Landslide for Labour. Freefall for the Conservatives. But now that we’ve had time to chew over the results, what analysis have we missed? The Greens won four seats: beating Labour in progressive, urban England and striking into Conservative heartland in Waveney Valley and North Herefordshire.
And it seems as though these four might just be the beginning. In Bristol East the Greens mounted good challenge to Labour, who held the seat with a 14 point majority. And then there’s Huddersfield, Sheffield, and Hackney: areas with sizeable Green representation at a council level, and now, it seems, a decent showing at a parliamentary level.
Labour could find itself on the backfoot here. In elections gone by it was often hard to discern where, besides Brighton and Bristol and maybe even Norwich, the Greens were in with a chance. Now we know.
Reform came second in a litany of Labour-won seats. In a number they split the vote on the right and displaced the Conservatives in brutal fashion. The party's five wins will guarantee it a presence in the media, unlike Ukip after the 2015 election.
But the future for Britain's right is uncertain from here. What if Reform hung around rather than fold into the Conservatives (or fade into obscurity)? Where might the party look for further gains? These are seats where Reform came second to Labour, with a fifth of what otherwise would have been Conservative votes coming their way. Farage was more likeable than Sunak among the Tory base by a sizeabl.
