Come in No 10, your time is up.

[Workingman]

WARNING! There is an avalanche of deflections and excuses inbound from Mr Mop-head's fanboys and girls.

The fact is that the Cons lost a supers safe seat, held for nearly 200 years - gone in a flash. It is what happens when a party and its "leader" lie, cheat, and treats the little men and women with arrogance and disdain.

An interesting few days lie ahead for the Cons. Parliament goes into recess now, so there will be no whipping, no cajoling for support. Each member will be alone back in their own constituencies where they will have time to reflect with their families and friends. Hopefully many will do the right thing. Let the letter writing begin.

[Suff]

We shall see.

[cromwell]

People will put there own reasons on why the Conservatives lost. Sleaze? Maybe, but to me the arrogance of the Christmas party was a big, big factor.
When people weren't allowed to kiss or embrace a dying loved one and at the same time no 10 staff are having a knees up?
That is do as I say, not do as I do writ large.
Also Owen Paterson, rule breaker or no was very popular in the constituency and there is apparently strong local feeling that he was hung out to dry by his supposed friends.
Plus the manifesto promises. Low taxes haven't happened. Taking back control of our borders most certainly hasn't happened. Boris was the great white hope and he has let people down. The Boris people voted for was the Boris who opposed ID cards, the Boris who mocked green policies.
And they haven't got that Boris. They've got the Boris of lockdowns and vaccine passports, a Boris who seems to have been transformed into Greta Thunberg's dad.
Nobody voted for that.
He's had the most difficult start of any Prime Minister ever but that won't influence Tory MP's. If they think their seat is in danger they'll knife him in the back quicker than you can say Sheffield steel.
I posted on here months ago that it may be that Boris had already served his purpose by getting that 80 seat majority.
It looks like he's going to get the bullet but the Tories have to be careful. If they think Michael Gove or Rishi Sunak is going to get them an 80 seat majority, think again.

[Kaz]

I think he's on his way out, but the alternative for the leadership are no prize either

[Suff]

Recent history is not very good on this. Usually Labour is more loyal to their leaders than the Tories... But.

Cameron lost the referendum and jumped for his parachute as they were throwing him off the cliff.
May was allowed to win the contest to replace him and did a miserable job of the whole thing
Then May led the party to an election when it looked like they had a solid lead, only to lose their majority
Then Boris took over and they got an 80 seat boost.

Whilst most MP's can't see beyond the next time they have to face the ire of the voters, the party has a slightly longer memory than that and it is not a happy one since they pushed Cameron off the cliff.

He may be forced out, but if the Tories think that is going to give them electoral protection they can think again. It is 3 years to the next election, many things will change before then.

It is extremely interesting, though, that gratitude is, as Joe Stalin said, a disease for dogs. The Tories take a seat in Hartlepool in May, the first time in quite a long time that a sitting Government has won a by election. Boris is Golden.

Tories lose North Shropshire in December in the onset of another wave of Covid, with leaks about a Christmas party a year ago (wonder why that surfaced right now????), then Boris is the worst thing ever.

The very REAL story in North Shropshire is that Labour was Decimated and forced back into second place.

The Turnout was down 17,000. The Lib Dems gained 11,954 votes, 8,809 they took from Labour.

You could write this headline a very different way. "Tories lose North Shropshire on a low turnout, disaffected Tories and significant tactical voter swing from labour to Lib Dem"

When the Tory MP's staff start to crunch the numbers, they will be asking questions before getting their pens out. Because if they get tarred with this brush their chances of losing at the next election are very high. Deselection is also a very real possibility if they force a crisis that damages the party.

This story is a long way from over.