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      U.K. Conservatives Lose By-Elections, Adding to Pressure on Boris Johnson

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      The double defeat exposed the party’s vulnerabilities and was likely to revive talk of another no-confidence vote against the prime minister.LONDON — Britain’s governing Conservative Party lost two strategically important parliamentary seats on Friday, prompting the resignation of a party chairman and raising fresh doubts about the future of the country’s scandal-scarred leader, Prime Minister Boris Johnson.The double defeat is a stinging rebuke of Mr. Johnson, who survived a no-confidence vote in his party this month, precipitated by a scandal over illicit parties held at Downing Street during the coronavirus pandemic. And it revived talk of another attempt to oust him, though under the party’s current rules Mr. Johnson cannot face another challenge until next June.In elections on Thursday, voters in Tiverton and Honiton, a rural stretch of southwest England that is the party’s heartland, and in the faded northern industrial city of Wakefield evicted the Conservative Party from seats that had come open after lawmakers were brought down by scandals of their own.The Labour Party’s victory in Wakefield was widely expected, and it ran up a comfortable margin over the Conservatives. In the south, which had been viewed as a tossup, the Liberal Democrats scored a stunning upset, overcoming a huge Conservative majority in the last election to win the seat by a solid margin.It was the first time a governing party had lost two seats in a parliamentary by-election since 1991. And as grim as the electoral prospects for the Conservatives look, they could worsen further in the next year, with galloping inflation, interest rate hikes and Britain almost certainly heading for a recession.Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain, who is dealing with swelling discontent at home, was in Rwanda on Friday for the opening ceremony of a Commonwealth summit.Pool photo by Dan KitwoodThe political fallout was swift and stark: Oliver Dowden resigned his job as a chairman of the Conservative Party on Friday morning in a letter sent to Mr. Johnson less than two hours after the votes had been counted. The party’s supporters were “distressed and disappointed by recent events, and I share their feelings,” Mr. Dowden wrote, adding that “somebody must take responsibility.”A longtime ally of Mr. Johnson, Mr. Dowden pointedly professed his loyalty to the Conservative Party, rather than to its leader. But on Friday, Mr. Johnson showed no signs of reconsidering his position, even as he acknowledged the defeats and promised to listen to the voters.“Midterm governments, postwar, lose by-elections,” said the prime minister, who is attending a meeting of the leaders of the Commonwealth in Kigali, Rwanda.“We are facing pressures on the costs of living,” Mr. Johnson added. “We are seeing spikes in fuel prices, energy costs, food costs, that is hitting people. We have to recognize that there is more that we have got to do and we certainly will. Challenged later on his own responsibility for the two losses, Mr. Johnson responded: “I genuinely, genuinely, don’t think that the way forward in British politics is to focus on issues of personalities, whether they are mine or others.” Rishi Sunak, the chancellor of the Exchequer, offered his support to the prime minister, echoing his explanation of the defeats and accepting some of the blame. “We all take responsibility for the results and I’m determined to continue working to tackle the cost of living,” he wrote on Twitter.Mr. Sunak had been seen as a potential successor to Mr. Johnson until his popularity plummeted this year, and — although other senior ministers kept noticeably quiet — his statement suggests that a coordinated cabinet move against the prime minister was unlikely. However, one senior Conservative figure, Michael Howard, called for the resignation of a prime minister now seen by many as an electoral liability. “The party, and more importantly the country, would be better off under new leadership,” Mr. Howard, a former Tory leader, told the BBC, adding, “Members of the Cabinet should very carefully consider their positions.”And Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, a senior Conservative lawmaker, said Mr. Johnson could still be removed either by a cabinet rebellion or if the rule protecting him from another no-confidence vote for a year was changed. “There will be a lot of conversations taking place next week,” he told Times Radio, “and we’ll have to see what happens.”The defeats exposed Conservative vulnerabilities on two fronts: the so-called red wall, in the industrial north of England, where Mr. Johnson shattered a traditional Labour stronghold in the 2019 general election, and in the southwest, a traditional Tory stronghold often called the “blue wall.”The political fallout was swift and stark: Oliver Dowden resigned his job as a chairman of the Conservative Party on Friday morning in a letter sent to Mr. Johnson less than two hours after the votes had been counted.Paul Ellis/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIn Tiverton and Honiton, where the Liberal Democrats won 53 percent of the vote to the Conservatives’ 39 percent, the victorious candidate, Richard Foord, said the result would send “a shock wave through British politics.” The Liberal Democrats’ leader, Ed Davey, called it “the biggest by-election victory our country has ever seen.”The Labour leader, Keir Starmer, said that his party’s victory in Wakefield, where Simon Lightwood won a solid 48 percent of the vote to the Conservative candidate’s 30 percent, was “a clear judgment on a Conservative Party that has run out of energy and ideas.”While the political contours of the two districts are very different, they share a common element: a Conservative lawmaker who resigned in disgrace. In Tiverton and Honiton, Neil Parish quit in April after he admitted watching pornography on his phone while sitting in Parliament. In Wakefield, Imran Ahmad Khan was sentenced to 18 months in prison in May after being convicted of sexually assaulting a teenage boy.Mr. Khan’s legal troubles, which included multiple unsuccessful efforts to have his case heard secretly, meant that Wakefield did not have a functioning representative in Parliament for two years. “The whole unfortunate situation is about a broken political system that ignores the voters and their wishes, and politicians who don’t do the right thing or serve the people who got them into power,” said Gavin Murray, editor of the Wakefield Express newspaper. “This point is amplified and exaggerated by the behavior of Boris and Downing Street.”While there had been little expectation that the Conservatives would hold on to the Wakefield seat, the scale of the victory for Labour suggested that the party could compete successfully against the Conservatives in the next general election.The giant swing in votes in Tiverton and Honiton, a usually safe Conservative district where the party had hoped to hold on, was even more sobering for Mr. Johnson. It suggested that even the most loyal Tory voters had become disenchanted with the serial scandals and nonstop drama surrounding the prime minister.The Labour candidate Simon Lightwood won a solid 48 percent of the vote to the Conservatives’ 30 percent in Wakefield.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesLast year, the Conservatives were stunned by the loss of a parliamentary seat in Chesham and Amersham, a well-heeled district northwest of London. Analysts said that it suggested a backlash against Mr. Johnson’s divisive brand of politics and tax-and-spend policies.The government has promised to “level up” and bolster the economy in northern England, a reward to the red-wall voters. But some analysts see a significant risk of support fracturing among traditional Tories in the south.The Liberal Democrats specialize in fighting on local issues in by-elections. They have a long history of achieving surprise results, and success for them in Tiverton and Honiton consolidated the party’s strong performance in local elections in May, where they also emerged the big winners.In the days leading up to the two elections, Labour and the Liberal Democrats both concentrated their resources in the districts they were better placed to win, leaving the other a freer run. Worryingly for Mr. Johnson, that tactic proved effective.Vince Cable, a former leader of the Liberal Democrats, said that rather than any official cooperation between the two parties, there was a “tacit understanding, relying on the voters to get to a sensible outcome.” Kenneth Baker, a former chairman of the Conservative Party and a member of the House of Lords, said that Mr. Johnson was now too polarizing a figure.“If the Conservative Party continues to be led by Boris,” he said, “there is no chance of the Conservatives winning an overall majority.” More

