Image source, House of Commons

Let's look back at why there was a by-election in the first place. Owen Paterson had held the North Shropshire seat since 1997 for the Conservatives.

Under David Cameron, Paterson held a number of positions in government including Northern Ireland secretary and environment secretary, before he returned to the back benches in 2014.

After leaving government he became a paid consultant for Randox Laboratories and Lynn's Country Foods who paid him thousands of pounds a month.

When he was found to have lobbied on behalf of these companies, the Commissioner for Parliamentary Standards recommended he be suspended as an MP for 30 days for breaking lobbying rules.

He would deny any rules were broken but eventually resigned from his position in November, after the government was accused of "cronyism" for its efforts to block his suspension.

Boris Johnson said he could have handled the affair "better" - and then admitted to MPs he "crashed the car" .

Let's hear some reaction on the ground in North Shropshire. Paul Edmundston hadn't heard the result until a BBC News reporter told him the Lib Dems had won.

"I'm not surprised", is his reaction.

He said: "I guess I think the way the the last few weeks have gone, a lot of confidence [in the Conservatives] had eroded away, and I think it's just a message back to Boris... but I think it's a message that he needed, and hopefully he'll do something about it."

Whitchurch Town Councillor Robert Hewson said he had previously voted for Owen Paterson - who had held the seat since 1997 before he resigned after it was found he broke Parliamentary rules on lobbying - and had a "lot of respect" for him.

He said he hoped the Lib Dems and new MP Helen Morgan "stick to the words of what they are going to do".

Hewson added: "It is nice to have someone local again, the Conservative man, he was from out of town, which I think people have got to know the area and know the towns."

Dr Neil Shastri-Hurst, the Conservative candidate is from Birmingham, but said he was renting a home just outside the Shropshire market town of Wem.

Hewson said he did not think the Conservative party was "over" adding, they "always come back fighting", but said it was in need of a "big shake-up".

Meanwhile, in Westminster, the Tory whips - essentially party managers - have been texting backbenchers asking them not to speak out on the result and to wait and hear what the PM says first, the BBC has been told.

We haven't heard yet from Boris Johnson, but he is expected to speak later.

Given the scale of the party's defeat, they will no doubt be listening carefully to what he has to say.

Some Tory MPs, including Sir Roger Gale, John Redwood and Sir Charles Walker have spoken to media about the defeat this morning.

This is the moment new Liberal Democrat MP Helen Morgan burst the "Boris' bubble", following her win in the North Shropshire by-election.

Alongside fellow MP Daisy Cooper and former party leader Tim Farron, she took a pin to a blue bubble to celebrate her victory.

Image source, UK Pool

Speaking at the rally in Oswestry, Tim Farron says his party's victory in North Shropshire shows there is a "price to pay" for the government "taking the people for granted".

"The result is the people of North Shropshire speaking for the people of Britain, saying 'enough is enough, we will not be taken for granted and things can be better than this'."

He thanks Labour and Green voters who "chose to lend us their vote yesterday", adding: "We are grateful from the bottom of our hearts for that brave decision."

Has Boris Johnson lost his winning touch?published at 10:47 Greenwich Mean Time 17 December 2021

10:47 GMT 17 December 2021

Alex Forsyth
Political correspondent

Image source, Reuters

How did the Conservatives lose one of their safest seats to the Liberal Democrats, in one of the biggest upsets in recent electoral history?

Questions over Christmas parties in Downing Street undoubtedly ignited the North Shropshire by-election campaign, but before that opposition parties had already picked up a sense of people in this safe, rural, Tory seat feeling undervalued and overlooked.

Both the Liberal Democrats and Labour pushed the idea of Conservative voters being taken for granted, pointing to "levelling-up" money going to formerly rock-solid Labour "red wall" areas in the Midlands and northern England, rather than North Shropshire.

The risk for the Conservatives is that same sense generated in this by-election is replicated in other Tory heartlands.

Read more from Alex here.

Image source, UK Pool

We mentioned earlier that after their by-election victory in Chesham and Amersham, Lib Dem leader Ed Davey knocked over a pile of blue bricks to symbolise the crumbling of the Tories' "blue wall".

