The swing from Tory to LibDem in two years was a massive 34 per cent and Sir John Curtice says this was last seen at a by-election in Christchurch in 1993 at the start of the Parliament that eventually saw the Conservative government toppled to the landslide of Blair's New Labour. There is the same feel about it now. A government that looks tired and out of its depth with voters turning on it.
If Owen Paterson had accepted his punishment and apologised his 30 day suspension would have come and gone almost without anyone noticing. Now it looks like the prime minister is finished.
The Tories have only themselves to blame. They chose Johnson and now they must get rid of him. The stench of hypocrisy, sleaze and incompetence gets stronger by the week. The entire government is a shambolic Fred Karno's army as well as being useless, venal and corrupt. It's even worse than many forecast it would be when Johnson was chosen as leader over Jeremy Hunt.
His former employer, Max Hastings, once said that if Johnson was ever elected prime minister, Britain would cease to be a serious country. I think we can now see how right he was.
I cannot see any achievement for his two years in office except Brexit, and this is turning out to be an absolute disaster. Imagine that as your legacy? All you can point to is a policy built on lies and misinformation which is slowly making the nation poorer and weaker and nothing can stop it - at least for several years. Apart from that what has he done?
And yet, oddly the LibDems claim Brexit wasn't a factor yesterday. I think this is probably true. The Shropshire result shows 12,000 people still voted Tory so they are presumably still on board with it. But just wait until the full extent of the mistake becomes clear. The entire Conservative party may well be finished.
The Guardian says Johnson's supporters will be worried by reports from North Shropshire of not just dissatisfaction with the government but what it calls "some fairly significant and personal distaste for the prime minister". Of course, there was an element of a protest vote and no doubt some Labour voters went tactical. Some Tory voters probably stayed at home. But there is no doubt Johnson is now personally loathed by many people.
The electoral asset has now transferred to the liabilities column. And how.
Laura Kuenssberg, the BBC's Political editor says "the government is going to try and say this is mid-term misery - and yes, by-elections are a way the public can stick two fingers up to a government when they're cross.
"But let's be plain: this is an appalling result for the Conservatives, in a part of the country where the tradition of voting Tory is baked into the earth. This isn’t a little slip up, it’s a disaster.
"People on the ground say the Tory campaign was going OK, until all of the recent shenanigans in Downing Street emerged, and that is when support fell off a cliff."
Johnson has hitherto been immune to the consequences of his own personal failings. Every time a scandal was exposed be managed to escape blame or criticism. That is now over. Yesterday was surely the beginning of the end for Boris Johnson.
I assume more letters of no confidence will be going in shortly and a leadership challenge should follow next year.
Roll on 2022.
