This is a spectacular victory for Labour.
Spectacular given where they came from – the doldrums. Their result in 2019 was their worst since 1935.
But spectacular too by any metric, at any time, in any context, because the challenge they faced to win by a smidgen was Himalayan.
It’s “the Starmer tsunami” as one shellshocked opponent put it.
The story of this election is one of an electorate showing a ruthless determination to eject the Conservatives.
In plenty of places that meant electing a Labour MP. In a fair chunk of others it meant electing a Liberal Democrat MP. And there are a heck of a lot of votes for Reform UK.
Today, the brutality of campaigning yielded to the civility of its aftermath.
The victor and the defeated offering each other public warm words.
Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak paid each other compliments, not criticisms, as they spoke outside 10 Downing Street.
To stand in Downing Street today, as I have done, was a privilege – to witness something actually quite rare in contemporary British history.
I am 44 – I was born in 1980 – and so what I saw has only happened three times in my lifetime: the transfer of power from Conservative to Labour, or Labour to Conservative.
It happened in 1997, it happened in 2010, and it’s happened again in 2024.
Garnishing the baked-in choreography of the changing of the prime ministerial guard – the trips to Buckingham Palace, the still images of the prime ministers shaking hands with the monarch – was a splash of partisan stagecraft too.
Labour activists brandishing union flags, Welsh flags and the Saltire as the Starmers arrived – and so trying to project an image of a government for all of the UK.
The thrust of Keir Starmer’s message was to emphasise a desire for stability, in contrast to the chaos of recent years.
His huge majority may help deliver that, but doesn’t guarantee it.
Labour’s share of the vote is the lowest won by a post-war single-party government, suggesting a breadth, not a depth to its support.
It was a night of a thousand stories.
Politics at its heart is about human beings, and their emotions: success, failure, jubilation, anguish, regret.
Defence Secretary Grant Shapps was a very high-profile nocturnal casualty.
Arguably the outgoing government’s most able communicator, his voice cracking as he delivered his concession speech.
Jeremy Hunt hung on in Surrey, his voice cracking too as he spoke.
This was a night whose soundtrack was the post-mortem beginning in the Conservative Party: from Robert Buckland, Mr Shapps, Penny Mordaunt, Liz Truss and others.
There will be more of that to come.
The Conservatives, for so long the Formula 1 car of British politics, find themselves wheels off and up on bricks.
Their forthcoming leadership race won’t have quite the jeopardy of changing driver while in office, but will matter in determining how coherent and effective an opposition to an all powerful new government the Tories can prove to be.
British politics has changed profoundly. The challenges for those now leading it have not.
