UK’s Johnson accepts personal responsibility for Conservative party by-election defeat

London, Dec 17 (Bureau) 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.