Sir Keir Starmer has cast himself the heir to Blair after a historic Tory by-election drubbing in which he jubilantly declared Labour was “redrawing the political map”.
The Labour leader said that Tory voters were turning to them because they were “fed up with the decline and despairing of the party they used to vote for”.
The Tories are now staring down the barrel of an unprecedented wipeout after suffering defeats in two fiercely contested by-elections, with huge majorities evaporating overnight following a disastrous few years in which the party has seemingly stumbled from one crisis to another.
Starmers remarks came as polling guru John Curtice said Boris Johnson and Liz Truss were largely to blame for the crushing defeat.
Overturning the biggest majority in British by-election history, Labour took Mid Bedfordshire from the Tories for the first time.
While in Tamworth, the party saw the second biggest swing from the Tories to Labour in a by-election in post-war history.
Meanwhile, former chancellor George Osborne warned the record defeats spell “armageddon” for the Conservatives at the general election.