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      Conservatives Lose 2 U.K. By-Elections, Adding to Pressure on Boris Johnson

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      The double defeat exposed the party’s vulnerabilities and was likely to revive talk of another no-confidence vote against the prime minister.LONDON — Britain’s governing Conservative Party lost two strategically important parliamentary seats on Friday, prompting the resignation of the party’s chairman and raising fresh doubts about the scandal-scarred leadership of Prime Minister Boris Johnson.The double defeat is a stinging rebuke of Mr. Johnson, who survived a no-confidence vote in his party this month, precipitated by a scandal over illicit parties held at Downing Street during the coronavirus pandemic. It will most likely revive talk of another no-confidence vote, though under the party’s current rules, Mr. Johnson should not face another challenge until next June.In elections on Thursday, voters in Tiverton and Honiton, a rural stretch of southwest England that is the party’s heartland, and in the faded northern industrial city of Wakefield evicted the Conservative Party from seats that had come open after lawmakers were brought down by scandals of their own.The Labour Party’s victory in Wakefield was widely expected, and it ran up a comfortable margin over the Conservatives. In the south, which had been viewed as a tossup, the Liberal Democrats scored a stunning upset, overcoming a huge Conservative majority in the last election to win the seat by a solid margin.It was the first time a governing party had lost two seats in a parliamentary by-election since 1991. And as grim as the electoral prospects for the Conservatives look, they could worsen further in the next year, with galloping inflation, interest rate hikes and Britain almost certainly heading for a recession.Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain, who is dealing with swelling discontent at home, was in Rwanda on Friday for the opening ceremony of a Commonwealth summit.Pool photo by Dan KitwoodThe political fallout was swift and stark: Oliver Dowden resigned his job as a chairman of the Conservative Party on Friday morning in a letter sent to Mr. Johnson less than two hours after the votes had been counted. The party’s supporters were “distressed and disappointed by recent events, and I share their feelings,” Mr. Dowden wrote, adding that “somebody must take responsibility.”A longtime ally of Mr. Johnson, Mr. Dowden pointedly professed his loyalty to the Conservative Party, rather than to its leader. But on Friday, Mr. Johnson showed no signs of reconsidering his position, even as he acknowledged the defeats and promised to listen to the voters.“Midterm governments, postwar, lose by-elections,” said the prime minister, who is attending a meeting of the leaders of the Commonwealth in Kigali, Rwanda.“We are facing pressures on the costs of living,” Mr. Johnson added. “We are seeing spikes in fuel prices, energy costs, food costs, that is hitting people. We have to recognize that there is more that we have got to do and we certainly will, we will keep going addressing the concerns of people until we get through this patch.”Rishi Sunak, the chancellor of the Exchequer, offered his support to the prime minister, echoing his explanation of the defeats and accepting some of the blame. “We all take responsibility for the results and I’m determined to continue working to tackle the cost of living,” he wrote on Twitter.Mr. Sunak had been seen as a potential successor to Mr. Johnson until his popularity plummeted this year, and — although other senior ministers kept noticeably quiet — his statement suggests that a coordinated cabinet move against the prime minister was unlikely.However, one senior Conservative figure, Michael Howard, called for the resignation of a prime minister now seen by many as an electoral liability. “The party, and more importantly the country, would be better off under new leadership,” Mr. Howard, a former Tory leader, told the BBC, adding, “Members of the Cabinet should very carefully consider their positions.”The defeats exposed Conservative vulnerabilities on two fronts: the so-called red wall, in the industrial north of England, where Mr. Johnson shattered a traditional Labour stronghold in the 2019 general election, and in the southwest, a traditional Tory stronghold often called the “blue wall.”The political fallout was swift and stark: Oliver Dowden resigned his job as a chairman of the Conservative Party on Friday morning in a letter sent to Mr. Johnson less than two hours after the votes had been counted.Paul Ellis/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIn Tiverton and Honiton, where the Liberal Democrats won 53 percent of the vote to the Conservatives’ 39 percent, the victorious candidate, Richard Foord, said the result would send “a shock wave through British politics.” The Liberal Democrats’ leader, Ed Davey, called it “the biggest by-election victory our country has ever seen.”The Labour leader, Keir Starmer, said that his party’s victory in Wakefield, where Simon Lightwood won a solid 48 percent of the vote to the Conservative candidate’s 30 percent, was “a clear judgment on a Conservative Party that has run out of energy and ideas.”While the political contours of the two districts are very different, they share a common element: a Conservative lawmaker who resigned in disgrace. In Tiverton and Honiton, Neil Parish quit in April after he admitted watching pornography on his phone while sitting in Parliament. In Wakefield, Imran Ahmad Khan was sentenced to 18 months in prison in May after being convicted of sexually assaulting a teenage boy.Mr. Khan’s legal troubles, which included multiple unsuccessful efforts to have his case heard secretly, meant that Wakefield did not have a functioning representative in Parliament for two years.“The whole unfortunate situation is about a broken political system that ignores the voters and their wishes, and politicians who don’t do the right thing or serve the people who got them into power,” said Gavin Murray, editor of the Wakefield Express newspaper. “This point is amplified and exaggerated by the behavior of Boris and Downing Street.”While there had been little expectation that the Conservatives would hold on to the Wakefield seat, the scale of the victory for Labour suggested that the party could compete successfully against the Conservatives in the next general election.The giant swing in votes in Tiverton and Honiton, a usually safe Conservative district where the party had hoped to hold on, was even more sobering for Mr. Johnson. It suggested that even the most loyal Tory voters had become disenchanted with the serial scandals and nonstop drama surrounding the prime minister.The Labour candidate Simon Lightwood won a solid 48 percent of the vote to the Conservatives’ 30 percent in Wakefield.