Expectations can shape reality. The Conservatives were braced to lose yesterday’s by-election treble 3-0. Instead, they lost 2-1. Rishi Sunak will be relieved by that outcome. How should the rest of his Party take it?
Let’s start with that Uxbridge and Ruislip result, which has surprised both the parties and the pollsters (other than Lord Ashcroft in a related context). Though not Andrew Gimson, who reported from the seat on Monday, and whose intuition has been proved right. It will have four consequences.
First, the result demonstrates that Sadiq Khan faces a serious problem in outer London next year, and he will surely now look for a way of softening ULEZ.
Second, it’s a helpful result for Rachel Reeves, who prioritises orthodox economic management over net zero emissions, and a setback for Ed Miliband, who wants a Labour Government to spend £28 billion on furthering the latter as soon as possible.
Third, and most importantly, it confirms that while voters will back Net Zero in principle, they won’t do so in practice if or when policy initiatives tear chunks out of their household budgets.
So, fourth, it will give heart to those within the Government who want to rebalance the three-legged stool of energy policy. During recent years, the stress has been on Net Zero targets at the expense of security of supply (and affordability).
My take has long been that politicians of whatever party will back off targets when or if they meet with voter resistance. The shape of events in Holland could be replicated here. (This by-election was also a very bad result for Just Stop Oil.)
The nearer in time a target is, the more it’s vulnerable to events: look no further than the pledge to ban new conventional petrol and diesel cars and vans will be banned from sale from 2030.
Team Starmer will doubtless suggest this morning that, if the general election takes place next year at the same time as the Mayoral election, voters in Uxbridge and South Ruislip may vote Labour in the former and otherwise in the latter.
They could have a point: yesterday’s by-election gave voters a vehicle to protest against ULEZ. The Mayoral contest alone might fulfill that purpose in the event of a May 2024 election.
The emergence of ULEZ as a result-shaping issue in London is a reminder of the volatility of politics. But although Downing Street will sigh with relief today – as will Greg Hands and CCHQ – the rest of the Party shouldn’t join in.
The point is not so much that the Conservative position is doomed whatever happens as that it is irrecoverable on the present trajectory.
In the struggle between electoral tightening and tactical voting, the Somerton & Frome and Selby & Ainsty results do nothing to suggest that the former is mastering the latter.
Indeed, the former isn’t happening at all. Labour is currently 20 points ahead in Politico’s poll of polls, and there has recently been electoral loosening rather than tightening: Labour’s lead has nudged up.
The swing to Labour in Selby yesterday was 24.1 per cent. That’s the kind of result Tony Blair was gaining in opposition but which has previously eluded Starmer.
And it would suit him nicely if the Liberal Democrats beat the Conservatives next year in seats in which Labour hasn’t a hope. They have taken Somerton with a 29 point swing – just a bit below the recent one to them in Tiverton & Honiton.
True, the circumstances which gave rise to all three by-elections were unusual. Voters don’t like MPs who get caught up in scandal or who just bunk off, so forcing an election on them.
But there is a danger this morning that Team Sunak will breathe a sigh of relief and carry on with business as usual – so running into the autumn’s Party Conference with the five pledges and little else.
There will be a temptation to delay Cabinet changes, which may be fine; but there will also be one to minimise them when they come, which wouldn’t be.
As matters stand, the Prime Minister is on course to be ejected from Downing Street. To date, he hasn’t set out a view of the challenges facing Britain and how his Government plans to tackle them.
Instead, he has stuck to the five priorities. That plan may well have made sense when he first entered Number Ten. But it is running out of steam. A narrow win in Uxbridge doesn’t change the bleakness of this position – though it’s certainly a reminder that Labour has weaknesses that can be identified and punished.
During the mid-Thatcher period, her Ministers divided into “consolidators” and “radicals”. Sunak and his team have no choice but to be radical. After all, there’s nothing much in his present position to consolidate.