The Herald:

THERE’S now a route it seems to dethroning the king of world. Boris Johnson - who once dreamed of running the planet as a schoolboy - woke up this morning to a vision of future defeat.

The Chesham and Amersham by-election in the leafy, rich shires outside London - the Metropolitan Green Belt - proved an astonishing defeat for Tories. The LibDems overturned a 16,000 vote majority in a seat that’s always been held by Conservatives, taking nearly 57% to the Tories’ 35%.

Just as the working class in England’s northern Red Wall gave up on a Labour Party they deemed too metropolitan and progressive, affluent middle class voters in the south of England may now be shifting away from a Tory Party viewed as too nationalistic and populist.

Of equal significance, though, was the humiliation of Labour, coming fourth with a catastrophic 1.6% of the vote. The Greens took third place. Is this the first sign that Labour in England is about to replicate Labour in Scotland - ignominiously consigned to the margins of politics?


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