During the 1979 election campaign Labour Prime Minister Jim Callaghan confided to his aide Bernard Donoughue, ‘There are times, perhaps once every 30 years, when there is a sea change in politics. It then does not matter what you say or what you do.’ A few weeks later Mrs Thatcher’s Conservatives swept to power and the rest is history. Over four decades later, surveying last night’s spectacular by-election defeats in Tamworth and Mid-Bedfordshire, Rishi Sunak may be having similar thoughts.
After the convulsions of the Liz Truss and Boris Johnson eras, Sunak has stabilised British politics and his party, but at a polling level an average of 17% behind Keir Starmer’s Labour Party – a position that has remained remarkably steady for over seven months.

Retaining Uxbridge (7% swing to Labour) in July gave Ministers hope that framing Labour as ‘anti-motorist’ was a potential vote winner, a theme that the Party continued during Party Conference season. But the national polls haven’t moved, and last night’s results in Mid-Bedfordshire (20% swing) and Tamworth (24%) were much closer to the by-election overshadowed by the Uxbridge result: Selby (24%). Mid-Beds was the largest ever Conservative majority overturned by Labour, and Tamworth the second largest Conservative to Labour by-election win since the Second World War. Neither were on Labour’s target list.

By-elections are different in terms of lower turnout and because of the ability to record a protest vote. Labour won’t record last night’s swings in next year’s General Election – not least because that would mean fewer than 30 constituencies shaded blue on the election map – and all parties think the national polls will narrow to some extent as the election draws nearer, assisted by a gently improving economy.

But a Labour working majority of 30 or more no longer looks beyond reach for Starmer. Even a poll lead of under 10% may be enough to deliver that given the extent of anti-Conservative tactical voting last night (check out what happened to the Green vote) and because of Labour’s resurgence in Scotland. It is now just as likely that things get worse for Sunak as get better, as the clock ticks down and party discipline fractures. A 1997-style landslide is no longer out of the question. A majority rather than a minority Government could be crucial for Starmer given the inbox of issues he will inherit, and size of his agenda on planning reform, Net Zero, devolution and industrial strategy.

Talk to canvassers of all parties and they will tell you that voters are no longer listening to Rishi Sunak and his policies, despite his newfound decisiveness on policies such as HS2, smoking and education. Painting a Prime Minister as the ‘change candidate’ is a challenge 13 years into an administration, but what else can the Conservatives do? ‘It then does not matter what you say or what you do.’

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