It’s a disaster, a cataclysm, a wipeout. Half the cabinet will lose their seats, and Labour will be in power for a decade. All those things will be true if the BBC exit poll is anything close to reflecting reality – but hang on a minute. At the risk of sounding like one of those football managers insisting that ‘there are positives to take out of this’ after a five-nil defeat, isn’t there reason for the Tories to feel a bit of relief here? Talk of the Lib Dems overtaking the Conservatives to become His Majesty’s Opposition seems to be wide of the mark. They appear to be nowhere close, ending up with fewer than half the seats won by the Conservatives.
It looks like there are two big winners from this election. Sir Keir Starmer, obviously. But also the two-party system. It has, once again, shown its utter dominance. Neither the Lib Dems nor Reform have been able to inflict more than a small dent in its armour. With a first-past-the-post system, it is extremely difficult for a third party to make inroads into the duopoly of Labour and the Conservatives. It is an entire century since any other party got to lead a government.
Lib Dem deputy leader Daisy Cooper has popped up on the BBC sounding perky about her projected 61 seats, but she really shouldn’t be. Her party looks as doomed as ever to be the Cinderella of UK politics. Cooper kept talking about Britain’s ‘broken voting system’, but does she seriously expect a Starmer government, with a majority of 170 or so, to change it? The Lib Dems had a brief opportunity in 2010 to alter the voting system when they persuaded David Cameron to offer a referendum on the Alternative Vote, but they lost. And what was that about Nigel Farage’s claim that ‘something is going on out there’? Yes, something was going on – but nothing even nearly sufficient to break the two-party system.
Unless Sir John Curtice turns out to have had a nightmare, there is one conclusion to be drawn from this evening: the Tories will be back. Not, perhaps, in 2029 or even 2034, but once the public inevitably grows tired and angry with Labour, it will be the Conservatives who will return to government, not the Lib Dems, Reform, or anyone else. Any ambitious 25-year-old who fancies a career in politics, go out and join the Conservative party tomorrow. Get in there now while the party is on its knees. You will have an excellent chance of becoming prime minister by the time you are 40.
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