Anyone that's been married for quite a long time will tell you it's rather dangerous asking your other half “do you still love me, dear?”
Best not to ask, because you may not like the answer. By-elections are the political equivalent for any governing party.
Any given voter asks for their opinion of the current Prime Minister, and his or her administration is rarely going to come back with a glowing report, aside from the usual honeymoon period on entering office when of course that happens and you are popular.
Governments in power are never particularly liked and therefore by election defeats are often overanalysed and over interpreted.
Mark Dolan has spoken out on recent by-elections
GB NEWS
Now to be fair, the optics of the Conservatives losing two seats which were safer than a Volvo estate are clearly not good for the Prime Minister.
And after a week in which Labour has had to disown an anti-Semitic prospective parliamentary candidates and perform a humiliating U-turn over their £28 billion a year green revolution, it will be deeply troubling to Tory insiders.
Sunak wasn't able to capitalise on an especially bad week for the opposition, of course, that Sunak has had his problems too, with inflation stubbornly staying at four per cent which means more misery for Brits with the cost of goods still too high and a further erosion in the value of their pay packets.
And whilst it's been revealed that we're only in a technical recession which could be rounded back up to no recession, when detailed figures emerge, the R-word is politically damaging, and rightly so for a Prime Minister who pledged to get the economy growing.
But the latest strong retail sales figures would suggest the malaise was short lived and the economy is likely bouncing back.
So whilst there is widespread frustration with the Tories, who look tired and rudderless after 14 years in power, I detect no great enthusiasm for Sir Keir Starmer and his Labour Party.
Sir Keir Starmer has heralded by-election succes
PAI think at the next election if there was an option at the ballot box for neither of the main parties, they're both rubbish. That would win by a landslide.
Now, of course, Richard Tice, backed by GB News star Nigel Farage, will hope that that box of None of the Above is filled by Reform UK.
And however much my friend Richard Tice protests, support for his new party, as we've just seen, will seal the deal on Labour's victory in the months ahead.
Now I'm not sure how Reform UK's strategy of delivering a Labour government and potentially a decade of Starmer in power, as Nigel Farage freely admitted to me on this program, may well happen.
I don't know how that makes Britain great again. With a new electoral system based upon proportional representation, Richard Tice could likely become a kingmaker and get his hands on power, albeit shared with others.
But for now, the political reality is that it's a straight choice between two men, Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer, neither of whom have got the country's pulse racing.
Now there is a strong argument that Britain needs a change and the other lot perhaps deserve the crack at power. But if they win, I doubt celebrations will extend far beyond Labour Party HQ.
Voters clearly don't love the Tories anymore, but it's doubtful that running into the arms of Labour will make them any happier.
