U.K. leader Rishi Sunak's Conservatives suffer more election losses

Britain's ruling Conservatives on Friday held the former seat of ex-Prime Minister Boris Johnson, but saw hefty majorities in two other seats blown away as scandals and high inflation took their toll.

Rishi Sunak was expected to become the first prime minister to lose three parliamentary seats in one day, but was spared that humiliation due to a narrow victory in the west London seat of Uxbridge and South Ruislip.

While that result may have offered the embattled Sunak some relief, the wiping out of his party's 19,000 majority in the Somerton and Frome seat and its 20,000 majority in the Selby and Ainsty constituency will come as hammer blows ahead of an expected general election next year.