The Tories lost the UK election. But who won?

It’s a disaster, a cataclysm, a wipeout. Half the British cabinet will lose their seats, and Labour will be in power for a decade. All those things will be true if the BBC exit poll is anything close to reflecting reality, but hang on a minute. At the risk of sounding like one of those soccer managers insisting “there are positives to take out of this” after a 5-0 defeat, isn’t there reason for the Tories to feel a bit of relief here? Talk of the Lib Dems overtaking the Conservatives to become His Majesty’s Opposition seems to be wide of the mark. They appear to be nowhere close, ending up with fewer than half the seats won by the Conservatives.

It looks like there are two big winners from this election. Sir Keir Starmer, obviously. But also the two-party system. It has, once again, shown its utter dominance. Neither the Lib Dems nor Reform have been able to put more than a small dent in its armor. With a first-past-the-post system, it is extremely difficult for a third party to make inroads into the duopoly of Labour and the Conservatives. It is an entire century now since any other party got to lead a government.

Lib Dem deputy leader Daisy Cooper has popped up on the BBC sounding perky about her projected sixty-one seats, but she really shouldn’t be. Her party looks as doomed as ever to be the Cinderella of UK politics. Cooper kept talking about Britain’s “broken voting system,” but does she seriously expect a Starmer government, with a majority of 170 or so, to change it? The Lib Dems had a brief opportunity in 2010 to change the voting system when they persuaded David Cameron to offer a referendum on the Alternative Vote, but they lost. And what was that about Nigel Farage’s claim that “something is going on out there?” Yes, something was going on — but nothing even nearly sufficient to break the two-party system.

Unless Sir John Curtice turns out to have had a nightmare, there is one conclusion to be drawn from this evening: the Tories will be back. Not, perhaps, in 2029 or even 2034, but once the public inevitably grows tired and angry with Labour, it will be the Conservatives who will return to government, not the Lib Dems, Reform or anyone else. Any ambitious twenty-five-year-old who fancies a career in politics, go out and join the Conservative Party tomorrow. Get in there now while the party is on its knees. You will have an excellent chance of being prime minister by the time you are forty.

This article was originally published on The Spectator’s UK website.