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesLast year, the Conservatives were stunned by the loss of a parliamentary seat in Chesham and Amersham, a well-heeled district northwest of London. Analysts said that it suggested a backlash against Mr. Johnson’s divisive brand of politics and tax-and-spend policies.The government has promised to “level up” and bolster the economy in northern England, a reward to the red-wall voters. But some analysts see a significant risk of support fracturing among traditional Tories in the south.The Liberal Democrats specialize in fighting on local issues in by-elections. They have a long history of achieving surprise results, and success for them in Tiverton and Honiton consolidated the party’s strong performance in local elections in May, where they also emerged the big winners.In the days leading up to the two elections, Labour and the Liberal Democrats both concentrated their resources in the districts they were better placed to win, leaving the other a freer run. Worryingly for Mr. Johnson, that tactic proved effective.Vince Cable, a former leader of the Liberal Democrats, said that rather than any official cooperation between the two parties, there was a “tacit understanding, relying on the voters to get to a sensible outcome.”“Because the economic outlook is so awful, certainly for the next 12 to 18 months, it wouldn’t surprise me if Johnson did something very risky and went for an autumn election,” Mr. Cable said at an election-eve briefing.That is a remarkable reversal of fortune for a party that won an 80-seat majority in Parliament only two-and-half years ago on the strength of Mr. Johnson’s promise to “get Brexit done.”Kenneth Baker, a former chairman of the Conservative Party and a member of the House of Lords, said that Mr. Johnson was now too polarizing a figure.“If the Conservative Party continues to be led by Boris,” he said, “there is no chance of the Conservatives winning an overall majority.” More

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      Boris Johnson Risks a Sharp Rebuke in U.K. By-Elections

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      Scandals, economic pain and an uproar over lockdown parties have left Britain’s Conservatives at risk of losing both recent advances and old strongholds.WAKEFIELD, England — Prime Minister Boris Johnson has yet to campaign in the stately but faded city of Wakefield in West Yorkshire, even though his Conservative Party is at risk of losing a highly symbolic seat in a parliamentary election there on Thursday. But that doesn’t mean he’s not on people’s minds — or tongues.“Boris Johnson has been convicted of breaking the law. He held parties in the place where they make the laws. It’s massive hypocrisy,” said Jordan Rendle, 31, who was getting his hair cut by a local barber, Andrew Prust.“We’re all human — 99.9 percent of the country didn’t stick to the rules,” Mr. Prust replied, his shrug reflected in the mirror.“OK, stop the haircut now!” Mr. Rendle spluttered in mock outrage, as he realized his barber backed the prime minister.“Boris Johnson has been convicted of breaking the law,” said Jordan Rendle, getting his hair cut, adding: “It’s massive hypocrisy.”Andrew Testa for The New York TimesEven in races where Mr. Johnson is not on the ballot, he manages to be an all-consuming, often polarizing figure. While this election, along with one in southwestern England, is to fill seats vacated by two lawmakers whose careers were ruined by their own scandals, the races are also a referendum of sorts on the scandal-scarred prime minister.How badly has he been damaged by the uproar over illicit parties held in Downing Street during the pandemic?Were the Conservatives to lose both seats, which is conceivable, it would do fresh damage to the record of electoral success that has helped Mr. Johnson survive the kind of turmoil — including a no-confidence vote by his own party — that would have sunk most politicians. A double defeat could trigger another mutiny among the 148 rebel Tory members of Parliament who voted to oust him only two weeks ago.“If those elections were to be lost quite badly, I can’t see why a good proportion of those M.P.s wouldn’t be demanding another no-confidence vote,” said Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London. “By-elections have a nasty habit of making a generalized problem acute.”For all the high stakes, campaigning in Wakefield has been muted.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesPolls suggest the Conservatives are on track to lose Wakefield to the main opposition Labour Party, less than three years after they won it in Mr. Johnson’s 2019 election landslide. That would give Labour back a seat it held for nearly 90 years and restore a brick to the party’s “red wall” — areas in England’s equivalent of the rust belt, former industrial cities and towns that were once Labour strongholds.The election in Tiverton and Honiton, in the rural Tory heartlands to the south, is more of a tossup. There, the centrist Liberal Democrats are hoping to evict the Conservatives from a seat they held since the district was created in 1997, and won with a hefty margin in 2019.The incumbent, Neil Parish, resigned in April after he admitted watching pornography on his phone while sitting in the House of Commons. In Wakefield, the Conservative, Imran Ahmad Khan, was jailed after being convicted of sexually assaulting a teenage boy.Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain speaking in 2019 during his Conservative Party’s final election campaign rally in London.Kirsty Wigglesworth/Associated PressThe lurid circumstances that required these off-year elections make the Conservative Party especially vulnerable. It adds to the perception of what critics call “Tory sleaze.” But there is deeper disillusionment with politics in Wakefield, where a strike at one of the bus companies has depressed business at shops and restaurants.“Politicians always make promises and then they always break them,” said Christine Lee, 82, a retired dress designer, as she browsed in one of Wakefield’s mostly deserted outdoor shopping malls. She said she did not plan to vote on Thursday because neither the Labour nor the Conservative candidate would make a difference.Given its high stakes, the campaign has been surprisingly muted. The Labour candidate, Simon Lightwood, who is comfortably ahead in the polls, has avoided making waves. His Tory opponent, Nadeem Ahmed, has gone quiet since he gave an ill-fated interview to The Daily Telegraph last week, in which he described his predecessor, Mr. Khan, as a “one bad apple,” who should not cause voters to turn against all Conservatives.A Labour stronghold in Wakefield. The party lost the seat in 2019, but has been ahead in polls there.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesDavid Herdson, who is running for the independent Yorkshire Party, left the Conservatives because of Mr. Johnson’s “reckless strategy” on Brexit.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesMr. Ahmed likened the case to that of Harold Shipman, a notorious English doctor and serial killer who is believed to have murdered 250 of his patients as a general practitioner before killing himself in prison in Wakefield in 2004. “Have we stopped trusting G.P.s?” Mr. Ahmed said to the Telegraph. “No, we still trust G.P.s and we know that he was one bad apple in there.”Mr. Johnson has so far kept his distance. On Friday, he skipped a conference of northern Conservative lawmakers in the nearby city of Doncaster, instead making a repeat visit to the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, where he met President Volodymyr Zelensky.To some local politicians, that was a telling sign.