Election maunderings and “what it means?” brain vomit (why are you READING this, there’s so few tolerable years left!)

The plan was to go to bed as soon as the Exit Poll (all hail the Mighty Exit Poll!) came through. But an hour after the 410 vs 120 figure came out, I was still up, pottering around on various academic article databases for Another Project. Ho-hum.

Set the alarm for 3am, by which time some of the results were supposed to be coming in. Finally got up at 3.45 and academic-article-databased while listening and checking Twitter. How very 21st century of me. How long till this seems like a distant bizarre memory? Forebodings of comfortlessness and joylessness. Anyhoos, you know the results. Corbyn had already got his seat by then. Tory cabinet ministers had started to drop. And on and on it went. The Greens got Bristol, whoop! After a while The Wife came down and we stayed up for a couple of hours, result-scrolling etc. Again, how long…? Starmer keeps Holborn, but a massively reduced vote count. I thought incoming Prime Ministers were supposed to get a boost?

Thoughts (if you can call them that) on each party and then closing maunderings.

Labour – won because the Tory vote collapsed/split. The 2019 bargain, which helped the Tories to a much larger majority than they would have otherwise have had, wasn’t in play. No enthusiasm for Labour, and no really high expectations for them, which will initially work in their favour. But I agree with Nigel Farage – they’ll start to come a-cropper relatively quickly. The Gaza issue won’t go away (pity about Wes Streeting, so close!). They’ll accelerate the process of privatising the NHS. They’ll not invest in the green stuff at the level required because they’re under the Treasury cosh. Starmer’s boringness-as-asset shtick (it’s not a shtick) will not last that long.

Conservatives– did better (triple figures) than some of the polling. Enough to rebuild, but would have to fend off Reform, and does the appetite for that exist? Won’t tack back to the “middle” – they’ll go through various iterations of Hague and Ian Duncan Smith before finding their David Cameron. And by then the ecological crisis will really really be biting. The two seats the Greens took off them are fascinating. It *could* be that the Greens pick up more of the Tory marginals. Will depend on lots of local factors. Labour will have to say yes to some unpopular infrastructure stuff (High voltage powerlines etc) and the Greens may be able to harness that sentiment (though it will be tricky for them, in the context of net zero requirements).

Reform – were projected to do better. How much did Nigel saying the quiet part out loud about Putin and Ukraine cost him? Will he now, as an actual MP, be able to cope with scrutiny [something that never really existed when he was an MEP]. Will his brittleness explode him? Longer term, can they do a reverse takeover of the Conservatives without stripping away that mythical “Tory moderate”? How long before Tice comes a-cropper?

Lib Dems – the selling out the country in exchange for some limos and ministerial boxes (2010-2015) has now been forgiven, or at least forgotten, which amounts to the same thing. Are there that many more vulnerable Tory seats to capture? (Well, Jeremy Hunt, obvs)?

Greens – fantastic result – they won all four of their target seats, and kept a helluva lot of deposits (part of the later will be to do with the anti-genocide vote). Voters getting into the habit of ticking Green, and they may stick around. Obviously though success comes with new challenges. There will be jealous Trot entryists, various slimy careerist eco-modernists too. They will presumably keep the four they have, but where next? Winning Tory seats will get harder perhaps – it depends if Tories can regroup? Will the BBC give the Greens the same airtime the Reform lot get (no, no. Of course they won’t).

SNP – I was confidently predicting Scottish independence as a consequence of the Brexit referendum. For a while I could pretend I was mostly right. Now, not so much. Events, dear boy….

So many imponderables of course. Voting reform looks unlikely (it will be nauseating to see all the Reformers banging on about PR). Events dear boy events – Trump’s likely victory in November. Ukraine having to settle. Middle East war. Ecological surprises (not that they’ll be surprising)

Electorally – big majorities/”safe seats” a dying thing. Expect a lot more volatility, especially as the ecological and economic crises worsen, and as despair – and its cousins, anger and hate – surge. Labour will start losing bye-elections pretty quickly, I think. But with a 200 seat majority, it’s not gonna slow them down as they continue to allow the asset-stripping and future-looting. Will they sustain their majority, the way Blair did in 2001? So many imponderables. So much in theory still to play for for those who want a better world….

Blah blah task for progressive forces blah blah – more demos, placards etc. The forty percent who didn’t vote will remain beyond reach. The rituals will repeat. The carbon dioxide will continue to accumulate.