‘All bets are off now’: a torrid week when Johnson’s balloon was burst

Last week's byelection result laid bare the growing anger felt towards the PM - both from outside and within his own party

Shortly after Owen Paterson resigned as the Tory MP for North Shropshire in early November, Helen Morgan, who had been trounced when she stood as Liberal Democrat candidate at the last general election, rang her party's HQ in London with a message that took senior officials by surprise.

She told us that we really had a chance in the byelection, that we had to throw everything at it. Initially there was a lot of scepticism," said a party official. Nobody really believed it."