by Visually, British general elections are a wonderful thing. On election day you see all the pictures of caravans and laundromats used as polling stations, usually accompanied by dogs. Nerve-shredding anticipation builds and builds through the evening until – bam! – the exit poll lands just as Big Ben strikes ten. Then there are the (nonsensical to me) scenes of ballot boxes relayed in military fashion as two constituencies in the North-East vie to be first in the country to declare. At about 3am, a trickle of results turns into a deluge. The TV broadcasts home in on certain high-profile counts; all the candidates line up either side of the returning officer (the person who reads out the results, who is normally dressed in some kind of regalia). There’s always at least one candidate with a silly name wearing a silly hat, representing a silly party. Only hours later, assuming one party has a majority, you get all the pomp of the prime minister (in the case of today, a brand new one in Keir Starmer) meeting the King at Buckingham Palace and giving an acceptance speech outside Number Ten. Though it all happens at a frenetic pace, it is for the most part very dignified and makes you proud to be British.
When I woke up on 2nd May 1997 I could practically taste the optimism as Tony Blair’s Labour won a massive landslide. This time around Labour have won a landslide of similar proportions, but that sense of positivity just isn’t there. The overwhelming feeling is one of relief – we’ve got rid of the bastards. What happens next is far from certain. For one thing, Labour’s big win came on just 34% of the vote and a historically pitiful turnout of 60%. Labour got 9.7 million votes this time; in 1997 they managed 13.5 million. The Tories took a historic hammering (yippee!), losing an incredible two-thirds of their seats, though they avoided being pummelled to the brink of extinction.
With an electoral system that’s totally wack, there’s always the chance of some very weird outcomes. The Liberal Democrats, with a brilliantly targeted get-out-the-vote operation and a leader who did crazy stunts throughout the campaign, won an unprecedented 71 seats (edit: 72) on 3.5 million votes; Nigel Farage’s Reform secured five seats with 4.1 million votes. (They won a fifth seat after multiple recounts.) Personally I’m very happy that the Lib Dems did so well. My brother, who always used to be Tory, said he voted Lib Dem this time. Good man, I said. They won the seat from the Tories. I’m also glad the Greens won all four of their target seats.
I certainly didn’t stay up all night to watch it all unfold – I had lessons with kids this morning and needed to be at least somewhat alert – but I managed to see the best bit. Liz Truss. Prime minister for seven weeks, famously outlasted by a lettuce. Her seat in Norfolk didn’t declare until 6:45 this morning UK time. She was defending an enormous majority, but the vote was split in all directions including an independent, and she lost out to the Labour candidate by just 630 votes. She took ages to appear on stage, prompting a slow handclap, then after the count she didn’t give the customary speech to congratulate the winner. Good riddance. Jacob Rees-Mogg’s defeat was pretty big, but no, Liz Truss’s loss was this election’s Portillo moment.
