“Pretty much every ICU in the country and most hospitals are having a real challenge with staffing at the moment.” Intensive Care consultant, Professor Rupert Pearce says illness and COVID contact is having an impact on staff numbers in hospitals.
In Oswestry this morning, residents are waking up with a non-Conservative MP for the first time since the 1800s,Outside the indoor market, the trouncing of the Tories is the talk of the town.
But in an earlier tweet, he cautioned that by-elections do not predict who will win at a general election.One fact many are pointing out this morning is that North Shropshire voted 60% Leave in the Brexit referendum - and has now elected a Remainer Liberal Democrat.Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey thinks so, telling BBC Radio 4's Today programme that voters have"moved on" from Brexit.
Will Walden said the by-election defeat is"very difficult" to"brush off as a typical mid-term by-election blip" as it should have been a safe Tory seat. Governments often lose by-elections. But this loss will send shockwaves through the Conservative Party because it shows that the turmoil besetting Mr Johnson's Number 10 is now spilling out with a concrete loss at the ballot box. MPs, particularly in marginal seats, will be very rattled.
Sir Roger Gale, one of the PM's critics on the backbenches, this morning said he put a letter of no confidence into the 1922 backbench committee over the Barnard Castle debacle and wouldn't be surprised if more are going in now. But the numbers are nowhere near the 54 letters – 15% of Tory MPs – needed to trigger a vote.
Reporters on the ground in North Shropshire have said many Conservative voters moved away from their party this time - and that was reflected in the big swing to the Liberal Democrats. Ed Davey has hailed a"spectacular result" for the Liberal Democrats, after his party beat the Conservatives in two of their safest seats this year. Lifelong Conservative voters in North Shropshire"felt the Conservatives were taking them for granted", he said, and"don't think Boris Johnson is a decent person".
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