with the conservatives, the lib dems are once again a party of by election protest, particularly for conservative voters. they have come back in rather a spectacular fashion in this by election. t5 come back in rather a spectacular fashion in this by-election. is that because voters fashion in this by-election. is that because voters realise fashion in this by-election. is that because voters realise that - fashion in this by-election. is that because voters realise that rather| because voters realise that rather than voting labour, the way to unseat the tories if that was their priority was to go with the lib dems? and what about the conservative 0liver dowden saying this is a one off, a mid term blues? that is sadly true. part the reason the reason the lib dems won is the 12 point drop in the labour vote, without that they wouldn t have won, given that a lot of those votes went in the liberal democrats direction. in a constituency that has never had a labour mp, it was perhaps ea
conservative vote. we ve not seen drops of that scale in conservative support sincejohn drops of that scale in conservative support since john major suffered drops of that scale in conservative support sincejohn major suffered a trio of them between 1992 and 1997, which is not a very happy precedent for the conservatives. the other remarkable thing is this has happened in a constituency which was not natural lib dems territory. back in chesham and amersham in the summer, that was a constituency where one thought liberal democrats might do it, constituency voted remain and we already know from 2019 that the tories had been losing some ground in that constituency. this, however, is a constituency that had a 60% leave vote, so not natural lib dems territory. certainly one thing that perhaps all the parties have learnt in the wake of this is that perhaps for the first time since 2010 when they went into coalition