I’m relieved to see the back of the tory government of course. I realised that in total the tories have been in power for 70% of my life. Very much time for a change and I agree with Brave in that I’m happy to have someone who is just boring and hopefully semi-competent. While I wasn’t thrilled by Starmer’s campaign I do think at his heart he is a democratic socialist and I hope that comes through in his time in office.
There are some troubling signs though, such as the fact that Labour’s vote share actually decreased from the last election, which underlines that it’s more about the conservatives losing seats rather than labour gaining them. Also it’s clear already that the next few years are going to be dominated by a media that fetishes Farage and his hard right fascist agenda and there will be little scope for much else. The Greens got the same number of seats but I don’t expect the next five years to be dominated by media coverage of climate change, sadly.
Anyway, it’s generally a good result, at least in England. In Scotland things feel quite lost at sea at the moment, not clear how things stand really. I expect the shift to labour will be taken as a sign that Westminster can go back to ignoring Scotland again, that the jocks have fallen in line, and any kind push for reform of the union will be considered off the table.
So overall good result with some mixed feelings too.