UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Friday accepted "personal responsibility" for Thursday's stunning defeat in the North Shropshire parliamentary by-election that saw the ruling Conservative Party lose a traditional stronghold in central England
LONDON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 17th December, 2021) UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Friday accepted "personal responsibility" for Thursday's stunning defeat in the North Shropshire parliamentary by-election that saw the ruling Conservative Party lose a traditional stronghold in central England.
"I am responsible for everything the government does and of course I take personal responsibility," Johnson told broadcasters during a visit to a COVID-19 vaccination center in west London.
Thursday's by-election in North Shropshire, a district which has voted for non-Conservative candidates only twice since it was created in 1830, was won by the Liberal Democrat candidate Helen Morgan, who beat her Conservative rival Neil Shastri-Hurst by nearly 6,000 votes.
The parliamentary election was triggered by the resignation of Conservative lawmaker Owen Paterson after revelations that he was using his position as a lawmaker to lobby for two firms that paid him more than 100,000 Pounds ($133,000) a year.
The result, which the leader of the Liberal Democrat Party, Ed Davey, called a "watershed moment in British policy," comes at a time when Johnson's authority is on the line after nearly one third of his lawmakers defied him on Tuesday on the introduction of mandatory COVID-19 passes in nightclubs and large venues.
His popularity has also been marred by allegations that numerous Christmas gatherings were held last year at a time of the COVID-19 lockdown and a further scrutiny of the refurbishment of his apartment in Downing Street with party donors� money.
