Congratulations and commiserations all round

Congratulations to Jane Dodds on her victory in Brecon and Radnorshire where she took the seat from the Conservatives in the by-election there yesterday. I have to confess, I did stay up for the result! It meant I was a bit bleary-eyed this morning when I was feeding the livestock.

There have been some interesting responses to the result so I thought I would summarise them here:

• Lib Dem response: we won!
• Conservative response: a stunning victory for the Conservatives and a rotten result for the Lib Dems who were supposed to win every vote in the constituency and some more!
• Brexit Party response: oh b****r.
• Labour response: we saved our deposit by 0.3% in a seat we held until 1979. Onwards to the people's revolution from the comfort of the fence.
• Monster Raving Looney response: people must understand we are not the Conservative/Labour/Brexit/UKIP parties.
• UKIP: we beat the Monster Raving Looney Party for the coveted last place.

The reality is that this is good news for the Lib Dems, bad news for the Conservatives which adds to the complications of Parliamentary arithmetic and dire for Labour whose policy of effectively having no policy on Brexit has been a disaster. The Labour vote meltdown seen in the local and European elections, council by-elections and opinion polls was reflected in Brecon and Radnorshire. Labour are facing disaster.

So well done Jane and the by-election team. A great boost as we head towards the autumn and whatever that brings.