What does the rare spate of by-elections mean for the UK?

Not strictly true of course.

The Conservatives — the governing party — who were dreading the loss of all three seats, managed to survive (by just over four hundred votes) in Johnson's old seat and Rishi Sunak, his successor, was there to hail a famous victory.

The culprit, according to Labour, was a controversial plan to impose charges on drivers whose cars were highly polluting. The scheme, known as the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ), has proved very unpopular with constituents.

It can actually be traced back to Johnson himself when he was mayor of London. Nonetheless, it was the present mayor, Sadiq Khan – a member of the Labour Party – who copped all the blame, including from the Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, who said Khan would have to 'reflect' on ULEZ.    

As for Somerton and Frome, the Conservatives lost to the resurgent Liberal Democrats and their leader, Sir Ed Davey, fired a cannon full of ticker-tape, or some such pretty paper, which instantly became litter. Davey had good reason to be happy. The winner of the seat gained a majority of 11,008 and reduced the Conservative vote to a record low.

The most sensational victory of the day, however, went to the Labour Party in the Selby area. A 25-year-old by the name of Keir was able to defeat the Conservatives, overturning a massive majority of 20,000, which made it Labour's second-best by-election result since 1945.

That is a significant date in itself, of course. The Attlee government that won a landslide after the war would go on to found the NHS – an institution now in its 75th year and in deep, deep trouble.  

Dampened spirits 

Despite this genuinely historic victory, the spirits of the opposition party have been dampened by the Uxbridge result.

Professor Sir John Curtice, the BBC's elections specialist, said the fact that voters had punished Labour over air pollution charges would probably boost those in the party urging Starmer to adopt a cautious, no-risk approach, in preference to "bold and perhaps desirable" policies that upset the electorate.

Read more: Keir Starmer: Former human rights lawyer and next UK premier?

Curtice called this the "Ming vase" approach. Apparently, ahead of the 1997 election, Tony Blair was compared to someone carrying a Ming vase across a shiny floor and terrified of dropping it.

The signs of Ming-vaseism have already started to appear.

Starmer has earnt himself the nickname of 'kid starver' from the left after he refused to reform the government's two-child benefits policy, according to which any extra child receives nothing.

Despite the party's much-vaunted Green Prosperity Plan to tackle the climate crisis, Starmer was recently overheard muttering about his dislike of 'tree-huggers'. He was similarly uncharitable about the Just Stop Oil protesters when they kept turning up at sporting events, calling them 'arrogant'.

The umbrage of voters in Uxbridge might be said to foreshadow a difficult debate over green policies and the pressing need for economic growth.

Read more: How London is paving the way toward a circular future 

The contradiction is obvious between exploiting new oil fields — even mining fresh coal seams — and the noble aim of zero emissions by 2050. How is the Labour Party to rescue Britain from polluted air and water while keeping the good citizens of places like Uxbridge happy?    

By-elections: Imperfect indicators

By-elections are never perfect indicators of the public mood. For a start, they only tell us about a fraction of the population. The other complicating factor, as shown in Uxbridge, is their susceptibility to local issues.

However, if the view of the Labour campaign was influenced by a softly-softly approach, in the hope that not mentioning ULEZ might do the trick, it backfired.

This perfectly illustrates the dangers for Labour of continuing to rely on the unpopularity of the government. The danger is that the excessive care taken to preserve the Ming vase leaves the field open to Labour's opponents.

At the same time, it risks alienating those people who want to see boldness. The Ming vase could be in greater danger if Keir Starmer stands still, paralysed by fear of disaster, rather than speaking out.

The point at which such excessive caution starts alienating your supporters may already have been reached over the government's two-child benefits policy.

It was excruciating to see Anneliese Dodds, the Shadow Secretary of State for Women and Equalities, attempting to justify rowing back from her previous opposition to this policy on the basis of fiscal prudence.

The unconvincing impression this left came perilously close to Ai Weiwei's treatment of valuable antique vases. Artists like Weiwei might be able to smash vases to arouse public interest.

Politicians like Dodds only succeed in sounding like an ultra-low conviction zone. The same is beginning to happen to her leader. The public is growing increasingly familiar with Starmer's reluctance to advertise any divergence in policy from the Conservatives.

In the end, one has to wonder how the Labour Party under Clement Attlee managed to be so radical. After all, the battle to establish the NHS was a bitter one, and yet the vase remained intact.

After the alarming behaviour of Liz Truss and her Chancellor, one might think a safe pair of hands would be desirable. Yet it's hard to see how a party paralysed by fear of dropping the vase can inspire a public hungry for change.