‘One out of three ain’t bad’ isn’t a saying you hear often. Yet avoiding a clean sweep of by-election defeats overnight will surely have Rishi Sunak breathing a sigh of relief. Holding on in Boris Johnson’s old seat of Uxbridge & South Ruislip not only means the Tories have exceeded the rock-bottom expectations of the pundit class, but there is an unmistakeable further intuition hanging in the air: had Johnson not lost his courage and instead decided he would trust his electors and stand in a by-election under the recall process, then he surely could this morning be the man...