Nothing feels as good as winning.

It’s been a long time since Labour enjoyed

a victory as thumping as the one it scored this week in Selby and Ainsty, a once
solidly Conservative patch of rural Yorkshire, and Keir Starmer deserves to savour
the moment. In little over three years, he has transformed a defeated and despairing
party into a government in waiting. There have been some deeply painful
compromises along the way, but finally he can argue that they are starting to pay off.
Ed Davey is equally entitled to be gleeful about recapturing Somerton and Frome for
the Lib Dems, confirming that his party is well and truly back from the wilderness.
The scale of tactical voting in both contests suggests that an iron resolve is forming
among anti-Tory voters to do whatever it takes. Where they can run as insurgents
against an unpopular government, progressives are riding high. But what happened
in Uxbridge and South Ruislip suggests limits to that approach.

After Boris Johnson slunk away in disgrace, many assumed his old seat was
Labour’s for the taking. Instead, the Tories scraped back in by turning what
could have been a referendum on their handling of the economy into a
referendum on another incumbent: London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, and his
decision to extend the capital’s ultra-low emission zone to outlying boroughs
from August, forcing owners of older and more polluting vehicles to pay a
£12.50 daily charge or buy new cars. Labour struggled to land its message
about the punishing cost of living with voters who blamed their mayor for
helping to push it up.

After Boris Johnson slunk away in disgrace, many assumed his old seat was
Labour’s for the taking. Instead, the Tories scraped back in by turning what
could have been a referendum on their handling of the economy into a
referendum on another incumbent: London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, and his
decision to extend the capital’s ultra-low emission zone to outlying boroughs
from August, forcing owners of older and more polluting vehicles to pay a
£12.50 daily charge or buy new cars. Labour struggled to land its message
about the punishing cost of living with voters who blamed their mayor for
helping to push it up.