They've gone for a different stunt this time at a victory rally getting under way now in the constituency town of Oswestry.

Winning candidate Helen Morgan has just used a yellow stick to burst a blue balloon marked "Boris' bubble" held by former Lib Dem leader Tim Farron.

North Shropshire is the final by-election of 2021 - a year that has seen a succession of polls for seats at Westminster with variable results:

• May: Hartlepool - Conservative gain from Labour
• May: Airdrie and Shotts - Scottish National Party hold

• June: Chesham and Amersham - Lib Dem gain from Conservatives
• July: Batley and Spen - Labour hold
• December: Old Bexley and Sidcup - Conservative hold
• December: North Shropshire - Lib Dem gain from Conservatives

BBC Radio 5 Live

Callers to BBC 5 Live have been sharing their thoughts on the news the Conservatives have lost the North Shropshire seat they held for nearly 200 years to the Liberal Democrats.

Sally, from Oswestry, said: "I'm very pleased, it's a very good result. For the first time in my life I feel like my vote has actually counted.

"We've been in such a Tory stronghold for so many years, I'm really pleased."

Image source, Reuters

Trudy lives in Warwickshire, but said she was not surprised by the results but was "staggered" by the numbers.

She said: "By-elections are really good for people to vote to protest certain situations, and I think there is so much, everyone is so tired of Covid and the pandemic and the sleaze that seems to be coming out of Downing Street at the moment.

"We're all trying to do our best in this difficult situation, but it doesn't seem to be being done elsewhere and I think people are just going to go 'you know what, I'm done. I've had enough. It's time. It's time that we showed these people how we actually feel'."

Lynn, in Shropshire, added: "I think if Helen Morgan becomes as good a local MP in the same way that she's run her campaign and the Lib Dems have, then we're going to be lucky to have her."

She says the Lib Dems were the only "ones who knocked on my door".

"Helen Morgan said she's going to be a full time MP... I think if she does a good job locally she will keep the vote."

The Lib Dem victory in North Shropshire underlines the message in the polls that the Conservatives are suffering in the wake of "party gate", says election expert Sir John Curtice.

Just one other by-election since 1945 has seen a bigger swing against the Conservative party - but the other remarkable thing about this is that the Lib Dems have won a seat that was not natural territory for the party, he says.

North Shropshire, Curtice says, "had a 60% Leave vote" and that all parties have learned that "for the first time since 2010, the Liberal Democrats are once again the party of by-election protest even for Conservative voters".

"This is not just a bit of normal by-election protest, this is a very substantial by-election protest," he says.

If the swing was replicated across the country, the Conservatives would be left with just three seats. While that won't happen, it shows the scale of the defeat, the expert adds.

Image source, UK Pool

The North Shropshire win is a big result for the Liberal Democrats, and takes their number of MPs to 13.

Normally, the party's leader Sir Ed Davey would be expected to travel to the constituency to congratulate his winning candidate in person.

His trip to Chesham and Amersham after their by-election win there in June provided one of the political photo-ops of the year - when he knocked over a bank of blue bricks in front of reporters to symbolise the Tories' defeat in one of their "blue wall" of heartland seats.

But unfortunately for him, he won't be able to do the same this time, because he is among several MPs currently in isolation after testing positive for Covid earlier this week.

Philip Simpson from Rosehill Brick and Tile Yard, near Market Drayton is usually a Tory voter, but said the result "was coming".

"It seemed to me there was a lot of discontent with the local population in the way the government was handling the policies and the way they were implementing them and I think the candidate was clearly the candidate for the job," he said.

"When I looked at the candidates Ms Morgan, she had a good CV, she lived locally...I felt like she would have a good grip on the financial side of government spending."

Martin Dicken, from Whitchurch, also usually a Conservative voter said he voted Lib Dem because the Tories are "making a right hash of running the country".

"You can't trust any Conservative politician and Boris's own MPs won't back him at the moment," he said.

"Our police station has closed, our ambulance service has closed, we have got one doctor's surgery for the whole of the Whitchurch area where they're planning another 5,000-7,000 houses in the next three or four years.

"So for me the Conservative party I don't think have got their feet on the ground, they need to wake up and not bury their heads in the sand over loads of measures."

