I rarely write blog posts at soon after 5 in the morning, having already been awake for two hours. I woke at 3 and knew there was no chance of going back to sleep.
As things stand right now, Labour is the new government but there are still votes to be declared in many constituencies. That said the conclusions are clear.
Firstly, Labour has won without winning hearts or minds.
The only parties to do that were Reform, unfortunately, and the Greens, with the latter's success is not clear as yet. Carla Denyer is in, but everything else hangs in the balance.
The LibDems have been highly efficient.
The SNP has been decimated, with Tories swinging to Labour in Scotland which they have not in the rest of the UK.
Plaid Cymru has proved independence can win.
And as for Farage, I am hoping that the exit poll prediction is going to be proved very wrong.
Odd exceptions apart (the Green vote, the Tory collapse, my local Tory MP being ousted and PCs success) I am not feeling excited by this.
First-past-the-post has delivered a Labour win with less support than Corbyn had - and he, deservedly, won.
The flimsy nature of the support for Labour will soon be apparent. I cannot see the honeymoon lasting more than a few months.
Tory in-fighting as Braverman and Badenoch fight to turn the party into the Monster Raving Loonies will help Labour for a while. It will also mean that they have no hope of recovery.
So, with Labour and the Tories bound to decline, who will rise to fill the void as this country takes its leave of the two largest parties?
Reform is bound to grow. There is a vacuum on the far-right that the Tories will leave, but its size is limited and Labour is now firmly centre-right, and will limit Reform's expansion.
The issue is what happens on the left? Will Ed Davey play a right of centre hand, as I suspect? If so, who but the Greens is there, plus the nationalists in Wales and Scotland? At the moment, no one.
That is what is of interest now. In fact, it is what anyone on the left should be talking about for the next five years.
The LibDems could take this space, but by inclination I doubt they will.
So will the Greens (with three seats by the time I conclude this, and four likely) skyrocket? That is the question for me this morning. In England they now represent political hope when little else does.
This could be very interesting. And it is precisely why my scrutiny of Labour failings will be unrelenting.
We need change. In 2029 we must have it.
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I am glad to see the back of the odious and incompetent Tory Party. My constituency turned back to Labour. The Green Party who I voted for made progress but did not secure as many votes as Reform. The analysis will most likely show this to be the most unfair election ever.
By almost every metric life in Britain has become more difficult for the vast majority of the population over the last fourteen years. Labour policies will do little to reverse things so political volatility will be ongoing.
Its almost 8 & I have to be off to work, but my initial thought is that many MP’s will be in a situation that Natalie Bennett when she was co leader of the Green Party warned about and only have about a third of the votes in their constituency creating a crisis of legitimacy
I see that across the UK, Labour got 9,634,399 votes while with Corbyn in 2019 they achieved the dismal figure of 10,269,051. Oh hang on thats 644,000 fewer votes !!!!!
As a left-of-centre Liberal Democrat it seems obvious to me that the open goal for the party is left-of-centre. There’s an obvious difficulty, in that the party has only managed to win 70 seats (11% of seats from 12% of votes is astonishing under FPTP) by fighting on local issues and winning over former conservative voters. But on wider issues (health, environment, internationalism, electoral reform) the LD manifesto and campaign have been left of Labour.
On the key economic issues the Lib Dems have yet to escape the neoliberal narrative, though there is plenty of internal discussion. Have you thought of approaching your new Lib Dem MP with an offer of help? It would be great if you could support internal discussions within the LDs, for example the Social Liberal Forum. I’d be happy to help with contacts if you don’t already have them.
I will be contacting her – with an offer to share ideas.
I was already talking to some LD MPs.
there are a number of seats where Reform have taken the probable Tory majority. I expect someone will calculate the number later today.
I think Labour may have to move back towards the left. I realise they have run by a ‘landslide’. But there are some intriguing details within that headline.
Thangam Debonnaire, shadow secretary of state for culture etc lost her seat and large majority to the Greens
Wes Streeting, shadow secretary of state for health etc retained his seat by 500 odd votes against an Independent
Keir Starmer dropped 17% of his vote, challeneged by an Independent
There are several examples.
The party as a whole got millions of votes fewer than that loser jeremy Corbyn in 2019.
The number of seats won is unarguable, but proper analysis shows the Labout party needs to think carefully, I would suggest.
Agreed
It was the earlier election Cyndy but good point
2017 12,877, 918.
2019 Labour got 10,269,051
2024 9.686,329
The Combined Reform and Conservative vote was more than the Labour vote.
Lots of seats went Labour or Lib Dem due to Reform taking Tory votes.
Labour also lost a few seats due to their position on Gaza -Leicester South ( and Leicester East was the only Tory gain) and Blackburn-the longer it goes on, I suspect more will dissent from the Starmer position on Gaza and Israel generally.
Sacking Fazia Shaheen was an own goal letting back Ian Duncan-Smith.
Jeremy Corbyn won his seat by quite a margin.
I agree Labour needs to think carefully as you say.
I believe most people will be asking themselves how did Labour who as the BBC political commentator said has paste and copied Tory plans not only won but with a massive majority. Labour ran they campaign on the idea of ” Change ” but if Labour doesn’t deliver change soon most people will once again switch to the Reform/Tory party. Today Starmer will pick his cabinet but will he announce your idea to employ the 6000 unemployed doctors or abolish the cap on two child benefit. We await change but I and many others have noticed Starmer struggles to make decisions preferring to copy whatever government policy is.
Richard, I told someone you insisted there had to be change in 2029. Immediate response was “2029? We need It by teatime today!”
🙂
There is no one on the Left to fill that space . That ideology was smashed along with Mr Corbyn . 6.8 million people still voted for the Conservatives , even after everything that has happened while they have been in charge . Over 40% of the population never even bothered …….. Labour will tinker around the edges , its already been agreed with , by the Elite / Media and in 5 years time we can look forward to a proper Right Wing Conservative Party probably led by Nigel Farage or one of his Cohorts . The Country has been a Pale shadow of its former self for a long time now and pontificating about it will not bring about the Good Old Days .
There could be someone to fill that space