A general election campaign that started in the rain ended in the rain — but in between, there has been a seismic shift in the political make-up of Britain. Many will have awoken this morning to find that a weight has been lifted. This may not feel like 1997 to everyone, but to a lot of voters, it will taste just as sweet.
In the capital, the Tories have suffered a near total wipe-out. Indeed, there are no remaining Conservative MPs in inner London. In outer London, the party continued to lose seats but can point to some unexpected successes, with Sir Iain Duncan Smith holding on in Chingford and Woodford Green, largely thanks to a split in the opposition vote.
All the evidence — from those MRP polls to the sense on the doorstep — was that voters wanted the Tories out. To that end, many simply pulled the lever best placed to achieve that task, whether it be Labour or Liberal Democrat. Consequently, the vote share secured by Sir Keir Starmer’s party has been muted. But a mandate has very much been secured. The question is: can he deliver?
The size of the majority ought to facilitate ambition. This next government will have to make some enemies in order to change the planning system and build the homes people desperately need. It will have to spend political capital to cut deals with the European Union to ease the burden on British companies and reduce the trade friction Brexit threw up. And it will have to find the money from somewhere to fund our creaking public services.
Conservative catastrophe
None of this will be easy. In handing Sir Keir a landslide less than five years after doing the same for Boris Johnson, the electorate has demonstrated beyond doubt that we have entered a new phase of volatility in British politics. If Labour cannot deliver — and be seen to deliver— on its key pledges, it cannot be surprised if it too suffers an electoral bloody nose next time around.
Clearly, this has been a catastrophic result for the Conservatives. The party must not panic. Instead, the remaining MPs must take their time and assemble a realistic account of why it has been so thoroughly repudiated. The rise of Reform UK has been a self-evident problem. But the idea that the Tories need only to unite the Right and waltz back into power requires further examination. Not least when Sir Keir has just secured such a vast majority by planting his flag firmly on the centre ground of British politics.
Sir Keir is now the only living Labour leader not called Sir Tony Blair to win an election. The task he faces is perhaps greater than the one Sir Tony did.
It is to take a nation battered, bruised and frankly exhausted by economic shocks and to make it believe once again that competent government can produce meaningful improvements to people’s lives.