“Conservatives don’t think it’s worth fighting for,” said David Herdson, who is running for the seat as the candidate of the independent Yorkshire Party. “Labour thinks the election is in the bag, and they don’t want to make any mistakes.”Mr. Herdson, 48, who left the Conservative Party because of what he called Mr. Johnson’s “reckless strategy” in leaving the European Union, is emphasizing local concerns like affordable housing and better public transportation. He hopes for a respectable finish in the top five of a 15-candidate field. But in knocking on doors, he says he has encountered a “massive cynicism toward the political class in general.”A Labour Party spokeswoman, Phoebe Plomer, said Mr. Lightwood would spend the final days of the campaign telling voters that by defeating the Tories in Wakefield, they had a chance to force Mr. Johnson out of power. Under the rules of the Conservative Party, Mr. Johnson is not subject to another no-confidence vote for at least a year, though the rules can always be changed.A discount store in Wakefield, where a bus strike has emptied the town center.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesEither way, a loss in Wakefield would carry great symbolism. In 2019, the Conservatives pierced the red wall on the strength of Mr. Johnson’s promise to “get Brexit done.” That message appealed to disillusioned Labour voters, many of whom voted to leave the European Union in 2016. It was hailed as one of the most significant political realignments in British politics since the free-market revolution engineered by one of his Conservative predecessors, Margaret Thatcher.But instead of being revolutionary, Mr. Johnson’s leadership has been chaotic. In the wake of the no-confidence vote, his ethics adviser quit in despair last week, and Parliament is still scrutinizing whether the prime minister lied to lawmakers. On top of all that is a cost-of-living squeeze and a potential recession in the coming months.“There is this conventional thinking that Boris is this Heineken politician who can appeal to Labour voters,” Mr. Bale said, alluding to British ads in which a lager brand promised that it “refreshes the parts other beers cannot reach.”“But his appeal is actually kind of limited,” Mr. Bale said, “and he has become more of a liability then an asset.”Shoppers at an outdoor food market in Wakefield.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesGeoff Hayes, 72, who once worked in the now-defunct coal mines that ring Wakefield, said Mr. Johnson had sold many Labour voters on the promise that Brexit would liberate Britain from the regulatory shackles of the European Union. Now, however, they were realizing that the reality was trucks lined up for miles at ports on the English Channel, where they faced delays because of bureaucratic customs paperwork.“A lot of people thought Brexit was going to change everything,” said Mr. Hayes, as he gazed at peregrine falcons nesting in the steeple of Wakefield’s cathedral. “But in the end,” he said, “the Tories only care about the mega rich.” More

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      Boris Johnson Is in Trouble, and So Is Britain’s Conservative Party

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      LONDON — For Boris Johnson, Britain’s embattled and scandal-ridden prime minister, nowhere is safe.On Thursday, that may become inescapably clear. Two local elections — one in a traditional Tory area in South Devon that the party has controlled almost continuously since 1885, the other in a postindustrial seat in North England that the Tories took from Labour for the first time in 90 years in 2019 — will deliver a decisive assessment of Mr. Johnson’s flailing popularity. As things stand, the Conservatives are set to lose both.Mr. Johnson’s ability to win over such disparate people and places — affluent farmers and neglected manufacturers, the shires in the South and old Labour heartlands in the North — once ensured his position at the top of the Conservative Party. Yet now, as Britain hovers on the brink of economic recession, the constituencies that previously united around the prime minister appear to be rejecting him. For Mr. Johnson, his authority frayed by a recent no confidence vote, a double defeat would leave his tenure hanging by a thread.But the Conservatives’ problems are much bigger than the prime minister. After 12 years in office, under three different leaders, the Conservatives have collectively set the stage for Britain’s woes. The balance sheet is dire: Wages haven’t risen in real terms since 2010, austerity has hollowed out local communities, and regional inequality has deepened. Britain’s protracted departure from the European Union, pursued by the Conservatives without a clear plan, has only made matters worse.For this litany of failures, the Conservatives seem to be finally paying the price. After four successive electoral victories, each one with a larger share of the vote, the party has trailed in the polls all year. Thursday’s elections are likely to be yet another indicator of the public’s growing disenchantment, one that bodes badly for the party’s chances in the next election, due by the start of 2025. Unable to address the country’s deep-seated problems and devoid of direction, the Conservatives are in trouble — whether led by Mr. Johnson or not.As the prices of food and energy soar to record levels, Conservatives can point to causes outside their control: the pandemic’s global disruption, lockdowns in China, Russia’s war in Ukraine. But they cannot explain why, in this time of global crisis, Britain is afflicted with particular severity. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Britain’s economy won’t grow at all next year — a bleak forecast shared only, among major economies, with Russia.That should concern the Conservatives, whose dismal economic record is visible everywhere, from rising levels of poverty to chronically underfunded public services. In the National Health Service, to which Conservatives love to pronounce their loyalty, wages for health care workers have fallen in real terms, and an estimated 110,000 positions lie vacant. As the waiting list for medical attention hits an all-time high, ever more Britons are going private: The average amount now spent by households on health care, as a percentage of G.D.P., is nearing levels in America. For a country so proud of its public health care, it’s an especially painful development.For Conservatives, the chaos of Mr. Johnson’s prime ministership offers another appealing alibi. Having first ridden on the back of Mr. Johnson’s unruliness, Conservatives now claim that it is impeding their ability to address the serious problems facing the country. They often complain that they just want to “get back to governing.” But the truth is that Conservatives gave up on governing long ago — a fact that accounts both for Britain’s current mess and Mr. Johnson’s appeal in the first place.Indeed, while Mr. Johnson’s own desperation to become party leader was always an open secret, his eventual rise to the top relied on his Conservative colleagues’ desperation as well. By 2019, after almost a decade in power and with little positive to show for it, there was a pressing need to plot a new national course. In a rut and out of ideas, Conservatives turned instead to a known peddler of feel-good fantasies. Mr. Johnson offered Conservatives an escape — from Europe, seriousness and self-doubt. What he lacked in sense of direction he made up for with his boundless optimism and sense of humor. Punch lines could take the place of policy, raising spirits if not wages.Mr. Johnson’s boosterism, giddily amplified by his cheerleaders in the right-wing press, worked for a while. During the push to leave the European Union, and even during the devastatingly mishandled pandemic, Mr. Johnson could play the role of mascot, rallying the nation for the task ahead. But now in the wreckage of that double disruption, each one exacerbated by Mr. Johnson’s incompetence, the Conservative leader has lost his charm. His jokes, amid an escalating cost-of-living crisis, fall flat. And having finally “got Brexit done,” as his winning campaign slogan promised, Mr. Johnson struggles to pin blame for the nation’s troubles on