Ruling UK Conservatives suffer vote routs but avoid wipeout

Britain's ruling Conservatives on Friday held the former seat of ex-Prime Minister Boris Johnson but saw hefty majorities in two other seats blown away as scandals and high inflation took their toll.

Rishi Sunak was expected to become the first prime minister to lose three parliamentary seats on one day, but was spared that humiliation due to a narrow victory in the west London seat of Uxbridge and South Ruislip.

While that result may have offered the embattled Sunak some relief, the wiping out of his party's 19,000 majority in the Somerton and Frome seat and its 20,000 majority in the Selby and Ainsty constituency will come as hammer blows ahead of an expected general election next year.

The main opposition Labour party took the northern England seat of Selby and Ainsty by 16,456 votes to 12,295, in the process overturning its biggest deficit at a by-election since World War Two.

Labour leader Keir Starmer tweeted that "last night, Selby and Ainsty made history.

"This incredible result shows how powerful the demand for change is," he added.

In the southwestern England seat of Somerton and Frome, the Liberal Democrats won by 21,187 to 10,179, with winning candidate Sarah Dyke celebrating a "stunning and historic victory" and taking aim at the "woeful government".

The Tories had also been expected to lose Johnson's former seat of Uxbridge and South Ruislip, but won by 13,965 votes to 13,470, delivering a blow to Starmer and London's Labour mayor Sadiq Khan.

Winning candidate Steve Tuckwell said the "number one" issue had been Khan's expansion of a tax on polluting vehicles to outer London boroughs.

He warned Labour MPs in similar seats "will now be panicking" and the result is likely to spark...