Peter Barnes
BBC political analyst

Trying to calculate this is hard, and means a lot of extrapolating from a by-election result.

Labour need 123 gains at the next general election to win an outright majority. Their target list has Ribble South as the 123rd target, which would be won on a swing of 10.5%. In Wakefield the swing was 12.7%.

But, the target list assumes a swing against whichever party currently holds seat, and quite a lot of Labour’s top targets are held by the SNP.

A national Conservative to Labour swing of 12.7% might be enough for Labour to win an overall majority – but not all 12.7% swings are the same.

In this case, Labour went up 8.1% and the Conservatives were down 17.3% (and the Lib Dems down 2.1%). If those share changes were replicated across the country, with the SNP and other parties seeing no change, Labour would be one seat short of an overall majority. They would win all the required Conservative-held targets, plus 13 more. But they would miss 13 SNP held targets, and one Plaid Cymru held target.

Labour's Simon Lightwood, who became Wakefield's new MP overnight, put Boris Johnson firmly in the firing line in his acceptance speech, saying he was "unfit to lead this country".

"The people of Wakefield have spoken on behalf of the British people," said Lightwood. "They have said, unreservedly: Boris Johnson, your contempt for this country is no longer tolerated."

Addressing local people, he concluded: "I will restore trust in our politics by working night and day to address the issues which you care about."

Image source, PA Media

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has just turned up in Wakefield and says his party has "absolutely smashed it" in yesterday's by-election.

He says his party's victory there is a vindication of all of the hard work by the Labour Party, adding that it was absolutely focused on issues facing local people.

"What a judgement this is on the Tory party and Boris Johnson," he says, adding "they are out of touch and out of ideas".

He says the result is significant for Labour and that the party is on track to become the next government.

Ione Wells
Westminster Correspondent, BBC News

As Tory MPs wake up – in some cases to journalists' texts – and the outcomes of these by-elections sink in, minds are shifting from these results to: what happens next?

There is a lot of soul-searching going on this morning:

• Tory MP Sir Roger Gale, who has long called for Boris Johnson to go, said these results were “another vote of no-confidence in a prime minister that ought to honourably this morning be re-considering his position”.
• Cabinet minister – and party chairman – Oliver Dowden has resigned saying someone must take responsibility. Many Tory MPs have made it obvious they don’t think it should be him.
• Simon Hoare, Tory MP for North Dorset, which is not far from Tiverton and Honiton, said Dowden was “not to blame” and he has “never” been more proud to call him a friend than today.
• Elsewhere, if a huge majority like the one held in Tiverton and Honiton can be overturned, there are nerves among Tory MPs in genuinely marginal seats.

One senior Tory MP who sits in a very marginal seat said the prime minister needs to take heed of these results and show responsibility to his MPs.

The MP said: "Whether or not he takes the signal that he needs to radically change No 10, and himself, is for him."

While they felt it was time to "move on" from the recent vote of no confidence in the prime minister, the MP said Tory MPs and Boris Johnson "can't ignore the prevailing mood of the country".

Tiverton and Honiton's victorious Lib Dem MP, Richard Foord, called for the prime minister "to go - and go now" in his acceptance speech.

"Ours is a great country... but every day Boris Johnson clings to office he brings further shame, chaos and neglect," he said.

"Communities like ours are on their knees... yet when Boris Johnson could be fighting for farmers, for our NHS and for rural services - he'll be fighting once again to save his own political skin."

"The Liberal Democrats are coming," he warned.

Scale of defeat may have shifted Tory view of Johnsonpublished at 07:47 British Summer Time 24 June 2022

07:47 BST 24 June 2022

Iain Watson
Political correspondent

Image source, Reuters

The assumption at Westminster was that a double election defeat was "priced in" and the prime minister would not be in any more trouble if it happened.

But the scale of Labour and Lib Dem victories overnight may have changed the calculation.

Tory party co-chairman Oliver Dowden has said "somebody has to take responsibility" - and he seems to be hinting it shouldn't just be him, but someone on a higher pay grade.

Publicly, so far, a brace of Conservatives - Simon Hoare and Angela Richardson - seem to agree.