the European Union. Fed up with broken promises and brazen deceit, voters are turning against him.But Conservatives can avoid their own reckoning for only so long. First through austerity, then through Brexit and Mr. Johnson, the Conservatives have left Britain in the ruins of their ambition. Each one of their proposed solutions, offered in the name of national renewal, has made the situation worse. No one in the party can escape blame for this baleful legacy. One of the pretenders to Mr. Johnson’s throne — Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss or Jeremy Hunt — may offer a change in style. But a substantial change of course is unlikely to come. An economy predicated on low productivity and low investment, buttressed by a self-defeating lack of seriousness about Britain’s condition, is all the Conservatives seem to be able to offer.In the 1960s, an English satirist named Peter Cook warned that Britain was in danger of “sinking giggling into the sea.” Today, the feeling is pervasive. Over 12 years, the Conservatives have unmoored Britain from its foundations and perpetuated a failed economic model, accelerating the nation’s descent into disorder. For the most part, Conservatives have cheered the country on its way. On Thursday, Britain will at least learn if the tide is finally turning.Samuel Earle (@swajcmanearle) is a British journalist at work on a book about how the Conservative Party has dominated Britain for almost two centuries.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      In Two Elections, North and South, Boris Johnson Risks a Sharp Rebuke

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      Scandals, economic pain and an uproar over lockdown parties have left Britain’s Conservatives at risk of losing both recent advances and old strongholds.WAKEFIELD, England — Prime Minister Boris Johnson has yet to campaign in the stately but faded city of Wakefield in West Yorkshire, even though his Conservative Party is at risk of losing a highly symbolic seat in a parliamentary election there on Thursday. But that doesn’t mean he’s not on people’s minds — or tongues.“Boris Johnson has been convicted of breaking the law. He held parties in the place where they make the laws. It’s massive hypocrisy,” said Jordan Rendle, 31, who was getting his hair cut by a local barber, Andrew Prust.“We’re all human — 99.9 percent of the country didn’t stick to the rules,” Mr. Prust replied, his shrug reflected in the mirror.“OK, stop the haircut now!” Mr. Rendle spluttered in mock outrage, as he realized his barber backed the prime minister.“Boris Johnson has been convicted of breaking the law,” said Jordan Rendle, getting his hair cut, adding: “It’s massive hypocrisy.”Andrew Testa for The New York TimesEven in races where Mr. Johnson is not on the ballot, he manages to be an all-consuming, often polarizing figure. While this election, along with one in southwestern England, is to fill seats vacated by two lawmakers whose careers were ruined by their own scandals, the races are also a referendum of sorts on the scandal-scarred prime minister.How badly has he been damaged by the uproar over illicit parties held in Downing Street during the pandemic?Were the Conservatives to lose both seats, which is conceivable, it would do fresh damage to the record of electoral success that has helped Mr. Johnson survive the kind of turmoil — including a no-confidence vote by his own party — that would have sunk most politicians. A double defeat could trigger another mutiny among the 148 rebel Tory members of Parliament who voted to oust him only two weeks ago.“If those elections were to be lost quite badly, I can’t see why a good proportion of those M.P.s wouldn’t be demanding another no-confidence vote,” said Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London. “By-elections have a nasty habit of making a generalized problem acute.”For all the high stakes, campaigning in Wakefield has been muted.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesPolls suggest the Conservatives are on track to lose Wakefield to the main opposition Labour Party, less than three years after they won it in Mr. Johnson’s 2019 election landslide. That would give Labour back a seat it held for nearly 90 years and restore a brick to the party’s “red wall” — areas in England’s equivalent of the rust belt, former industrial cities and towns that were once Labour strongholds.The election in Tiverton and Honiton, in the rural Tory heartlands to the south, is more of a tossup. There, the centrist Liberal Democrats are hoping to evict the Conservatives from a seat they held since the district was created in 1997, and won with a hefty margin in 2019.The incumbent, Neil Parish, resigned in April after he admitted watching pornography on his phone while sitting in the House of Commons. In Wakefield, the Conservative, Imran Ahmad Khan, was jailed after being convicted of sexually assaulting a teenage boy.Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain speaking in 2019 during his Conservative Party’s final election campaign rally in London.Kirsty Wigglesworth/Associated PressThe lurid circumstances that required these off-year elections makes the Conservative Party especially vulnerable. It adds to the perception of what critics call “Tory sleaze.” But there is deeper disillusionment with politics in Wakefield, where a strike at one of the bus companies has depressed business at shops and restaurants.“Politicians always make promises and then they always break them,” said Christine Lee, 82, a retired dress designer, as she browsed in one of Wakefield’s mostly deserted outdoor shopping malls. She said she did not plan to vote on Thursday because neither the Labour nor the Conservative candidate would make a difference.Given its high stakes, the campaign has been surprisingly muted. The Labour candidate, Simon Lightwood, who is comfortably ahead in the polls, has avoided making waves. His Tory opponent, Nadeem Ahmed, has gone quiet since he gave an ill-fated interview to The Daily Telegraph last week, in which he described his predecessor, Mr. Khan, as a “one bad apple,” who should not cause voters to turn against all Conservatives.A Labour stronghold in Wakefield. The party lost the seat in 2019, but has been ahead in polls there.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesDavid Herdson, who is running for the independent Yorkshire Party, left the Conservatives because of Mr. Johnson’s “reckless strategy” on Brexit.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesMr. Ahmed likened the case to that of Harold Shipman, a notorious English doctor and serial killer who is believed to have murdered 250 of his patients as a general practitioner before killing himself in prison in Wakefield in 2004. “Have we stopped trusting G.P.s?” Mr. Ahmed said to the Telegraph. “No, we still trust G.P.s and we know that he was one bad apple in there.”Mr. Johnson has so far kept his distance. On Friday, he skipped a conference of northern Conservative lawmakers in the nearby city of Doncaster, instead making a repeat visit to the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, where he met President Volodymyr Zelensky.To some local politicians, that was a telling sign.“Conservatives don’t think it’s worth fighting for,” said David Herdson, who is running for the seat as the candidate of the independent Yorkshire Party. “Labour thinks the election is in the bag, and they don’t want to make any mistakes.”Mr. Herdson, 48, who left the Conservative Party because of what he called Mr. Johnson’s “reckless strategy” in leaving the European Union, is emphasizing local concerns like affordable housing and better public transportation. He hopes for a respectable finish in the top five of a 15-candidate field. But in knocking on doors, he says he has encountered a “massive cynicism toward the political class in general.”A Labour Party spokeswoman, Phoebe Plomer, said Mr. Lightwood would spend the final days of the campaign telling voters that by defeating the Tories in Wakefield, they had a chance to force Mr. Johnson out of power. Under the rules of the Conservative Party, Mr. Johnson is not subject to another no-confidence vote for at least a year, though the rules can always be changed.A discount store in Wakefield, where a bus strike has emptied the town center.