Britain's ruling Conservative Party suffered two damaging by-election defeats to Labour on Friday, boding ill for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his party's chances at the next general election.
The elections were in traditionally safe Tory seats, but Labour managed to overturn huge majorities in both on a notable evening for the opposition party.
However, the Conservatives' prospects of winning another term at the next election, due before January 2025, are looking bleak after the latest blows, with voters taking out their frustrations over an ongoing cost-of-living crisis and a series of scandals. The Tamworth poll was triggered when Chris Pincher, who had the seat since 2010, quit after being found to have groped two men in an"egregious case of sexual misconduct".
The Mid Bedfordshire poll was called when former culture secretary Nadine Dorries, a loyalist to Johnson who blames Sunak for his political downfall, quit her seat. She accused the new prime minister of having abandoned"the fundamental principles of conservatism".
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