The 2024 General Election is done and dusted and the votes have been tallied up. This post looks at some of the features of that election. I have deliberately overlooked one party because of the way the official coverage has been gushing over them while ignoring at least equally deserving cases.

THE LEAST CONVINCING “LANDSLIDE” EVER

Keir Starmer is Prime Minister, and has a colossal majority. However, that majority is based on the votes of only about 20% of the electorate (35% of the votes on a very moderate 60% turnout). This is an artefact of the outmoded first past the post (FPTP) system still used in UK elections. FPTP works when and only when basically every vote goes to one of two parties. When, as it in this election, a number of parties figure prominently it throws up some very bizarre outcomes, including Starmer and his version of Labour having a thumping parliamentary majority based on half a million votes FEWER than Corbyn and his version of the Labour party polled five years ago. Having pointed out that this election is not nearly as much of a triumph for Starmer as it might look (it has been a total, unequivocal disaster for the Tories) I am of course pleased that the Tories are gone after 14 years. The moment at which Labour’s confirmed seat count ticked to the magic 326 (half of 650 plus one for an absolute majority) was one to cherish – North East Somerset & Hanham, where the odious Jacob Rees-Mogg was the Tory candidate went to Labour.

OTHER FEATURES

The Liberal Democrats did superbly, overturning some seemingly impregnable Tory majorities (the scale of the disaster for the former governing party can be estimated by the fact that 12 people who had come into this election as cabinet ministers came out of it as ex-MPs), and becoming the third largest party in parliament. The Scottish National Party were all but obliterated.

In Islington, where Jeremy Corbyn, constituency MP for 41 years, had been thrown out of the Labour Party, who then imposed a private healthcare entrepreneur (a role at odds with everything the Labour Party should stand for) named Praful Nargund as the official candidate, was running as an independent. All of the polling companies ended with egg on their faces on this one – every last one of them had Nargund, with the benefit of having the Labour Party machine behind him winning comfortably, but it was Corbyn who won comfortably.

A number of left wing independents got in elsewhere as well, including eliminating Jon Ashworth, set to become a minister in the new government.

The Green Party, without the resources to mount full campaigns in every seat, but with candidates on the ballot paper everywhere, had targetted four seats for serious campaigning: Brighton Pavilion, which they held but had a new candidate as the incumbent had retired, Bristol Central (a new seat, where the Labour candidate who had been incumbent MP for its predecessor seat would have been a minister had she been elected), Waveney Valley (a new seat, where the predecessor seat was Tory held) and North Herefordshire (going into this election as close as one got to a safe Tory seat). All four of these seats now have Green MPs – Carla Denyer in Bristol Central, Adrian Ramsay in Waveney Valley, Sian Berry in Brighton Pavilion and Ellie Chowns in North Herefordshire. In addition a number of Greens came second in other constituencies. Sian Berry polled over twice as many votes as Labour in Brighton Pavilion, Carla Denyer has a majority of over 10,000 in Bristol Central (and Labour poured resources into both seats).

In my part of the world James Wild retained his seat, but his majority plummeted from 20,000 to 5,000, while in one of the last results to be officially confirmed Southwest Norfolk MP and former Prime Minister (for a risible 44 days) Liz Truss lost her seat to Labour’s Terry Jermy. Since both Boris Johnson’s former seat in Uxbridge and David Cameron’s former seat in Witney also changed hands that meant that three former prime minister’s seats fell in a single election.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…