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesEither way, a loss in Wakefield would carry great symbolism. In 2019, the Conservatives pierced the red wall on the strength of Mr. Johnson’s promise to “get Brexit done.” That message appealed to disillusioned Labour voters, many of whom voted to leave the European Union in 2016. It was hailed as one of the most significant political realignments in British politics since the free-market revolution engineered by one of his Conservative predecessors, Margaret Thatcher.But instead of being revolutionary, Mr. Johnson’s leadership has been chaotic. In the wake of the no-confidence vote, his ethics adviser quit in despair last week, and Parliament is still scrutinizing whether the prime minister lied to lawmakers. On top of all that is a cost-of-living squeeze and a potential recession in the coming months.“There is this conventional thinking that Boris is this Heineken politician who can appeal to Labour voters,” Mr. Bale said, alluding to British ads in which a lager brand promised that it “refreshes the parts other beers cannot reach.”“But his appeal is actually kind of limited,” Mr. Bale said, “and he has become more of a liability then an asset.”Shoppers at an outdoor food market in Wakefield.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesGeoff Hayes, 72, who once worked in the now-defunct coal mines that ring Wakefield, said Mr. Johnson had sold many Labour voters on the promise that Brexit would liberate Britain from the regulatory shackles of the European Union. Now, however, they were realizing that the reality was trucks lined up for miles at ports on the English Channel, where they faced delays because of bureaucratic customs paperwork.“A lot of people thought Brexit was going to change everything,” said Mr. Hayes, as he gazed at peregrine falcons nesting in the steeple of Wakefield’s cathedral. “But in the end,” he said, “the Tories only care about the mega rich.” More

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      As Boris Johnson Stumbles, Labour Struggles to Offer a Clear Message

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      Out of power for 12 years, Britain’s Labour Party has made some gains, but its message hasn’t won back the rust belt regions that abandoned it in the last election.LONDON — When Boris Johnson hit energy companies with a windfall tax last week as a way of providing more aid for struggling consumers, it was a bittersweet moment for the opposition Labour Party, which had been promoting just such a plan for months.For once, Labour could claim to have won “the battle of ideas.” But at a stroke, Mr. Johnson had co-opted the party’s marquee policy and claimed the credit.This might have been a moment of opportunity for Labour. Mr. Johnson’s leadership has been in jeopardy because of a scandal over illicit lockdown-busting parties in Downing Street — missteps highlighted by a civil servant’s report last week that said senior leadership “must bear responsibility” for the failure to follow the rules.But some political analysts think Labour should focus less on the “partygate” scandal and more on outlining a clear agenda to British voters, who face rising inflation and a possible recession.Prime Minister Boris Johnson outside 10 Downing Street in London. His leadership has been in jeopardy because of illicit lockdown-busting parties held there.Dominic Lipinski/Press Association, via Associated PressNow out of power for 12 years, Labour has lost the last four general elections, including a thrashing in 2019 when Jeremy Corbyn, a left-winger and the party’s leader at the time, was crushed by Mr. Johnson’s Conservatives.John McTernan, a political strategist and onetime aide to then-Prime Minister Tony Blair, said that while Labour had made a decent recovery under the current leader, Keir Starmer, it had not yet “closed the deal” with the electorate.“It looks like modest progress because it is modest progress” said Mr. McTernan, while adding that it was still a “massive rebalancing” after the 2019 defeat.He praised the advances made under Mr. Starmer, but said the party still had work to do if it hoped to install a Labour government in place of the Tories. “This is the year the tempo has to pick up,” he said.And while the Conservatives lost badly in recent local elections, Labour has made only limited progress, with smaller parties doing well.Mr. Starmer suffered a setback recently when the police reopened an investigation into whether he, too, broke coronavirus rules. He promptly promised that he would resign if he were fined by the police — in contrast to Mr. Johnson, who suffered that fate in April but refused to quit.But whatever Mr. Starmer’s future, the Labour Party has yet to draft a convincing message to win back rust belt regions that abandoned it in the last election and that — judging by the local election results — remain to be convinced.A polling station this month in Wandsworth, England. While the Conservatives lost badly in recent local elections, Labour has made only limited progress, with smaller parties doing well.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesIn the 2019 general election, parts of England that for decades had voted for Labour switched en masse to the Conservatives, allowing Mr. Johnson to recast the political map just as Donald J. Trump did in the United States in 2016.Since then, Mr. Starmer has junked much of Mr. Corbyn’s socialist agenda, posed frequently alongside the British flag to illustrate his patriotism, taken a tough line against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and become the first Labour leader in more than a decade to visit NATO.But the party has yet to define itself with a clear new vision to British voters, and Mr. Starmer, a former chief prosecutor, has little of the charisma that distinguishes leaders in the mold of Mr. Trump and Mr. Johnson.Even he accepts that Labour is not yet in a solid, election-winning position.“I always said the first thing we needed to do was to recognize that if you lose badly, you don’t blame the electorate, you change your party,” Mr. Starmer said in an interview this year after meeting with voters at a town-hall meeting at Burnley College in northwestern England. “We have spent the best part of two years doing that heavy lifting, that hard work.”A supermarket in London. Prime Minister Boris Johnson promised a new and more generous package of aid worth billions of dollars to help all British households.Tolga Akmen/EPA, via ShutterstockYet Labour’s task is huge.In 2019, the Conservatives captured areas like Burnley, in Britain’s postindustrial “red wall,” and Labour polled poorly in Scotland, once another heartland, losing out to the Scottish National Party. Looming changes to electoral boundaries are likely to favor the Conservatives in the next general election, which must take place by the end of 2024 but that many expect next year.So Labour is hosting a series of town-hall meetings where uncommitted voters are asked what would lure them back to the party.After the gathering in Burnley, Lisa Nandy, a senior member of the Labour Party, reflected on the project to mend what she called “a breakdown in trust” between Labour and its traditional voters.“It broke my heart in 2019 when I watched communities where I grew up and that I call home turning blue for the first time in history,” said Ms. Nandy, referring to the campaign color used by the Conservatives. She represents Wigan, another former industrial town, speaks for Labour on how to spread prosperity to areas outside England’s prosperous southeast, and knows that her party has work to do.People at the meeting in Burnley liked the idea of cutting energy bills by placing a windfall tax on the profits of oil and gas firms, said Ms. Nandy, speaking before the government announced the plan. Yet few at this time knew this was one of Labour’s main policy proposals.