The NIMBYs must be celebrating.

From the BBC:

The government has been sent a “warning shot” by voters over planning reforms for England and the HS2 rail link, the co-chairman of the Tories has said. Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Amanda Milling said voters’ concerns were “loud and clear” after the Lib Dems won the Chesham and Amersham by-election…

Local opposition to the HS2 high-speed rail line being built through the constituency and the government’s proposed changes to the planning system, which could see more homes being built in rural areas, were major factors in the poll.

Seems that Home-Owner-Ism is reasserting itself at the dominant ideology in the UK. Who cares about jobs, pollution, equality, balance of trade and all that peripheral stuff?

This also goes to show, that if you want something to happen, the best tactic is to vote for a single-issue party and nudge the government in your direction. The Lib Dems perform well at by-elections because they will jump on any old local bandwagon or champion whatever single issue bothers local voters. They aren’t bogged down with anything like coherent, national issues or having to worry about what they’d do if they were actually in charge.
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As a contrast to this, it looks like the Tories are going to win the by-election in the former Labour constituency, Batley and Spen:

Johnson went to Batley to campaign with Ryan Stephenson, Tory candidate in the Batley and Spen by-election… Mr Johnson said: “That means looking at all the issues that matter, whether that’s people’s education, improving skills in this area, working with Kirklees to improve skills, putting more money into apprenticeships. Opportunity isn’t equally distributed and the objective of levelling up is to work with great people in West Yorkshire, in Batley, to give young people growing up in the area the chances they deserve.”

Of course, the Tories have not intention of doing anything of the sort, but the strategy seems to be working for now. And if they win, they won’t need to worry about voters trying to nudge the government in any particular direction, they can just cheerfully ignore them and continue plundering the taxpayer.