It wasn’t much of a shock. We knew the outcome.
Polls showed Labour winning by as much as 30 points, with this lead remaining unassailable. And so that made this election campaign a little different, a ‘let’s not mess this up’ anodyne quality from Labour, akin to Blair’s 1997 election run in, the papers concentrating on the incumbent Conservatives.
And the Tories were toast. That much was clear in vox pops of people telling us it was ‘time for a change’; when your time is up, it’s up. Boris Johnson’s boosterism leading to a Liz Truss terror for the economy and Sunak looking like a competition winner did little for the Tories.
As I’ve said many times, Sunak could have announced a policy which was the best we had ever heard, which was an election winner, supported by all, and at the same time his trousers would have fallen down and the press would have reported only that! We all wanted an election, Sunak announced it, but got wet through in the process, which the press duly reported.
The echoes of Major’s government in 1997 were clear. The voters, even their supporters, had grown sick of what they saw as an inept and egregious government. And as Tory MP’s jumped ship, it was clear that they saw this election as lost early on. In fact, they seemed braced for the impact as early as last year.
Polls v Policies
This was an election of polls; how far are Labour ahead, and later on how far behind the Tories are Reform?
I wanted to hear policies debated, but there was little chance of that. Tories felt they had to unveil big ideas, like the fast-unravelling national service model. Yet Labour could keep quiet and not face scrutiny on their manifesto – that’s how they wanted it, not that they didn’t stand by their policies, they defended and discussed them well when needed, but this election wasn’t about them.
It was about Tory failure.
And so, although on Channel 4 on election night, it was exciting when the countdown to the 10pm exit poll was announced as the studio went red and a Labour landslide was announced, this was the main moment of excitement in coverage which just told us what we already knew and left MPs and hangers on to talk around it.
Credit; The Guardian
Boring? Nope. There were the sad faces of losing Tory MPs to look forward to for some, the 16 seats Reform promised for others, and the calm Starmer acceptance for many. So, now did those parties do?
Reform
Let us be clear, it’s just started for Reform. But even I, not a fan, would have expected them to celebrate their extraordinary haul of 5 seats from nowhere.
But they haven’t. They’ve been keen to talk about Proportional Representation, rather than the First Past The Post system, being what’s needed in the future, which has prevented them (on my social media feed at least) from taking time to enjoy their clear success.
That success is due really to the ‘man in the pub’ bluster of Nigel Farage. I’m not a fan as I have concerns that he isn’t really interested in constituency politics, but it can’t be denied he has appeal – no banana jokes please – and Reform weren’t a force to be reckoned with before he replaced charisma-free Richard Tice as main man.
Credit; BBC
The issue for their election was their lack of ability to hold their excitement down. And so, whilst taking a leaf out of Starmer’s book with a downplaying ‘2 or 3 MPs would be a great achievement’, they alighted on the poll suggesting 16 and strongly suggested they would achieve it. Even the exit poll gave them 13 MPs, so their haul of 5 could have seemed like an underachievement, but not if they’d changed the narrative.
They simply didn’t, what they did was lean into it. This was a fantastic result from a new party and whether you like their politics (which I don’t) or put their succes down to fear and an outsider ethic, they did phenomenally well.
How long before Farage crosses the floor in a bid for Leader Of The Opposition, Place your bets now…
Greens
Despite bucking the trend (with Reform) of the small spending figures, the Greens got their best MP figures ever with four, quadrupling their number. This might be to do with Corbynistas who dislike the Labour party’s treatment of him (he won his Islington seat as an independent) or who consider them more left wing than a centrist Starmer Labour Party, but it might just as well be their reasoned, measured campaign which sought to explain the ethos behind their plans – imagine that!
With Owen Jones as a cheerleader for the party, a big name who fans have an absolute loyalty to and naysayers often feel an absolute enmity towards, the Greens will remain on the radar and a constant reminder of their policies and belief.
Perhaps their biggest result was in Bristol Central, where co-leader Carla Denyer unseated Shadow Cabinet minister Thangam Debbonaire.
The UK media also seems to have got over the oddity of having 2 leaders, happily concentrating on what they say and do rather than the look of two. However, they have almost as many MPs as Reform in a historic victory, so why are social media ballyhooing that right wing company (it isn’t configured as a party) and not the Greens? Those who shout for attention often receive it…
Lib Dems
I saw a social media post in which it was asked when Lib Dem leader Ed Davey was to be shot out of a cannon.
His campaign seemed to have been designed on ‘It’s A Knockout’ terms as he was pictured falling off a wakeboard, on a water slide, leading a llama by the nose and more, including an election broadcast in which he talked about the loss of his mother for votes and appeared to dry cry.
But it worked. And that may be because it added some fun to a General Election which had already been decided and reminded people that the Lib Dems are still there to vote for.
Credit; ITVX
They have 72 seats, more than in many decades (indeed, the most of any third party in over a century) but what does that mean? Burned by the compromise of enabling austerity for the Tories in 2010, this result probably just means something to build on and whilst there’s nothing wrong with that, they won’t see a demonstrable change and don’t seem to have a big character at the helm to make enough noise to really count.