“The question is, why don’t they know this is what we have been saying?” Ms. Nandy lamented earlier this year, referring to voters.The reason, she thinks, is that politicians spend too much time in London and too little “on people’s own territory having conversations with them about things that matter to them.”Labour is also reaching out to a business community whose ties to the government have been strained over Brexit rules that pile mounds of extra red tape onto many exporters. At a digital meeting with businesses in the Midlands, Seema Malhotra, who speaks for Labour on business and industrial issues, heard a litany of problems, including customs bureaucracy, inflation, rising energy and wage costs, and supply-chain difficulties.Labour Party signs in Bradford, England.Mary Turner for The New York Times“I don’t think anyone is expecting full policy across the board until the time of the next election,” she said. “A lot of what we need to do is about rebuilding our relationship with the country and setting out our values, and people need to get to know the Labour Party again.”“Whilst people are prepared to listen to Labour again, we cannot be complacent,” she added. “Many people have yet to feel that we have fully moved on from the past enough to now trust us. We have work to do on continuing to demonstrate that our party has changed.”Some analysts argue that what Labour really needs is a sharper message.“I know so many progressives who think that politics is like a football game: If you have a 10-point plan on health and your opponents only have a five-point plan you win 10 to 5,” Mr. McTernan said. “You don’t.”Instead, he added, “You have to say: ‘This is Britain’s big challenge. Labour is the answer. Here’s why and here’s how.’”To succeed, the party needs to convince people like Ged Ennis, the director of a renewable energy company that equipped Burnley College with solar panels. He has voted for Labour and the Conservatives over the years, but opted for the centrist Liberal Democrats in 2019.Mr. Ennis said he had been convinced that Labour was keen to listen but confessed to having a hazy picture of Mr. Starmer’s politics. “I think what he needs to do is to be brave and to be really clear about what he wants to deliver,” he said. More

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      Boris Johnson and His Party Suffer Setbacks in Local Voting in Britain

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      But the British leader appeared to have survived the storm — for now at least — as the head of the opposition Labour Party came under scrutiny for violating lockdown rules himself.LONDON — Embroiled in a sprawling scandal over parties in Downing Street that broke lockdown rules, Britain’s prime minister, Boris Johnson, suffered a succession of setbacks on Friday in local elections as voters across the country abandoned his Conservative Party.But by the end of the day, Mr. Johnson appeared to have survived the storm — for now at least — and to have turned the tables on the opposition Labour Party leader, Keir Starmer, who on Friday learned that the police will investigate whether he, too, broke lockdown laws.That news grabbed headlines, taking the gloss off election results that had been good — but not spectacular — for Labour while boosting smaller, centrist Liberal Democrats.With most of the votes counted in England, the Conservatives had lost more than 280 races to elect “councillors” — representatives in municipalities — in what Mr. Johnson acknowledged had been a “tough night in some parts of the country.”The results were closely watched because, after Mr. Johnson was fined for breaking lockdown rules, some of his fellow Conservatives had been considering pressing for a no-confidence vote that could evict him from Downing Street.Although his party avoided the type of electoral meltdown that might have propelled that threat to Mr. Johnson’s future, the results were nevertheless unnerving for a governing party that is confronting strong economic headwinds.London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, right, celebrates Labour’s victory Friday in Wandsworth — traditionally a Conservative borough.Hannah Mckay/ReutersAdding to the party’s troubles, the Irish nationalist party, Sinn Fein, was on track to emerge as the largest party in Northern Ireland after legislative elections, a seismic political shift that could kindle hopes for Irish unity but also sow unrest in a territory where delicate power-sharing arrangements have kept the peace for two decades.The Conservatives’ losses of two boroughs in London — Westminster, which has been held by the party since its creation almost 60 years ago, and Wandsworth — were serious symbolic blows.“Waking up to catastrophic results for the party in London,” Gavin Barwell, who was chief of staff to the former prime minister, Theresa May, wrote on Twitter.These flagship councils were held by Conservatives even when Tony Blair swept to power in a landslide election victory for Labour in 1997, and when the Conservatives imposed austerity measures after 2010 and under Ms. May, he noted. “Losing them should be a wake up call for the Conservative Party,” Mr. Barwell wrote.There was more bad news for the party in Scotland, where Conservatives suffered losses and a BBC analysis suggested that results projected nationally would give Labour 35 percent of the vote, Conservatives 30 percent and the Liberal Democrats 19 percent.With 124 of 146 councils in England having declared their results, the Conservatives had shed more than 280 seats, which meant they lost control of several boroughs. Labour gained around 60 council seats, fewer than the Liberal Democrats, who gained more than 150. The Greens, another smaller party, also made advances, winning around 50 seats.The setback to the Conservatives comes as Britain’s economic picture is deteriorating, putting the financial squeeze on Britons. Growth in Britain is expected to be the lowest in the G7 next year and domestic energy bills are soaring just as the government has been raising taxes. On Thursday, the Bank of England raised interest rates while warning that inflation could hit 10 percent. With voters in a restive mood, a good performance by the centrist Liberal Democrats and the smaller Greens was another warning for Mr. Johnson. The risk for him is that Labour’s advances in big cities could be coming as Liberal Democrats or Greens make gains in parts of the south of England that are traditional Conservative heartlands.Nicola Sturgeon, first minister of Scotland, celebrating election results in Glasgow on Friday.Russell Cheyne/ReutersBut Labour’s progress outside London was mixed, and most analysts were skeptical of Mr. Starmer’s claims that the results marked a “massive turning point” for his party.Labour’s challenge is to win back the so-called “red wall” regions in the north and middle of the country that it once dominated but which switched en masse to the Conservatives in the 2019 general election.James Johnson, who was in charge of polling for Ms. May, wrote on Twitter that the results did not herald a dramatic recovery for the Labour Party “but they do show Labour doing as well in the Red Wall as they did when they last held the Red Wall — and that should worry Conservatives.” In Wandsworth in London, some voters expressed anger at Mr. Johnson’s lockdown scandals as they went to vote.“I would have always identified myself as Conservative, but this vote today was a vote to show that I don’t agree with the government,” said Marcel Aramburo, 62, who has lived in the area for decades.While he said he was happy with the way local issues have been handled under the Conservative council, he felt it was time to vote Labour after becoming increasingly disillusioned with the Conservatives.