I watched PMQs yesterday thinking Starmer's slaughtering Johnson here (the PM was pathetic) while at the same time thinking that as I've never ever been impressed by Johnson when he speaks in public (I think he's absolutely dreadful), I'm clearly biased.

However, as far as I'm aware, the London Evening Standard is a right leaning paper, a natural supporter of the Conservative party and yet their political sketch writer clearly agrees with me when it comes to yesterday's PMQs at least;-

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/poli...m-b943483.html

The thing is though, it will make no difference as to how Starmer and Johnson are perceived by the public whatsoever and with Labour sources putting their chances of winning today's by election as about five per cent, Johnson majority will, almost certainly, have returned to where it was before the Chesham loss.

I still struggle to see what else is behind the Conservative's surge in the north other than the obvious reason. In the end, it seems to come down to Brexit (I think that was a prime mover behind the Chesham result as well). In this article;-

https://www.theguardian.com/politics...ley-byelection

the lady who is going to switch to the Conservatives lists a few local issues which she blames Labour councils for, but, as always, with local Government, what they have to spend is dictated by central Government and the same party have been in power (albeit with another party for the first five years) for over eleven years now - why is it that central Government is not being blamed by people who think their lives are shit? The vaccine feelgood factor helps of course, but that wasn't around in 2019 - Brexit was though.