Serious question: what do you mean by "strong"? It's pretty hard to be truly effective when you're against a majority of 80 but it looks to me that both Starmer and Rayner have got Johnson rattled recently and there have been strong performances from other shadow cabinet members. What else...
A pedant writes ... The note that Maudling left said "Good luck cock ...". The use of cock as a greeting seems to have fallen out of fashion. I can't think why
Not massively far-fetched, there's been a swing against the Tories in the last two elections. It's exactly the sort of seat where an alliance between LD, Lab and Greens would make sense. They, collectively, outvoted the Tories last time around - a bit of co-operation coupled with Tories...