More by-elections! Ironically the Conservatives managed to hold the most marginal of the three seats they were trying to defend in a round of by-elections yesterday, Boris Johnson's former seat of Uxbridge, while they lost Selby & Ainsty in Yorkshire (to Labour) and Somerton & Frome in Somerset (to the Lib Dems) on enormous swings.
Apparently the Uxbridge result was in part because Labour hold the London mayoralty and their new plan to expand London's Ultra-Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ) has been unpopular with residents in the suburbs for whom it mainly means a big hike in vehicle costs during a cost of living crisis. I think this is a problem we're seeing across Europe: some voters who might be inclined to vote against Conservative governing parties end up swinging to them or to further right populist parties because those parties are able to present desperately needed climate change measures as a further cost of living hit that people won't be able to afford (this is a big deal in Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands rights now with the AfD, FPO, and BBB respectively doing very well as basically primarily anti-environmentalist parties). I wish I knew what the solution was to that one: I don't believe the world can at all afford to have any let-up on climate measures, indeed we need them to accelerate, but it feels like the backlash is something European democracies are struggling with.
The S&F result was very good for the Lib Dems - 11,000 majority, which even if the party performs a bit less well at the general election with a larger electorate is likely to mean we hold that seat next year.