Poll positions

The Office for Students publishes figures on grade inflation and Capita extends its reach

The government is waking up this morning—the first of the summer recess—to a majority reduced by two after mixed results for Labour in by-elections yesterday.

While the Liberal Democrat candidate Sarah Dyke took Somerton and Frome, overturning a majority of more than 19,000, Labour’s Danny Beales failed to take former prime minister Boris Johnson’s old seat of Uxbridge and South Ruislip from the Conservatives by just 495 votes—a result that victor Steve Tuckwell put down to plans by London’s Labour mayor Sadiq Khan to expand the Ultra Low Emission Zone into the area.