Tories piled up by-election gains in June, but there were signs they had passed their May peak – including Labour’s recovery of its majority at Plymouth. Their lacklustre overall performance may have be affected by the concentration of their activists on the Bromley and Chislehurst Commons’ by-election, where GLA Tory group leader, Bob Neill, scraped home by just 633, compared with his party’s previous lead of more than 13,000.
