Batley and Spen byelection live: Tory party co-chair suggests Hancock’s conduct helped Labour hold seat

Leadbeater’s narrow victory, turning the seat into a super-marginal, suggests the electoral tide may still be moving against Labour – Tracy Brabin’s majority in the 2019 general election was more than 3,500.

The fact that Galloway was able to convince 8,000 voters to support him by playing on Starmer’s alleged neglect of the Muslim community is also likely to stoke fears that Labour is alienating once-loyal groups of voters.

But Starmer now has a clear run to get on with what he has been promising his party he is ready to do: get out to the voters and convince them Labour would improve their lives, and he would make a better prime minister than Johnson.