A glorious blue dawn spread across the skies above Uxbridge and South Ruislip yesterday morning as the Conservatives celebrated a stunning by-election victory in a seat they were always destined to lose.
Forget Selby and Ainsty where Labour snuck ahead in their North Yorkshire heartlands. Forget Somerton and Frome where the Liberal Democrats achieved a meaningless win. The real story of Triple By-Election Thursday is the unexpected triumph of common sense on the outskirts of London where Labour's toxic ULEZ repulsed the electorate.
Usually it's national politics that swings local elections, infuriating hard-working councillors whose prudent records are trashed by ministerial incompetence. But on this occasion it was local politics which swung the Westminster vote, against all the odds, confirming that mud sticks no matter where you throw it from.
Shout loudly enough about an unfair tax on an everyday necessity and everyone forgets why the by-election was called, what the previous incumbent did and who's been in power for the last 13 years. No matter that MPs have no jurisdiction whatsoever over Mayoral transport policy, my god it was good giving Keir Starmer a bloody nose.
A car is an absolute necessity in Outer London, indeed only 22% of households in Hillingdon don't have one. You can't impose a savage daily £12.50 charge on every industrious driver without expecting payback. But Sadiq Khan still blundered in and showed Labour's true colours, and it's only taken 495 voters to prove him irrefutably wrong.
The good people of Hillingdon may be struggling with the cost of living but they know proper policies when they see them. Stopping the boats and lowering inflation, these are the Tory successes that drive them on, not invisible health benefits paid for by airy-fairy green levies that drain the funds they need to pay their skyrocketing mortgages.
When the TV crews came to Uxbridge yesterday they found a high street full of shoppers happy to badmouth the redhead Labour whippersnapper parachuted in to hijack the seat. By contrast plain-speaking Councillor Tuckwell was always 'one of them', very much a man of the people, so the perfect choice to replace Brexit hero Boris Johnson as MP.
Nobody mentioned that the former Mayor introduced the ULEZ in the first place, nor that his government had insisted it was expanded as part of emergency pandemic funding. These traps were set so long ago that everyone's conveniently forgotten how this started, hence it's all Khan's fault and on such distinctions are wafer-thin majorities won.
Uxbridge and South Ruislip is a constituency where Londoners are proud to be British, indeed the flag of the historic county of Middlesex flies high above the town hall. You only have to visit the pubs or set foot on the garage forecourts to know that these simple people may like a good curry but they aren't natural eco-warriors.
Many excellent policies have contributed to this by-election triumph. A new hospital for Hillingdon funded from the Brexit dividend. The imposition of Voter ID to exclude undesirables. And, perhaps most importantly, waiting until Brunel University had broken up for the summer. On such strategic decisions are marginal victories won and lost.
It was only right that Rishi Sunak dropped into the Rumbling Tum cafe on Victoria Road to celebrate his party's historic win, rather than visiting the foodbank in the church nextdoor. This bastion of working class solidarity is entirely representative of Conservative values, and also a very brief limo-trip from the gates of RAF Northolt.
On entering the cafe the PM was greeted by spontaneous applause from tablefuls of ordinary punters kickstarting their working day with a traditional breakfast. How unexpectedly fortunate that one of these was Tory Mayoral candidate Susan Hall, a hard-nosed force of nature whose chance of replacing the current incumbent just visibly multiplied.
Against all expectations the people of Uxbridge and South Ruislip have fought back and delivered one in the eye for the metropolitan elite. More importantly they've put taxation in the spotlight and provided a total distraction from the unprecedented losses suffered by the Conservative party elsewhere, indeed you've likely forgotten them already.
It seems turning an election into a single-issue referendum pays great dividends, especially if your laser focus is being negative about your opponent rather than showcasing policies of your own. In business parks and hair salons, in supermarkets and semi-detached avenues, this historic by-election is surely the harbinger of five more glorious years.
