So my thoughts on the election result. I was not surprised by the result but I was surprised by the scale and extent. I was expecting a Conservative majority of 30-40 produced by lots of gains in the North and Midlands offset by some losses in the South. In the event I wasn't surprised by the relative Labour and Conservative performance in the north and Midlands but I was surprised by how badly Labour also did in the South and even London (although that was their best region by far). The moment I knew the result was going to be in line with the exit poll was not Blyth Valley - I had already priced in results like that - but Swindon North, which was a disastrous result.
This is obviously a fantastic result for the Conservatives. They finally took decisive action this Summer to deal with the challenge of the realignment, as posed by the sudden surge of the Brexit Party. They have now redefined themselves as a moderate national collectivist party. In one sense the project they now have is to reconstitute the kind of electoral coalition they had between 1931 and the late 1960s-early 1970s. This was a huge step in that direction. What they will have to do politically is move back to the kind of collectivist 'one nation' Conservative orientation, which I confidently think they will do, in order to hold on to the new voters they have gained this time and to possibly win even more seats next time (Sunderland!!). So the kind of radical laissez-faire policy that people on both left and right have feared/hoped for isn't going to happen. What you will get is certainly quite a lot of deregulation and a free trade policy but combined with lots of government spending, particularly on infrastructure, the use of government spending to promote national champions and some kind of industrial policy, and supply side reforms and direct government action in certain areas. One I am sure is going to be housing, transport another. Be interesting to see how foreign policy develops. I think quite a few old friends are going to reappear - I wouldn't be surprised to see deficiency payments in farming for example.
Contrariwise this was a disaster for the Labour Party. They were on a hiding to nothing over Brexit ever since the referendum result, no matter what they did they were going to piss off about half of their supporters. For a while they played it very well but the missed the boat in March. At that point they should have made a deal with May and put together a Parliamentary majority for a soft Brexit (a Norway+ deal basically). However the argument was won by the hard line remainers who still thought they could stop Brexit and get a second referendum. This was not Jeremy Corbyn's fault - Keir Starmer and John McDonnell have to take the blame - but he was the leader. To add to that error we saw the final cumulative effect of the condescension and prejudice directed at traditional minded Labour voters by the London based leadership. You can't tell people they are gullible fools who are ignorant and don't know what is good for themselves, and bigoted and narrow minded to boot and then expect them to vote for you. Saying that, the problem Labour has is the one that is wrecking social democratic parties everywhere, how to keep and electoral coalition together when the two main parts of it (younger, green, cosmopolitan, woke professionals who live in metropolitan areas and older, less educated, working class voters in small towns and ex-industrial areas) disagree viscerally about the now dominant issue. What they have to do now is decide which half they go with as their core and which half they will try to keep but ultimately be prepared to lose.
For the Liberal Democrats this was an enormous missed opportunity. They put their vote up, sometimes significantly, but should have done much better. The 'revoke' policy was a disastrous error once BoJo got a deal but more generally this shows the limited appeal of technocratic managerialist politics. Wonkery goes down well in London and the media but not elsewhere. Not to say it isn't important but you can't make it what you stand for, as compared to general principles. Time to rediscover those. A good start would be to go back to being simply the Liberal Party.
On that, my advice to all three parties would have two elements. Firstly go back to your roots and stop the focus on media and pr. For the Tories how about being a Conservative party (it hasn't been one since Thatcher, maybe even Heath). For Labour try to recover the traditions of generations of leaders and be a party that is communitarian, egalitarian, economically collectivist, and patriotic and culturally small conservative. Do not go back to Blair - that moment has passed. For the LDs rediscover liberalism, in all its dimensions, and the tradition you come from. Secondly, there's a need for all three to recreate a party that is a genuine mass social movement (not a campaign group, that's different). One aspect of this election was how little effect TV had - social media and old fashioned campaigning is where it is increasingly at.
Finally what about Scotland and Northern Ireland? As the campaign went on the polls led me to think maybe Nicola Sturgeon had made a mistake focusing so much on independence. How wrong I was! This was a stunning success. Scottish politics completed its realignment a couple of years ago, it is now clearly defined by independence versus unionism. I don't expect anything substantive to happen until after the next Scottish Parliament election - it suits both Johnson and Sturgeon to have that fought over the issue of another IndyRef. After that there will be an enormous fight and probably there will be another referendum. In Northern Ireland the DUP and Sinn Fein both had really bad results, particularly the latter. The big gainers were the Alliance and to a lesser extent SDLP. I think a shift is going on there and the politics of NI are also starting down a quite different path. I wouldn't bet against a united Ireland in ten years.