The question now is if they are standing up for Dowden - or standing up to Boris Johnson, who yesterday suggested it was "crazy" to resign after mid-term by-election losses.

We've just heard from Conservative MP Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP who is treasurer of the party's influential 1922 Committee of backbench MPs.

On the precarious situation his party finds itself in, Clifton-Brown tells us: "If I were to run under a bus today it would be difficult to hold my seat, there’s no doubt about that.”

He describes the by-election losses as a “very serious and large defeat in two completely different areas of the country".

The Conservative Party need to “think very carefully about the future and how we’re going to remedy the situation” so we do stand the best possible chance of winning the next election, he says.

He admits he will be discussing the current circumstances with colleagues.

Nick Eardley
Political correspondent

A Conservative source in Tiverton and Honiton has told me the result is “disappointing but not unexpected”.

The source said the party was confident it could retake the seat in a general election.

Image source, .

Image source, Reuters

If you are just waking up - it's been a busy night, and a very difficult one for the government and Tory party.

Here's what you need to know:

Triumph for Lib Dems

• The Liberal Democrats have achieved a stunning victory in Tiverton and Honiton by-election, overturning a massive Conservative majority with a swing of nearly 30%.
• The Lib Dem's Richard Foord won by 6,144 - landing the party a 52.9% of the vote share.
• The seat, in Devon, has been Conservative since it was created in 1997. The by-election came about after it emerged Tory MP Neil Parish had been watching pornography in the House of Commons

Labour snatch back a 'red wall' seat

• At the other end of the country, in Wakefield, Labour ousted the Conservatives, less than three years after the Tories snatched the seat in a surprise victory in 2019
• Wakefield is one of the so-called “red wall” seats which had backed Labour for decades - 87 years to be exact - but switched to the Tories in the last general election
• A by-election was announced after MP Imran Ahmad Khan resigned having been convicted of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy and jailed for 18 months
• Labour's triumph marks the party's first by-election gain since 2012 (in Corby) - and brings the total number of Labour MPs in the Commons up to 200

Tory party chairman resigns

• Following the double defeat, Conservative Party Co-Chairman Oliver Dowden resigned with immediate effect on Friday morning
• In his letter to PM Boris Johnson he said Tory supporters were "distressed and disappointed by recent events" and he shared their feelings. "Somebody must take responsibility," he concluded

Our overnight live reporting team have now handed over to the fresh early team. The overnight writers were Chas Geiger, Kate Marshall, Andrew Segal and Andrew Jackson. The editor was Rob Corp.

The prime minister is giving his first response to the two by-election defeats his party suffered overnight.

He says he will "listen" to voters but pledges to "keep going".

"I've got to listen to what people are saying, in particular to the difficulties people are facing over the cost of living," news agency PA quotes him as saying.

"We've got to recognise there is more we've got to do and we certainly will."

Johnson is currently in Rwanda for a Commonwealth heads of government meeting.

Chris Mason
Political editor

Nothing reeks of panic quite like a resignation letter at 5:35am.

Not just any resignation letter. But the party chairman. Until now, at least, utterly loyal to Boris Johnson.

He manages five paragraphs, not one of which endorses him.

So, does he have confidence in Mr Johnson? He and his team are silent.

What we’ve seen overnight in miniature is the electoral pincer movement the Conservatives most fear.

Labour’s return to seats like Wakefield it could once nonchalantly bank.

The Liberal Democrats planting flags in England’s south west once again; a region that not long ago sent a minibus full of such MPs to Westminster.

Conservative MPs from the top down have the jitters this morning; the dawn decision of their former chairman quickening their pulse further.

Alex Forsyth
Political correspondent in Kigali, Rwanda

Image source, Reuters

There has been silence from the prime minister’s camp so far this morning.

He is due to give an interview in the next couple of hours but we spoke to him before we left for Kigali and he said governing parties often lose in mid-term and when asked if he might quit if results went against his party said: “are you crazy?”

He was pretty robust, and there had been a degree of expectation management from the Conservative camp through the week ahead of the two by-elections.

But the scale of the losses we’ve seen might change things - we wait to hear what his immediate reaction is.

