Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives on Friday suffered two crushing UK parliamentary by-election defeats but averted a “3-0” drubbing by unexpectedly holding on to Boris Johnson’s old Uxbridge seat.
The grave problems facing the British prime minister were highlighted when the opposition Labour party secured its biggest-ever by-election win in the once-safe Tory seat of Selby and Ainsty in Yorkshire.
Earlier the centrist Liberal Democrats demolished a massive Tory majority to win the seat of Somerton and Frome, opening up a dangerous new front for Sunak in the Tory heartlands of England’s South West.
At least in Uxbridge, single issue voters seem to have won it for them
People who are upset with Sadiq Kahn for the Ultra Low Emission Zone in London, despite the fact that their former MP Johnson actually kicked it off...
I actually don't really think it's a terrible idea, no matter where it came from. Air quality in London is way better than it used to be, but still not good enough.
I know it's mostly from the tube, but I always think of the black bogeys I'd get whenever I visited London as a child. My parents told me about how bad the smog was when they lived there in the 60s and 70s.
I remember my eyes watering on a warm day in London due to the pollution and the general stink of the pollution (during the summer a temperature inversion that keeps it capped in will worsen it). I recently visited London during a hot spell and it was remarkable how pleasant the air was in central London. The ULEZ and congestion charges have made London such a better place to be.
Lots of people, just not the ones who post online in the same places as you. Posh people, rural people, and old people all love them, and they probably make up a higher percentage of Tory voters than just the ill-informed and racist.
Who tf is still voting for them? Who are these people?
I'm suspicious at this point. No proof, but known-to-be corrupt and dishonest government rigging elections seems like an increasingly simpler Occam's razor explanation for apparently remaining tory support.
I don't know any, I even know some rich people who used to vote tory who don't any more. I know a lot of people who tell me they exist but that they are just "shy".
I'm not saying it's true that the elections are rigged, they probably aren't, but I don't think it's unreasonable to question it knowing the character and form of the government.