Change, change, change, intoned winning Labour candidates, robotically on message as they claimed their party was the agent of revolution. But was the true catalyst the light-blue lot?
Nigel Farage said at his Birmingham rally last Sunday: ‘We have been the big story of this election.’ That was certainly true as the first results trickled through and television pundits tried to wrap their heads round Reform’s big surge.
‘This whole Brexit factor has not gone away,’ said a panellist on ITV‘s election-night show in astonishment. He spoke the words with an antiseptic tone.
These London commentators analysed Reform like chimpanzees confronted by a Rubik’s Cube: Bafflement, uncertainty, a fair amount of twisting. The pro-Farage numbers became such a topic of astonishment that Labour’s landslide went almost under-reported.
At 10pm sharp the exit poll chopped down with the finality of a guillotine blade. I was at a party thrown by the New Statesman magazine. Confidence was so high that they had to send out for more drink.
Nigel Farage toasts the Reform UK results last night
The pro-Farage numbers became such a topic of astonishment that Labour’s landslide went almost under-reported, writes Quentin Letts
Despite the exit poll’s thumping majority forecast for Labour, the figures were met initially without much excitement by the New Statesman revellers. Some of them had clearly been expecting an even bigger majority.
‘Taxi for Rishi Sunak!’ shouted a protester off Parliament Square. Near the outdoor TV studios another heckler cried: ‘Tory bastards are finished for ever!’
On hearing the exit poll, Manchester’s mayor Andy Burnham threw his arms in the air like a football fan. Little Wes Streeting, likely to be health secretary, started blubbing.
The ones least surprised by Reform’s advances were senior Right-wing Tories. Dame Andrea Leadsom, former leader of the Commons, said her party’s leaders had not come across as ‘normal’ enough. ‘Maybe we have not been Conservative enough.’
On hearing the exit poll, Manchester’s mayor Andy Burnham threw his arms in the air like a football fan
Best outfit of the early hours? Announcing the report from Blyth, Lucia Bridgeman, high sheriff of Northumberland, wore a wide ruff collar and a broad hat topped by a vast white feather.
And the biggest smile of the early hours? That award went to Lord O’Donnell, sometime Cabinet Secretary, Remainiac and shop steward of the mandarinate. No prizes for guessing which party the Sir Humphreys were rooting for in this election. Sir Keir Starmer was suddenly the object of inordinate sucking-up.
Little Wes went into a convoluted metaphor about Sir Keir being a master ship-builder. David Lammy surely had onlookers reaching for airline sickbags by saying the nation regarded him as ‘Keir Charmer’.
On Channel 4 even that knuckledragger Alastair Campbell started trickling treacle over Sir Keir. The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, who has not always had the easiest relations with Starmer’s circle, spoke of Sir Keir as something akin to the new Obama.
Not to be outdone, the Lib Dems’ Daisy Cooper spoke of ‘the phenomenal leadership of Sir Ed Davey’.
First result of the evening came from Houghton and Sunderland South, where Labour’s Bridget Phillipson won a majority of 7,000. That was well down on her 12,000 majorities in 2015 and 2017 but did not stop Ms Phillipson making a slightly sour winning speech.
A more generous tone was found by Swindon South’s new MP, the Labour re-tread Heidi Alexander, who praised her defeated Tory opponent Sir Robert Buckland.
Sir Robert himself, mind you, made a bitter little attack on his Right-wing party colleagues – even though he, as one of the Tories’ prominent wets, was arguably far more responsible for the wreckage.
The ether crackled and we were back in a more gracious age with a live feed from the Somerset home of Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg. Schloss Mogg.
A large oil painting behind him, Sir Jacob argued that elections were ‘increasingly presidential and ‘people expect the person they have chosen to remain as prime minister’ rather than being levered out by ‘a small cabal’. He added: ‘Big charismatic figures in politics make a difference.’
Is Sir Keir Starmer a ‘big charismatic figure’? Gulp. Yet Sir Jacob, gentlemanly to the last, said he ‘wished Sir Keir well because we want good governance’.