take the Tories so far without a more appealing, and generalised, national narrative. Some Tories believe Uxbridge shows that Labour’s huge national poll lead may be vulnerable, especially when they find the right local issues to campaign on, as they did with Sadiq Khan’s plan to extend London’s ultra-low emission zone (Ulez). Sunak’s allies hope that if the economy begins to recover, they may be able to reignite the enthusiasm of their former voters, although the results also underline just how much the coalition of Brexit supporters that gave Johnson his 2019 majority has collapsed. Rising wedge pattern trend line chart pattern technical analysis falling wedge patternCredit:-Music by jorikbasov from PixabayVideo by ftock - Mo. In Somerton, they lost 26,000 but the Lib Dems picked up just over 4,000. In Selby, the Tories dropped 21,000 votes, but Labour gained fewer than 3,000. The Tories also point to the fact that Selby and Somerton were lost not so much because of thousands of Tory voters switching parties but because so many stayed at home. The Labour leader’s allies, however, believe the result vindicates their ruthless discipline on unfunded spending commitments and focus on the centre ground, despite some concerns internally that Starmer’s electoral strategy leaves the party too light when confronted by difficult local issues. The Tories argue that Uxbridge, which they retained by just 495 votes, showed that people were unconvinced by Starmer, were worried about what Labour would do in government and would vote against him when given a good reason to do so. Although the Tories slipped to defeat to Labour in Selby, and to the Liberal Democrats in Somerton and Frome, they clung on in Boris Johnson’s old seat of Uxbridge and South Ruislip. Yet Rishi Sunak will take some small comfort from avoiding becoming the first prime minister since 1968 to lose three byelections on the same day. Sir John Curtice, a professor of politics at the University of Strathclyde, told the BBC on Friday morning: “The tide is still a long way out for the Conservatives and they still have an awful long way to go before they look as though they might have a chance to retain power.” But the scale of the swings in Selby, and in Somerton and Frome, still took many by surprise. The Tories had predicted all three races would be tough, arguing that governing parties always lose, even though four recent byelections show that is not always the case.
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