Labour landslide

Sunak bore the brunt for eight years of division, scandal and a slow descent into a talent black hole.

Surprising just about no-one, Starmer and his family have settled into Number 10 Downing Street.

It was a victory the likes of which, in 2019, seemed unthinkable. After all, as recently as 2021, Boris Johnson was setting his sights on a decade in power. 

So what went so wrong for the Tories? The first six years didn’t feel so bad, but the latter eight were defined by division, scandal and the slow descent into a talent black hole. 

Divided parties never win elections. In 1906, the Conservative party tore itself into two over the issue of free trade. When the party was subjected to a general election, they lost an extraordinary 246 seats. Divided parties scream chaos. It’s one of the reasons why Corbyn’s Labour were battered in 2019, and it’s why the Tories have lost this year. They’ve spent the last eight years dividing themselves into ever-smaller factions, first on leave v remain, then on May v Leadsom, soft v hard Brexit, deal v no deal, Johnson v Hunt, Lockdown v Loosen up, Sunak v Truss. Conservative backbenchers were plotting Sunak’s replacement before he’d even unpacked his moving boxes. Division leads to turbulence, which the voters hate (and the markets and CEOs hate even more). In the run up to this election, the Tories had to choose to back Rishi or sack him, and they chose neither.

We love to talk about scandals, but we don’t really want our politicians engaging in them. It’s like that Gogglebox meme, “We all like a bad boy don’t we,” “But not a f*ing terrorist!”. We all like to titter at a raunchy rumour, but we don’t want a Prime Minister who can’t help but hire sex pests. That’s why, as much as we occasionally dabble with a babbling amateur, a Boris or Truss or Trump, we always come back to the smooth-talking, smartly-dressed, media performers - the Blairs, Camerons, Obamas, Thatchers of the world. They’re the least scandal-prone, we feel like they know what they’re doing, and they let us focus on our lives - not the news. The Tories have given us an endless supply of noun-gates. We want a politics that doesn't give us a visceral reaction, we don't have the emotional capacity to deal with the expenses scandal every single week.

Above all, the Tories are out of talent. The party has cycled through some genuinely impressive ministers and backbenchers, then alienated and booted out just about all of them. Justine Greening, Nadhim Zahawi, Rory Stewart, Amber Rudd, Ruth Davidson - all struck me as pretty sensible, thoughtful and likeable characters. None of them ran in this election. Sunak has made an effort to bring talent back to the cabinet table, though it says something that he couldn’t find a Foreign Sec in the Palaces of Westminster and had to go instead to a luxury shed in the Cotswold. The party cycled through every smart operator it has, and left Sunak picking from the dregs and has-beens. If, by some freak series of events, the Tories had won this election, Rishi Sunak would be the smartest person around the cabinet table, and this is the guy who skipped out on D-Day. 

For what it's worth, I actually think Sunak is a smart guy - and had the makings of a good Prime Minister. But someone must carry the cross for the sins of the Conservative Party of the past eight years. The party that refused to back May’s workable deal, allowed Boris Johnson and Liz Truss into the highest seat of government, partied in number ten, crashed the economy, and that somehow found themselves on the backfoot in an election they called. 

Keir Starmer’s motto - change - is appropriate, as that is more or less all he offers. He hasn’t exactly been a figure of great national unity, or enormous excitement at his radical offer. It’s hard to imagine the streets will be lined with flag-waving fanatics wherever he goes. He’s a bit dry, a mediocre debate performer, and his plans are a little unspecific (though I hope that he is - sensibly - planning to underpromise and overdeliver). 

The pollsters spent election night telling us that Starmer didn’t win, Sunak lost. But that feels a little harsh. If there’s a reason he’s won, that the pundits never seem to mention, it's that Starmer gets it. Whether it is the fault of austerity, or the pandemic, or the war: public services are truly in a dire state. He is the only politician who seems to recognise this. He seems to actually know that you just can’t book a GP appointment any more. Rishi Sunak occasionally talks about the ‘8am scramble’ but he doesn’t seem to realise that, often, the answer to that scramble is ‘not today, try tomorrow’. Starmer seems to know that, if you move house, you simply won’t get an NHS dentist. He knows that there aren’t police on the street, and they won’t come if you ring 999. 

When Sunak speaks, even to acknowledge the state of public services, it’s as if he’s in a different Britain - one where public services are a bit rough around the edges, but generally working. When people tell him their experiences, he seems to think they’re the exceptions - not the norms. When I heard Starmer in the debates, I was struck by how much he seemed to just get it. He knew that, if you try and rent a flat, the lettings agent will push you into a bidding war. Sunak didn’t seem convinced. Starmer knew that many kids are taught English by a substitute teacher - Sunak seemed sure some might be, but not many, surely. That’s not how it works!, he seemed to say. 

Whether Starmer has a plan to fix those things or not, he at least knows the problem. It’s hard to believe Sunak did. Neither man had a specific, detailed plan to fix those problems - but we voted for the man that at least seemed to know them.

(By the way, there are many reasons I remain unconvinced by Starmer. Top of the list is his steadfast refusal to raise taxes. He should raise the middle and top rates of income tax and he should pause the triple lock, in order to raise the money to fix public services. Maybe you can’t commit to that in an election, but hard times need tough measures.) 

I’ll end on one final point in Labour’s favour, and frankly one of the driving forces behind my vote. I hope that our new government will represent a cultural shift towards a more decent politics and a more united country. Over the last eight years, politicians have relied on a division: they've sought ‘wedge issues’ where they can turn the country against itself for political gain. Be it on trans rights, small boats, climate change. We’ve all felt it over the last eight years: families arguing about politics at the dinner table, the constant presence of protestors in Westminster, a little more nervousness to admit to your political stripe in public. The job of the PM is to unite the country, not divide it. In the concessionary speeches from Jeremy Hunt and Rishi Sunak, there was a marked change in tone from the campaign, which seemed to be a positive signal that the Tories - at least the sensible ones - are willing to try this genuinely gentler, kinder politics, that the country is clearly crying out for.

I’m reading How Rishi Sunak got stumped: the inside story of a disastrous campaign

I’m watching An incredible attempt to cross the entirety of England in a completely straight line