What the Papers said about the By-elections

9.58.34am BST (GMT +0100) Tue 20th Jul 2004

"The Conservatives were pushed into third place in both seats on a dismal night for Michael Howard. We are so accustomed to reading about Conservative electoral disasters that we can become blasé about them. But it is worth setting out, with pitiless clarity, just how serious is that party's predicament. On June 10, at the European elections, it got its worst share of the national vote since 1832…. Four weeks later, the voters of Leicester and Birmingham delivered their verdict, giving the Tories a worse drubbing than they suffered under either William Hague or Iain Duncan Smith." (Daily Telegraph)

"Blair hit by LibDem poll surge: A massive Liberal Democrat surge last night took the seat of Leicester South and stopped only inches short of taking Labour's once rock solid seat of Birmingham Hodge Hill." (The Guardian)

"To claim that the outcome was a 'score draw', as Labour Minister John Reid did yesterday, is like the excuses of a football manager after his team has lost a crucial game….but it raises the question of what is the Tories' 'natural territory' nowadays,… Charles Kennedy was justifiably celebrating yesterday. The LibDems have shown, both in the by-elections and in the mid-term elections on June 10, that they can now make gains in traditional Labour areas in inner cities, in the Midlands and the North. They now have a momentum going into the party conference season and the long pre-general election campaign." (The Times)

"Friday's results are if anything worse for the Conservatives than they are for Blair." (Reuters)

"…Blaming both defeats on the fact that neither constituency is in their core area is a naïve tactical error. Such a lackadaisical approach did not stop Labour finishing a significant second a decade ago in the affluent Hampshire seat of Eastleigh. There, they pushed the Tories into an abject third place, a result that resonated across the country and signified that John Major's days as Prime Minister were numbered." (Yorkshire Post)