For Rishi Sunak, two out of three ain’t bad – it’s a disaster

By-elections are a funny old business, writes Tom Peck. On the face of it, these results say Sunak will be trounced by Starmer next year. But beware the pernicious pong of Ulez and the lurking ghost of ‘long Boris’...

What a performance (Getty)

So, Rishi, here’s the good news. Just so long as you can convince the rest of the country that they, too, want to die a premature death from sucking in diesel fumes, you’re still in with a chance.

The bad news? Come on, you already knew the bad news, didn’t you?

It was, much to their and everybody else’s shock, a night of “mixed fortunes” for the Conservatives. A mere two out of three by-election defeats, not the full hat-trick that had been widely predicted, most of all by them.