Polls closed - well done to the candidates, frontline staff and grassroots activists in the Conservative campaign

Polls have now closed in the three by-elections.

Whatever anyone might think about the circumstances which led to this campaign, or to a political landscape which has been challenging, the effort which has been put in to these by-elections by the foot-soldiers, the ordinary members of the Conservative party has been magnificent.

Labour has thrown it's efforts at Uxbridge and Selby, while the Lib/Dems have thrown all their efforts at Somerton and Frome, but the thin blue line of Conservative grassroots activists have put a huge effort into all three elections.

Our three candidates, the staff drafted in to run the campaigns on the ground, and the ordinary members of the party who I have seen out on the doorstep again and again, are entitled to use the line which Joseph Addison wrote in a play,