Sir Keir Starmer, who has been so careful not to seem triumphant in the face of a lengthy 20-point lead over the Conservative party in the run-up to the UK General Election, finally accepted that he had managed to turn around the Labour party since its historical defeat in 2019, saying “now is the time for us to deliver".
Huge Conservative figures, including many who were thought to be in line for the Conservative leadership in the assumed stepping-down of leader Rishi Sunak, have put themselves out of the race by losing their seats.
Penny Mordaunt, who made such a splash at the Coronation of King Charles III, was a front-runner in the assumed race for the leadership but lost a seat she had held since 2010, blaming a failure to honour voters’ trust for the Tory mega-loss. Rishi Sunak managed to hold on to his Yorkshire seat while former Chancellor Jeremy Hunt scraped through. Defence Minister Grant Shapps and former Prime Minister Liz Trust were however ousted with Truss refusing to deliver a speech even to thank her team.
With Nigel Farage’s far-right, anti-immigration party Reform squeezing the Conservatives into third place in many constituencies, but with only four seats at time of writing, the anti-trans agenda laid out in their manifesto seems set to get an airing in the next Parliament.