Somerton win means there are 10 Lib Dem women MPs in Commons

Sarah Dyke has become the latest Lib Dem MP, winning the former Conservative stronghold of Somerton and Frome.

She managed to overturn a 19,213 majority in the Somerset seat - a swing of 29% away from the Conservatives.

The win makes her the tenth female Lib Dem MP, meaning there are twice as many women as men in the Commons cohort.

It represents a big change compared to 2015 when defeats in the general election left the Lib Dems without a single female MP.

That election represented a low in the party's recent electoral fortunes, as voters punished the party for going into coalition with David Cameron's Conservatives.

Forty-nine Liberal Democrats lost their seats including high profile figures such as Sir Vince Cable and Sir Danny Alexander.

In 2019, the party failed to capitalise on its anti-Brexit stance, particularly in the leave-supporting west country, an area once considered something of a Liberal Democrat heartland.

However, since then the party has made steady progress in regaining seats - currently there are 15 Liberal Democrat MPs in Parliament.

Over the past two years the Liberal Democrats - led by Sir Ed Davey - have overturned huge majorities to win Conservative seats in North Shropshire, Tiverton and Honiton and Chesham and Amersham.

Following the party's most recent victory, polling expert Sir John Curtice says they have been making the spectacular seem routine.

However, he adds that the party now needs to find a way of turning by-election successes into a springboard for a wider revival.

By-elections allow the Liberal Democrats to pour their resources - money and people - into single seats. That will not be possible come the next general election when 650 seats will be up for grabs.

Liberal Democrats have also traditionally benefitted from by-elections, which some voters see as an opportunity "send a message" to the government of the day, by abandoning their usual party preferences in favour of the candidate most likely to beat the candidate of the ruling party.

Seats won in by-elections aren't always easy to defend come the next general elections - as Sarah Olney found to her cost when she lost in Richmond Park in 2017 (although she won it back two years later).

With a healthy 11,000 majority Ms Dyke will feel more confident of being able to hold on to Somerton and Frome come the next general election.

The new MP, born in 1971, comes from what her party calls a "Somerset farming family" with links to the local area going back 250 years.

She attended Warminster School in Wiltshire before going on to study agricultural and business studies at Harper Adams University in Shropshire.

She owns 60 sheep - something evident from photos on her Instagram page - along with four dogs and one cat.

In addition to being a Somerset councillor, she also runs a business called Vintage Ghetto which sells second-hand goods.

Speaking after her election, she promised to be an "active, hard-working champion". She also thanked Labour and Green supporters who "lent" her their votes.

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said: "This stunning victory shows the Liberal Democrats are firmly back in the West Country."

The by-election was triggered after David Warburton resigned as an MP.

Mr Warburton had been sitting as an independent MP after being suspended from the Conservatives in April 2022, when claims of drug use and sexual misconduct were made against him.

He admitted drug-taking but denies any sexual misconduct and an investigation into the sexual misconduct allegations were withdrawn.

Responding to his party's defeat, David Fothergill, leader of the Conservative group on Somerset Council, said: "Clearly there's a national picture and we recognise what's happening in the polls but equally there's the local stuff as well and we've had an MP here who stood down 15 months ago with some really serious accusations against him.

"Some of which he has admitted to since and I think people are pretty grumpy about that.

"The circumstances here are very different because we had that local element of an MP really that went rogue."