Senior Tory backbencher John Redwood says he doesn't think Boris Johnson is the main reason for the Tories' defeat, adding "he's always been the man who can attract votes and appeal very widely".

But he accepts that voters have sent the government a "very clear message" to "raise its game".

He adds that he thinks the "overall problem" is the economic context, with rising energy prices and "very unwelcome" tax rises.

He says he wants the government to now "limit the damage" of pandemic restrictions on businesses, and scrap the rise in National Insurance due next April.

"You've got to tackle the things that are really hitting everybody's budgets around the country," he adds.

Conservative co-chairman Oliver Dowden says voters were fed up and wanted to give the party a kicking.

"We've heard that message loud and clear."

We're starting to hear from local voters who are waking up to the news they have a Lib Dem as their new MP.

Jane Gray was a Tory voter, but swung to Lib Dems in this by-election.

"We're very pleased," she says.

"We have no services in this village, we have no buses, children on third level education can't get to any college unless they have parents with the car who can take them or friends.

"I've never voted Lib Dem before, I have swung from Conservatives, so we're very pleased."

Asked if she voted on national issues or concerns at a local level, she says it was "a bit of both".

"It's a sign of the times, isn't it?" says voter Gary Wysocki, "I think the Conservatives have lost all credibility, really."

He adds: "We've lots happened recently, so I wasn't surprised at all to be honest.

"I think what's happened recently is [nationally with the Conservatives] is a bit fundamental for the whole country really, and I think it will be the first of many and the beginning of the end for Boris Johnson."

People in North Shropshire were furious over the state of local health services, the Liberal Democrat deputy leader says.

Daisy Cooper says concerns over farming subsidies also coincided with rising anger over alleged breaches of lockdown laws in Westminster,

She tells the BBC News Channel voters have made up their own minds and the Lib Dems will continue to focus on seats where they think they can defeat the Conservatives.

"Lifelong Conservative voters feel taken for granted by the Conservative Party and they are simply not prepared to keep voting for them," she adds.

NHS and waiting times for ambulances issues for voterspublished at 09:12 Greenwich Mean Time 17 December 2021

09:12 GMT 17 December 2021

Elizabeth Glinka
Political Editor, BBC Midlands

The former MP Owen Paterson's conduct was not the only issue for voters in North Shropshire.

He had held the North Shropshire seat since 1997 for the Conservatives, but after findings that Paterson broke Parliamentary rules on lobbying, he resigned, triggering the by-election.

There are local concerns about services, about access to the NHS and waiting times for ambulances - and that is also part of this victory for the Liberal Democrats.

There has been long-standing issues with health services, only last month, the county "ran out of ambulances".

And the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust has been at the centre of a baby deaths investigation for years.

This seems to be a post-Brexit era. This area did vote in favour of Leave in the 2016 referendum, but we seem to have moved on from that point.

Image source, Reuters

Helen Morgan, a 46-year-old chartered accountant, lives with her husband and son in the Shropshire village of Harmer Hill.

She stood in the 2019 general election in the same seat but won just 5,643 votes - 10% of the total.

This time round, she took 17,957 votes - more than 47% of the total.

According to her web page, she has three main priorities as MP:

• Fight for Shropshire’s GP and ambulance services
• Listen to you - and not take you for granted
• Be a full-time local MP for North Shropshire

Today Programme
BBC Radio 4

People are tired, angry and exhausted after 20 months of a pandemic, says veteran Tory MP Sir Charles Walker.

The MP for Broxbourne tells BBC Radio 4's Today programme, that in those circumstances, he would have been surprised if the Conservatives did not lose North Shropshire. The loss, he says, marks a "return to business as usual".

"By-elections throw up these results... I don't think we can read too much into this. Of course it is disappointing for the Conservative Party, of course it is a really bad morning, of course we would have really liked to have won it," he adds.

As we've been reporting, the Lib Dems have taken a seat held by the Tories for nearly two centuries.

At the last election in 2019, the Conservatives won North Shropshire with a majority of almost 23,000 votes. They took 62.7% of the vote.

This graphic gives you a sense of how dominant the Tories have been in the seat.