Yesterday was the day of two by-elections, one in Wellingborough in Northamptonshire and another in Kingswood in South Gloucestershire. Neither of these by-elections were the result of something that is normal in a Parliamentary system such as the death of an MP or an MP retiring due to ill health. These by-elections occurred due to alleged scandal in the case of the former Tory MP for Wellingborough Peter Bone who was accused of but denies bullying and sexual harassment and the flouncing out of Parliament by Chris Skidmore the Tory MP for Kingswood over government plans to issue oil and gas production licences. The Tory position in Wellingborough was further damaged by the decision to pick Peter Bone’s girlfriend as candidate for this seat. This decision gave the appearance of sleaze and this could have been avoided by selecting a candidate who was as removed as possible from the influence of and association with the former MP. In this seat the Tories needed a fresh start not a reminder of the past.

The outcome of these contests is that the Labour Party won both but on sub 40% electoral turnouts in both. Although the Labour Party has now won two extra seats it looks very much like the Apathy Party is the real winner.

From what I can see this morning it seems that the Tory voters stayed at home and they probably did so out of disgust at the piss poor performance and lack of genuine conservativism that has characterised the modern Conservative Party. By failing to tackle issues such as migration and borders, the politicisation of public services, and the damage done by the cultural and social wreckers of the Left, despite promising numerous times to do so, the Tories have lost the trust of their normal regular voters.

The Tories are now the political equivalent of someone who borrows £5 off you and who promises to pay it back next week but when next week comes about the borrower has a multitude of shit excuses as to why they can’t pay the money back, We’ve had no end of statements from the Tories about how they are going to tackle excessive migration, or turn back the tide of politicised policing and teaching or deal with the waste in the public sector and in public services.

However all these statements by the Tory government have turned out to be just meaningless words with no actual backing to them. Britain is still being raped, both figuratively and literally, by the dinghy invaders and the far greater numbers who are allowed in legally. There is still considerable and now obvious politicisation of the police, the judiciary, the NHS, the education system and other public entities and there is still massive wastes of resources and poor resource management right across the public sector from the Senior Civil Service to local authorities. The Tory voters in both these seats were not given enough reason to get out on a cold February day and vote for the Tories. After all it could be said that Tory voters have eaten enough shit sandwiches dished out to them by the Tory Party and it appears that we’ve reached the situation when Tory voters are deciding to decline the offer of yet another sandwich filled with poo.

From what I can see when reading and listening about these two by-elections is that it is not a case of Labour winning them as in Labour convincing voters to change party, but have got them because the voters for their main opposition party stayed at home in disgust. Those centre-right voters who did bother to turn out were not enough to hold the seat especially as votes that might have gone to the Tories went instead to Reform.

On the subject of Reform whilst they didn’t do as well as some might have hoped, Reform came third place in both contests with 10% of the vote in Kingswood and 13% in Wellingborough. Reform seems, at least going by these two by-elections, to be bleeding off former Tory voters and this is going I believe to be a problem in future by-elections and maybe even in a General Elections. Reform can be a blocker for the Tories and the Tories need to realise that and start rebuilding trust with the electorate in time for the General Election but that is going to be a Herculean task as it’s difficult to trust a party that has let so many people down on such a regular basis.

Onto the undercard. With a creditable third place in both these contests Reform still need to be considered as undercard because this third place was achieved on relatively few votes. This wasn’t so much an earthquake result for Reform but more the vibrations that you get from a heavy lorry passing close by. It’s good but not good enough. Reform has had something of an open goal to hit because of the governmental failures of the Tories and they should have scored.

The really good bit of positive news from these contests is the Liberal Democrats seemingly losing their deposits in both seats. Whether these spectacular losses are due to the Lib Dems being seen as irrelevant or if they are the result of public anger at the Lib Dem leader’s involvement in the Horizon Post Office IT scandal is difficult to say but neither of these factors would have helped them.

Also among the lost deposits at Wellingborough were the Monster Raving Loony Party, Britain First, the Greens and a cornucopia of various Independent candidates. The Kingswood lost deposit tally as well as the Lib Dems included the Greens and the remains of UKIP.

So what do these results tell us about the politics of the future? The influence of shock by-election results is often trumpeted as an indication of future political change and in some case such as the rise in electoral significance of the Labour Party in the early 20^th century this is true. However other claims of massive electoral shifts, such as the smattering of SDP wins in the 80’s have turned out to be phantom shifts.

It is quite possible that Tory voters may return to the fold at the General Election in these seats because they, quite rightly in my view, fear a Labour government made up of nutbags. But for this to happen the Tories need to use the short time they’ve got left to them in government to put before the public policies that really sort out the border and migration issue, that deals with the waste and politicisation of the public services and to abandon the self foot shooting policies such as Net Zero. However I’m not confident that the Tories can do this under Rishi Sunak’s leadership and the preponderance of what Lady Thatcher once called ‘wets’ in the Parliamentary Party makes it highly unlikely that a change of leadership and the promotion of genuinely conservative policies will come about.

Both these by-elections were proof of the old adage that it is not oppositions that win elections it is governments that lose them and the unconservative Conservative Party certainly lost last night by its voters choosing the Apathy Party instead of the Tories.