The Tories were left wondering what might have been after learning that they had lost the Brecon and Radnorshire by-election in the early hours of this morning by a narrow margin of just 1,425 votes. This was despite the Lib Dems being runaway favourites to win the seat by a landslide after other pro-Remain parties pulled out to give them a clear run, and the Tories re-standing a candidate whose conviction for fraud triggered the by-election in the first place. The May government’s decision to allow Chris Davies to re-stand for the seat looks more than a little foolish now, to say the least…

The Brexit Party vote eclipsed the size of the majority by almost 3:1, a clear warning sign for the Tories ahead of any general election. Interestingly, the Brexit Party’s tally was just seven votes different from UKIP’s in 2015 when Cameron did manage to scrape a majority…

Lib Dem: 13,826 (43%)

Conservative: 12,401 (39%)

Brexit Party: 3,331 (10%)

Labour: 1,680 (5%)

Monster Raving Loony Party: 334 (1%)

UKIP: 242 (0.8%)

At the other end of the table, Labour just managed to hold on to their deposit with a measly 5.28% of the vote. The party that won almost 50% of the vote in Wales last General Election now fighting it out with the Monster Raving Loony Party…