He isn’t due back in the UK for another eight days, but the bottom line is he cannot escape the domestic issues dogging his leadership even when he’s on the international stage.

Nick Eardley
Political correspondent

What Oliver Dowden doesn’t say in that letter is that he wants Boris Johnson to continue as Conservative Party leader.

He goes on to say somebody must take responsibility for what has happened, and has now fallen on his sword as Tory chairman.

The question that will be asked today is whether Boris Johnson should also be considering his position, given that many Conservatives are increasingly coming to the conclusion that rather than being the electoral asset he was in 2019, that he has now become an electoral liability.

The fact Dowden's letter talks in such stark terms about the state of the party leaves a lot of questions for the prime minister today.

Image source, PA Media

Wakefield's new MP says the Labour victory has "turned the page on Tory neglect" in the city.

Speaking to the BBC moments after he was declared the winner of the by-election, Simon Lightwood said: "I feel absolutely exhilarated. I feel so humbled to be returned as Wakefield's new MP.

"I think it says that Labour is making real progress, rebuilding that red wall, rebuilding the trust of the electorate and people are ready for a fresh start."

Image source, .

Shortly before 04:00, Labour recorded its first gain in a by-election in nearly 10 years - taking back Wakefield from the Conservatives, a seat it had held for 87 years before the 2019 general election.

Simon Lightwood overturned a Tory majority of 3,358, to establish one of 4,925 - with a swing of 12.7%, at the high end of Labour expectations.

Image source, .

In case you missed it earlier - or have just joined us, new Liberal Democrat MP Richard Foord has overturned a Conservative majority of more than 24,000 with a swing of nearly 30%.

His majority is 6,144.

Here are the numbers:

Image source, .

Image source, Reuters

In his letter to the prime minister, Oliver Dowden says the outcomes of the by-elections are "the latest in a run of very poor results for our party".

"Our supporters are distressed and disappointed by recent events, and I share their feelings.

"We cannot carry on with business as usual. Somebody must take responsibility and I have concluded that, in these circumstances, it would not be right for me to remain in office."

Conservative Party chairman Oliver Dowden has resigned with immediate effect, following the Tories' defeats in yesterday's two by-elections.

He says the party's supporters are "distressed" by recent events and he "shares their feelings".

Dowden says he's quitting because "someone needs to take responsibility".

Lib Dems go from annihilation to victory in South Westpublished at 05:37 British Summer Time 24 June 2022

05:37 BST 24 June 2022

Martyn Oates
BBC South West Political Editor

The overnight annihilation of all the Liberal Democrat MPs in the South West in the 2015 general election was widely credited with winning David Cameron his slim majority and overturned a decades-long status quo in which the Lib Dems were the Conservatives’ equals and feared opponents.

The 2017 and 2019 elections saw a further downward spiral for the party which had held every seat in Cornwall just 10 years previously.

The once victorious Lib Dems were reduced to miserable third places and Conservative majorities grew and grew.

Then, in the 2019 local elections, the party enjoyed notable successes in Devon and Somerset.

This year they wrested Somerset County Council – soon to become a unitary – from the Conservatives.

Now comes this remarkable victory in Tiverton and Honiton.

If they can do that here – in a seat they’d never previously held – the Conservatives are bound to be wondering what they might be capable of in seats like North Devon, St Ives and Yeovil which they’d held for decades until just seven years ago.

Former Conservative special adviser Mo Hussein has told the BBC the Conservatives can't carry on "dining out on past achievements" and need to redouble their efforts to tackle cost of living issues.

He told the BBC the public line would be to blame "mid-term blues" and the "appalling" circumstances that triggered the Wakefield by-election as well as the "difficult" ones surrounding the Tiverton and Honiton vote.

But in private, he added, there would be a lot of "soul searching" about how to move forward with such different support bases from different parts of the country - and with question marks still hanging over the prime minister's authority.

Mr Hussein said the government needed to rein in its "culture wars" and focus on its "policy offer going forward".

He added that many Conservative MPs would be worried by the continuing advance of the Lib Dems in the south of England - and suggested that this might lead to a cooling of the levelling up agenda in the Midlands and the North of England - in favour of "more love being shown" to traditional Tory areas further south.