Where there’s death, there’s hope. Certainly that’s the quiet joke between Labour politicians and their aides about the Conservatives’ wafer-thin parliamentary majority. Lose seven by-elections and the government would be unable to see off a vote of no confidence, as its alliance with the Democratic Unionist Party would no longer be enough to outnumber the parties of the left and centre. (Though there are a variety of reasons the Liberal Democrats might abstain, prolonging the government’s life.)
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