Probably the biggest Westminster by-election shock of recent times was the failure by LAB to take Boris Johnson’s old seat at Uxbridge in the July contest.

What we saw there was a foretaste of how the Tories will play the general election. They’ll have different versions of a local issue like ULEZ each day over the five weeks.

My main conclusion is that marginal seat by marginal seat the Tories are going to be harder to beat than current polling suggests. An abiding memory for me that continues to shape my thinking is of April 9th 1992 when John Major held onto power against all the odds.

Mike Smithson