A week after a by-election hammering, it may seem odd to talk about Tory electoral dominance but there it is. Chesham and Amersham was not a game changer whatever many pundits may say. And neither will the Batley and Spen by-election be unless Labour lose it which will only confirm Tory hegemony anyway.

The Tories dominate the North and dominate the South. They can upset/please one constituency of voters or the other, or perhaps none or both but what a choice! Labour are nowhere and whilst congratulations are due to the LibDems for last week’s shock win, they currently remain a home mainly for protest votes. Ever thus…

The next General Election is for the Tories to lose and with an abundance of electoral riches, they must resolve some dilemmas. But there have been harder choices in British politics…

In the North, the Government must spend, spend, spend, and build, build, build. In the South, it should save, save, save, and protect, protect, protect. What to do?

Major infrastructure projects are set to continue and there will be further moves to centre government on the North. For the South, planning reforms will be watered down to protect the Green Belt. It is not logical to encourage building in areas most people want to live in anyway when trying to ‘level up’ with the North at the same time.

And on the economy, whilst it is clearly time to save, it can be at the expense of the better off, usually older voters. Interestingly, after a trip to the North, even there you could detect nervousness in conversations about how spending can’t continue at the current rate, and who will pay for the Covid bills. Raising taxes and cuts to pension contribution tax reliefs will hardly cause howls of protest anywhere. This is where the Tories have plenty of room for manoeuvre. Particularly as Labour and the LibDems are hardly going to outflank them on tax to win over Tory core voters in the South.

There are some slightly ominous straws in the wind; the damage from the Brexit deal and deteriorating relations with the EU are mounting. Boris Johnson is also not as electorally invulnerable as people thought amid growing concerns about what today’s Tories really stand for.

But that is for another day. The Tories have fewer difficult dilemmas than one imagines and, presently, however frustrating for some, they appear to be able to have their electoral cake and eat it.