Thread by @rcolvile

What caused the Chesham/Amersham earthquake? My answer - it's a symptom of a new kind of two-party politics (1/?) thetimes.co.uk/article/this-w…

In a sense it's classic Lib Dem opportunism - push hard on housing and HS2, even though they actually support both at a national level. But the scale of the swing suggests two other things.

First, Brexit has weakened the ties that bind (in this case Tories to their trad voters). Second, it's not that Labour are going to be displaced by the Greens (as many southern Tories have been saying privately) or Lib Dems. It's that the electoral battle is Tories v anti-Tories.

Opposition to the Tories will coalesce around whichever party (Lab, Lib, Green, SNP...) is most likely to hurt the govt. As I say in the piece, this could be a real electoral headache for the Tories.

Now, as I also say in the piece, this could all be wrong. This could actually just be one of those weird by-election things that gets forgotten about at the next GE. But that doesn't actually matter...

Because a vote like this licenses every other southern Tory to be afraid for their seat, and to vote against planning reform, and to tell Boris loudly that they need more of the political TLC that the North has been getting.

As @robfordmancs told me, in a brilliant quote, 'The political narratives that MPs are most inclined to believe are those that end with: ‘... which is why seats like mine need more attention’.'

You can read the full thing here - much more in there thetimes.co.uk/article/this-w…