Plaid Cymru and Sinn Fein
Plaid did well, some may say benefitting from the Labour wave which saw them decimate the Tory vote and underlined the Vaughan Gething leadership. It’s a struggle to be heard among the Labour kerfuffle and Plaid leader Rhun ap Iorwerth was delighted, telling the Guardian;
‘Despite the tough context of an unprecedented Labour wave, this is the party’s best ever result in a general election…’
Sinn Fein in Northern Ireland made it a hat trick as they added the largest number of seats for them to their presence in local government and at Stormont. This has to be put in the context of a DUP loss, 3 of its 8 seats lost and mired in controversy because of the legal issues for it’s former leader Sir Geoffrey Donaldson, Ian Paisley even lost his seat, rather a shock. Sinn Fein will surely now push the government for unity; more pressure for Starmer to hold Northern Ireland together.
Independents
There has been a lot of chat about the rise of the independents in this election and there’s some veracity to that.
Firstly, there was the Jeremy Corbyn saga. He wasn’t supported by Labour in his Islington North constituency and stood as an independent after years of public tussling with new leader Starmer, winning with a majority of around 8,000. Not surprising he won, he’s such a popular MP and has represented the constituency since 1983, but he’ll be a focus for some to compare recent and newer Labour parties. Surprising that the party didn’t invite him back and even make noises of a front bench position; his ideals which didn’t match the current Labour ethos might be flattened out by process and it would cauterise the Corbyn conundrum.
Elsewhere, Adnan Hussain galvanised voters on Blackburn after only deciding to stand 6 weeks ago and taking the seat from Labour with a majority of less than 200, whilst in Leicester South former opposition frontbencher Jonathan Ashworth was unseated by independent Shockat Adam. There is a general view that these two victories are very much because of the Gaza situation and that they will be one-term MPs; what they do in their communities for all their constituents is what will make or break their tenure.
George Galloway lost his recently-won seat in Rochdale by around 2,000 votes, not even showing up to the count. Whether he will contest at a by-election or build the Workers’ Party which he doesn’t exactly seem to be at the head of, is to be seen. He’s tenacious, certainly.
The Scottish National Party
Disastrous. That’s what many thought. And it’s hard not to agree. The SNP lost 39 seats, dropping from 48 to 9, Labour mainly picking up the victories but Lib Dems doing well too.
It’s awful and clearly a shock, but should it be? The SNP have been riding high in Scotland for some years and incumbent parties can cause resentment, plus Scottish voters have seen both the big players in their recent SNP history, Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon, having to respond to intimations of scandal and a quick end to Hamza Yusuf’s time in charge.
For the SNP, John Swinney is a safe pair of hands. He can’t be blamed for the Election disaster as he’s only just got his feet under the table and he allows voters to remember the good ol’ days of the SNP.
This is a blip, believe me.
The Big Two
I don’t intend to spend too long here, as they aren’t the most interesting parts of the General Election for me.
Labour have a supermajority, to borrow an oft-used Conservative phrase. It doesn’t dwarf Blair’s 1997 figure, but its over 170, which is huge. They spent the Election campaign being tentative and sure footed, avoiding what politicians call ‘the f*ck up factor’ (after all, Labour are very good at losing elections), making small spending plans and not making much of cultural political ideas around gender and Gaza.
Not yet, anyway.
Many would expect Labour to be bold with such a large majority, but many of us also remember Tony Blair’s majority in ’97 and the almost immediate comments that they would stay within the Tory spending plans. For a lot of us, New Labour was over as a serious force right there.
So a huge majority, so many MPs they apparently won’t fit on the benches at the House of Commons. Starmer always looked worried and he has a lot to be worried about; a massive majority to get legislation through, but if there’s no money, not a lot you can do…
Credit; Financial Times
I woke to a social media message of the list of prominent Tories who lost their seat on the night. It was a huge roll call. Under it, he’d written another message because he’d missed some out.
The Tories had the evening they expected, a political kicking like no other; when It’s your time, it’s your time. On election night on Channel 4, referring to the exit poll of 130 seats, Kwasi Kwarteng was telling us that this could form a good opposition figure to start with. When I went to bed (tried to stay up, just couldn’t), they were on 98, which would have been appalling.
121 eventually. Not as bad as might have been expected, the doom mongers were really strong, they smelt blood. And the UK voters turned their backs on the incumbent party, not just with a shrug but with overwhelming force. They might have even slammed the door for generations. Sunak, as the Mirror reported;
‘Accepting responsibility for the result, Mr Sunak said he heard voters’ “anger” at his government.”To the country I would like to say first and foremost I am sorry.’
Credit; The Mirror
So where does The Conservative party go now? This was an amazing drubbing and they need some time, lots of time, to think what they want to be. That doesn’t mean an immediate lurch to the right with Suella Braverman or Kemi Badenoch, let alone a link up with Reform, which now no longer MP Jacob Rees Mogg suggested. It may be tempting, but more discussion is needed.
What should that be? No idea. A more communitarian party? A more Thatcherite party? A more One Nation Tory party? They could tie themselves in knots with the arguments and someone will have to guide them through the turmoil, someone to steady the ship.
That Keir Starmer’s supposed to be good at that, give him a call…
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