“I am unhappy with the people running this country,” he said. “Everything that comes out of their mouths is a lie.”Yet Mr. Starmer, who has seized on Mr. Johnson’s difficulties over the Downing Street parties, now has a problem of his own with the news that the police will once again investigate allegations that he broke lockdown rules himself.Keir Starmer, leader of the opposition Labour Party, celebrating election results in Carlisle on Friday.Scott Heppell/ReutersA finding that Mr. Starmer broke the law would put the Labour leader under intense pressure to quit, given that he has called for Rishi Sunak, the chancellor of the exchequer, to resign for briefly attending an illicit gathering in Downing Street to celebrate Mr. Johnson’s birthday. Mr. Starmer has been even more scathing about Mr. Johnson’s leadership after news of the Downing Street parties broke.The allegations against Mr. Starmer center on a gathering in April last year at which he was pictured drinking beer with other party members during a campaign visit to Durham. That has led tabloid newspapers to call the case “beergate.”The police had already looked into the case and decided to take no action but, on Friday, they issued a statement saying that in light of “significant new evidence” they were now investigating possible breaches of coronavirus rules.But in recent days, Labour has come under pressure after it admitted that, despite earlier denials, the party’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, was also at the gathering in Durham.Megan Specia More

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      Your Thursday Evening Briefing

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      Here’s what you need to know at the end of the day.(Want to get this newsletter in your inbox? Here’s the sign-up.)Good evening. Here’s the latest at the end of Thursday.Mifepristone, the first of two drugs typically taken for a medication abortion, is authorized for patients up to 10 weeks pregnant.Michelle Mishina-Kunz for The New York Times1. Senate Democrats planned a surely doomed vote on Roe. The Senate’s majority leader, Chuck Schumer, said he will introduce a bill next week that codifies abortion rights into federal law, following the leaked Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade. The bill will almost certainly fall short of the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster or even obtain a simple majority.Still, Schumer called the vote one of “the most important we ever take,” framing it as a reminder to voters of the party’s stance. A majority of Americans support some form of abortion. If the Court overturns Roe, medication abortions, which account for more than half of recent abortions, will be the next battleground. A senior official said that the Biden administration is looking for further steps to increase access to all types of abortion, including the pill method.In other fallout, a stark divide has grown between Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel Alito Jr., author of the leaked decision. A Russian tank stuck in mud outside the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv.Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times2. The U.S. shared intelligence that helped Ukraine kill Russian generals. About 12 have died, according to Ukrainian officials, an astonishingly high number.The Biden administration’s help is part of a classified effort to give Ukraine real-time battlefield intelligence. Officials wouldn’t specify how many of the generals were killed with U.S. assistance and denied that the intelligence is provided with the intent to kill Russian generals.“Heavy, bloody battles” were fought at the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, the city’s last pocket of resistance, after Russian forces breached the perimeter. Seizing Mariupol would let President Vladimir Putin claim a major victory before Moscow’s Victory Day celebration on May 9.Fighting raged across the eastern front, from Mariupol to the northern Donetsk area. “The front is swinging this way and that,” a Ukrainian medic told The Times.The W.H.O. estimated roughly 930,000 more people than normal died in the U.S. by the end of 2021.Kirsten Luce for The New York Times3. Nearly 15 million more people died during the first two years of the pandemic than would have been expected during normal times.That estimate, which came from a panel of experts the World Health Organization assembled, offered a startling glimpse of how drastically the death counts reported by many governments have understated the pandemic’s toll.Most of the deaths were from Covid, the experts said, but some people died because the pandemic made it more difficult to get medical care for ailments such as heart attacks. The previous toll, based solely on death counts reported by countries, was six million.In other virus news, BA.2.12.1, a subvariant of the BA.2 Omicron subvariant, is likely to soon become the dominant form of the virus in the U.S. There’s no indication yet that it causes more severe disease.A Modoc National Forest firefighter used a drip torch to ignite a prescribed burn in Alturas, Calif., last year.Max Whittaker for The New York Times4. Fire season has arrived earlier than ever.Enormous wildfires have already consumed landscapes in Arizona and Nebraska. More than a dozen wildfires are raging this month across the Southwest. Summer is still more than a month and a half away.A time-lapse image from space shows the scope of the Western catastrophe: Smoke from fires in New Mexico can be seen on a collision course with a huge dust storm in Colorado. Both are examples of natural disasters made more severe and frequent by climate change, which has also made a vital tool for controlling wildfires — intentional burns — much riskier.The country’s largest active blaze, a megafire of more than 160,000 acres in northern New Mexico, has grown with such ferocity that it has threatened a multigenerational culture that has endured for centuries.A polling station in Shipley, England, where local elections could decide Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s fate.Mary Turner for The New York Times5. Britain is holding local elections in a big test for Prime Minister Boris Johnson.His scandal-prone leadership is again on the line, with Conservatives trailing the Labour Party in polls and his own lawmakers mulling a no-confidence motion that could evict him from Downing Street. A poor election result could tip them over the edge.One thing that has saved Johnson so far is his reputation as an election winner and his strength in the so-called red wall regions of the north and middle of England, which have traditionally voted Labour. Many voters are skeptical that the opposition can solve issues such as soaring prices.Elon Musk’s recent purchase of Twitter has left users and investors unsure of how the site will change. Joshua Lott/Getty Images6. Elon Musk has brought in 18 new investors and $7 billion for his Twitter deal.Among them are Larry Ellison, who put in $1 billion; Fidelity; and the venture capital firm Sequoia Capital. Musk is paying $21 billion from his own very deep pocket, and an investment firm analyst called Musk’s move a smart deal. In 2019, Musk tweeted “I hate advertising,” — but ads account for about 90 percent of Twitter revenue. Some agencies already say Twitter ads aren’t targeted well. Now, numerous advertising executives say they’re willing to move their money elsewhere, especially if he removes the safeguards that allowed Twitter to remove racist rants and conspiracy theories. Musk has mentioned potentially charging some users.Two of our colleagues, John Eligon and Lynsey Chutel, interviewed friends and relatives — including Musk’s estranged father — in South Africa, where he grew up, to better understand the mysterious entrepreneur.Russia-Ukraine War: Key DevelopmentsCard 1 of 4In Mariupol. More