For all of the noise and the numbers following this week’s elections in England, two sentences tell you much of what you need to know.Nigel Farage arranged a fireworks display and a party.The prime minister and the Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch have both written post-mortem articles in Saturday’s newspapers.Politicians often accuse journalists of a splash of hyperbole, but it would be a struggle to top the Tory leader’s description of her party’s results as a “bloodbath.”It was though, she insists in the Daily Telegraph, a bloodbath she was expecting, having been warned of just this when she was running to be Conservative leader last year.Sir Keir Starmer’s language in the Times isn’t quite as graphic.He repeats that “I get it” and said he wouldn’t resort to the “same old excuses” used by prime ministers facing tough local elections.”I feel the same sharp edge of fury at the way our country has been let down as people who voted on Thursday do,” he writes, making reference to “uncontrolled immigration, sewage in rivers” and “failing local services”.Two immediate practical questions arise out of these results.The first is how Labour and the Conservatives respond to what has happened – not least the rapid rise of Reform UK, but also the Liberal Democrats and to a lesser extent the Green Party.The second is how Reform adjusts to the realities of power – bluntly, whether they prove to be any good at it or not.There is then a wider political question.The demolition of the duopoly in Westminster politics has been talked of before.Think the birth of the Social Democratic Party, or SDP, in 1981.There was the coalition government of the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats between 2010 and 2015.In the 2019 European Parliament elections, the Conservatives and Labour only managed to cobble together 23% of the vote between them.And yet before and after each of these moments, one of the Westminster big two went on to win the next general election, often handsomely.Indeed, months after those European el …
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[mwai_chat context=”Let’s have a discussion about this article:nnFor all of the noise and the numbers following this week’s elections in England, two sentences tell you much of what you need to know.Nigel Farage arranged a fireworks display and a party.The prime minister and the Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch have both written post-mortem articles in Saturday’s newspapers.Politicians often accuse journalists of a splash of hyperbole, but it would be a struggle to top the Tory leader’s description of her party’s results as a “bloodbath.”It was though, she insists in the Daily Telegraph, a bloodbath she was expecting, having been warned of just this when she was running to be Conservative leader last year.Sir Keir Starmer’s language in the Times isn’t quite as graphic.He repeats that “I get it” and said he wouldn’t resort to the “same old excuses” used by prime ministers facing tough local elections.”I feel the same sharp edge of fury at the way our country has been let down as people who voted on Thursday do,” he writes, making reference to “uncontrolled immigration, sewage in rivers” and “failing local services”.Two immediate practical questions arise out of these results.The first is how Labour and the Conservatives respond to what has happened – not least the rapid rise of Reform UK, but also the Liberal Democrats and to a lesser extent the Green Party.The second is how Reform adjusts to the realities of power – bluntly, whether they prove to be any good at it or not.There is then a wider political question.The demolition of the duopoly in Westminster politics has been talked of before.Think the birth of the Social Democratic Party, or SDP, in 1981.There was the coalition government of the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats between 2010 and 2015.In the 2019 European Parliament elections, the Conservatives and Labour only managed to cobble together 23% of the vote between them.And yet before and after each of these moments, one of the Westminster big two went on to win the next general election, often handsomely.Indeed, months after those European el …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]
