Pick a date

In 1992, on my way home from work one day, I bought a bottle of champagne. Okay, it was probably prosecco. The point is, I was planning to celebrate that night with my friend Rowan, a Brit with whom I shared a flat in Vancouver. We were going to come home, switch on the television and watch the coverage of the British election, which PBS was helpfully showing in those limited cable days, and open the bubbly to celebrate the end of 13 years of Tory rule. Had to be, right? Wrong. No sooner was the television on than Trevor MacDonald was there saying John Major and the Tories had won a slim majority. What? How was that possible? We couldn’t believe it. Of course, neither of us had been in the UK to witness the hatchet job Rupert Murdoch’s media empire had done on Neil Kinnock.

Nothing to celebrate, it turned out. (Although we opened the bubbly anyway.)

John Major had up to five years before he would have to call another election. In those intervening years, Kinnock was gone, John Smith (a man who would have certainly won the next election for his party) was elected Labour leader, Smith died of a heart attack and was replaced by Tony Blair, who created “New Labour”. When Major finally had no choice but to call an election, what date did he pick? May Day. I kid you not. Either John Major, knowing his party was going down in flames, had an amazing sense of irony or no sense whatsoever.

And on May 1, 1997 Labour did indeed win by a landslide. I never liked Blair much, particularly after he got into bed with Dubya and helped him make the totally misleading case for invading Iraq, but there is no denying the alternative would have been awful and “New” Labour did some good things.

Thatcher (damn her to hell) was in office for eleven awful years and it was known that Blair was determined to match her record. He nearly did. He lasted ten years before he was so unpopular that he finally made good on the deal he’d made with Gordon Brown during the leadership contest in 1994: If Brown stepped aside in favour of Blair, he would be appointed Chancellor and anointed as Prime Minister when Blair eventually stepped down. Had Brown, who was initially quite popular, had called a snap election in 2007 to give himself a mandate, he would have won. But he chickened out and by the time he finally called an election in 2010, the world economy had been crashed by greedy bankers. The Tories, under David Cameron, won 306 seats – 20 short of a majority. Labour won 258 and the Lib Dems won 57, which combined was more than the Tories, but still 11 short of a majority. A coalition between Labour and the Lib Dems and other, smaller parties could have been clobbered together. Perhaps that would have been little more than postponing the inevitable, but we’ll never know, because thirsty-for-power Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg threw his lot in with David Cameron. And so 14 years of the deprivation that came with what would become increasingly bonkers Conservative rule began.

Oh, and let us not forget the disaster that was and is Brexit.

All leading to yesterday.

When Rishi Sunak, the third (and second unelected) Conservative Prime Minister since 2019, called an election what date did he pick? July 4 – otherwise widely known, including by most Brits, as Independence Day. Honestly, you could not make it up. And I don’t need to do so.

I was up late last night (although not as late as my friends in the UK who were up pretty much all night) watching it unfold. First results in were all for Labour, which was good. Not so good was the fact that Reform, led by Fartface Farage, was coming in second everywhere.

It was rumoured the day before the election that Rishi Sunak would lose his own seat. He didn’t, but Liz Truss did lose hers. (Ha, ha, ha.) Tory cabinet ministers were dropping like flies and there was a special satisfaction in seeing that smug Tory tosser Jacob Rees-Mogg sent packing.

Yes, it was another Labour landslide. Sir Keith Starmer has been to the Palace and is now the Prime Minister.

Labour gained 214 seats and now have 412 – a very clear majority.

The majority might have been bigger, but in three ridings Labour candidates (including Jonathan Ashworth, who was expected to be a member of Starmer’s cabinet) lost to pro-Palestinian independent candidates. Depending on how you spin it (yes, Al Jazeera), there were four “pro-Gaza independent” wins last night with no-longer-Labour Jeremy Corbyn retaining his seat in Islington, but that’s not how I read his win.*

The Tories lost 256 seats. (Ha, ha, ha.)

It was also a good night for the Lib Dems, who won 71 seats, which I believe is the most they’ve ever had.

Yes, I opened a bottle of prosecco.

The celebration was somewhat tainted by the number of votes cast for the odious Reform party, which came first, not second, in four ridings, including Clacton where Fartface was elected, after seven failed attempts to become an MP. Which means this horrible man, with his horrible smirk and horrible voice, will be able to jump up and down like an evil jack in the box in the House of Commons for as long as this Parliament lasts. A prospect I suspect no one finds more appalling than Prime Minister Starmer.

The rise of Reform is a sad reflection on the current British mindset. Yes, there is consolation to be taken from the fact that the majority of Brits who voted (a disappointingly small percentage) did vote centre/left. But, as this chart from The Independent ­post-election analysis shows, not as large a majority as I would hope to see.

As a number of commentators have said, this was more a loss for the Tories than a win for Labour. Well, yes, but win they did. I wish Starmer (and the rest of them) the very best of luck. Like Blair in 1997, he will need it to tackle the mess he is inheriting.

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* Back in the 1980s, London ceased to have a mayor because Maggie Thatcher hated Ken Livingstone, so she simply got rid of his job. After Blair won in 1997, he brought the job back, but the last person he wanted filling it was “Old” Labour Livingstone, who was told in no uncertain terms that he would never be the Labour candidate. “Sod you,” Ken told Tony. “I’ll run as an independent.” And Ken won. There is an innate British sense of fair play which Blair ignored. Maggie got rid of Ken’s job. Tony is bringing Ken’s job back. Whose job is it? Ken’s job, obviously. And, of course, he was allowed to run as the Labour candidate in future elections. And that’s what happened in Islington yesterday. Say what you will (and many people have had many things to say) about Jeremy Corbyn, he’s been a bloody good constituency MP for decades. His voters love him.