After a decent conference speech, there was some hope among the Tories that Kemi Badenoch had finally turned the corner. Her PMQs performances are much more assured and there have been some notable Labour scalps secured by the party’s fabled ‘dark arts’ team. But this improvement appears not to have been recognised by the electorate, who continue to turf out Tories in various elections across the country.

Last night represented a continuation of this trend. Two Tory ‘big beasts’ suffered poor results in each of their respective patches. In Devon, Sir Mel Stride’s Conservatives saw the third Lib Dem gain in his seat in recent months. And in the East Midlands, Robert Jenrick’s Tories suffered not one, but two defeats, in the Castle and Balderton North and Coddington wards on Newark coun

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