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Notes -
The national press aren't going to expend much ink on the losers, and as jkf says below seat count isn't that important. Compared to some of the pre-election polls, 120 seats looks like a downright great result. Coupled with the weakness of Starmer, there is plenty of reason to think the Cons could bounce straight back in.
You'll still find some introspection if you go to conservative media, blogs, and xitter spheres. It's going to be three competing parties: first, the "sensible centrists" who insist that the Tories were too right-wing, too toxic, and need to go back to being grown-ups with normal centrist policies and neolib economics. Second, the "reform was right" crowd, pointing out that the Tories basically bled all of their voters to their anti-immigration competition, and the party needs to go back to traditional small state, low immigration, tough on crime, etc. Third, the more technocratic wing, who might be termed Trussites if she wasn't so completely useless. They would favour a much greater focus on productivity, just without the rank stupidity of Liz Truss.
In the end the Tories are the natural party of government. Labour will find that the fundamental impossibility of British politics (that the public demand euro services at US tax rates), coupled with immigration that will stay high (the public’s memory that the Tories presided over a large increase will be short-lived) and various internal divisions on trans issues, woke in general, even things like affirmative action (which is a big campaign promise for Labour that the conservative-leaning tabloids will make great hay about) will quickly see support for them fall.
House prices will stay high, no party can afford for them to drop, which will hurt Starmer with the young. NHS waiting lists aren’t going to drop much; there is no money for Blair-tier investment now, and Truss’ folly showed the gilt market will punish any fiscal gambit harshly. More worryingly, in Scotland any opposition to Labour will return the SNP to power quite quickly once memories of Yousaf’s reign and the Sturgeon drama fade, which will be sooner than many people think. That’s another 30+ seats gone too. Boundary reform is still on the side of the Tories, a return to a comfortable Tory majority really doesn’t require a huge political shift in the UK, particularly if there’s a swing to the right to appease Farage fans (which has happened before and can again).
Starmer’s win feels kind of like Scholz’s, or perhaps Hollande’s or Macron’s in France, except without the charisma of the latter. It clearly and obviously presages a right-wing turn for what remains of the Tories followed by a hung parliament, possibly even outright Tory victory in 2029. It’s a big hurrah for the center-left, but it’ll be the last one for a while.
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