We can now enjoy at least 5 years of stability, growth and low taxes under the leadership of Sir Kier Starmer. Unless either, he changes his mind about any of those 3 things, and he has very consistent history of doing just that, or that the Unions, who fund his party, get pissed off with all this centrist almost-conservativism and change him for someone more ‘aligned to their ideology’. Not Corbyn, but someone like him.

Either way, we have the Prime Minister ‘that we all voted for’. Other than those who voted for someone else. And that’s where there’s a bit of an issue with our electoral system. Because although this was a Labour ‘landslide’, less than half of the electorate (who bothered to show up) voted for them. They achieved almost 2/3rds of the seats in Parliament with less than 40% of the vote. How is this possible?

Well, you see, it’s our system. First past the post. Small(ish) constituencies which can be affected by groups or just large numbers of individuals intent on preventing someone else winning. Tactical voters. Thus Labour won over 400 seats with 9.7 million votes, whereas Reform’s 4 million votes brought them just 5 seats. Yet managed to fuck up the Conservatives royally whilst doing so. Because this election was never about Labour winning. It was just about the Conservatives losing at any cost, by whatever means, for all their ‘sins’ over the last, well certainly 5 years, but possibly up to 14.

So if you’re in the constituency of Lower Eshersdown & Heartmundshire and Labour are never going to win there, you vote for the Lib Dems or, if you really must, for the Reform Farages, just to stop a Tory victory. Which is why those two parties both had outstanding success at the polls. It also meant that those parties had so many votes, as they came second in virtually all the contituencies in the country.

Thus you can expect the usual Lib Dem rant about Proportional Representation, the only electoral model which would allow them to transcend their stance as ‘the go-to party for tactical votes’. And you’ll get similar from Farage who sees a way in and will cling on like a parasite in your intestine.

The good news is that George Galloway failed miserably, even after investing half his personal savings in Palestinian flags. The not such good news is the 5 ‘independents’ who won seats did so on a specifically, strictly and exclusively Gaza message. So if you’re thinking of complaining about school availability in any of those constituencies, or immigration, or poverty, in the next five years, don’t bother. It also means we have, for the next 5 years, five people in parliament who are way more sympathetic to jihadi ideology than they are to concerns about the King’s health.

Meanwhile England are playing in about an hour in what is being termed (in my house) ‘The Pragmatic Games’. Gone is flair and style and panache. Instead, we’re watching teams of great players playing for penalty kick offs from the first minute. Only Spain have decided to buck this trend. Which is why the Euros are currently ‘boring as fuck’. If England fail to win I’m never voting for Gareth Southgate again.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx