It was an absolutely terrible night for the Conservative Party!  There, I have got it off my chest and I feel so much better already!  A very large humble pie will keep me going for quite a long time. 

Political geeks can digest the results at leisure and read the thoughts of Sir John Curtice and others.  Suffice it to say that the vagaries of First Past the Post has delivered Labour a huge majority, despite fewer people voting for them than in 2019.  I think there was some appetite in Labour to look at changing FPP, but (call me cynical) I suspect any interest has suddenly vanished! 

Conservatism isn’t dead, but it is badly divided and homeless.  For those of us on the centre right, there are some big challenges ahead.  The painful lesson is that a divided party, run by a self-entitled elite, doesn’t attract many voters and frankly doesn’t deserve to either.  My party lost and it’s our own fault. 

FPP makes life difficult for new parties, so congratulations to both Reform and the Greens on managing to break doors down.  Some may not like those parties but it’s called democracy.  It interests me that Reform did well running an almost presidential campaign, whilst the Greens did well in North Herefordshire (previously safe Tory shire seat) with a strong local effort.  For those of all parties who slogged the highways and bye ways of this vast Ceredigion Preseli constituency, it leaves us wondering how best to campaign in future! 

The success of some candidates standing on the single issue of Gaza is both interesting and potentially worrying.  Everyone has a right to stand on whatever issue they see as important, and a mature democracy can and should both tolerate and respect them.  But I do hope that this doesn’t represent a slide towards sectarianism in our society.  For those of us who remember “The Troubles”, that would be a tragedy. 

Indeed, Wes Streeting, one of Labour’s golden boys, and the new Health Secretary was almost unseated in this way.  I have long admired what he has to say on the NHS.  He is off to a flying start declaring the NHS to be “broken”.  Can he fix it?  It’s the subject of my next column. 

Now for another slice of that pie.