“What we anticipate seldom occurs: but what we least expect generally happens.” Benjamin Disraeli This quote by British politician, novelist, essayist and twice, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Benjamin Disraeli, came to mind this week, as I reflected on the outcome of the UK elections on July 4, 2024. It cannot be said Labour’s win over the Conservatives (Tories) was not anticipated.
Very early after the last election, pollsters had been reporting a murmur of anti-Tory sentiment in the heartbeat of the electorate, which grew stronger with every expected, and unexpected by-election win by the Labour Party. With the Tories lurching from crisis to crisis —spawned by disastrous handling of the social and economic fallout from Brexit and Covid—and from one Prime Minister to another (David Cameron, Boris Johnson, Theresa May, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak), it gradually became clear that the Tories were headed for defeat at the Elections. What was not expected was that Labour would have romped home so convincingly, capturing 412 of 650 constituencies in play, across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, to bring an end to 14 years of Tory rule.
Indeed, at the last General Election held only 4 years earlier, the Tories inflicted their worst defeat on the Labour Party, in more than 8 decades. With such political ignominy in the frame of analysis, few would have thought the Labour Party under Sir Keir Starmer would have survived as a Party, far less for it.
