Exit polls may, as the veteran BBC broadcaster David Dimbleby put it, be like reading the last page of the thriller before you’ve read the actual plot. At 10pm, rooms quietened across the country, and the result was a whodunnit in which the corpse was the Tory Party. I disagree with Dimbleby, because exit polls – while they may well be refined in seats and distribution as the night goes on – are the first raw draft of history, before the rationalisations, excuses and context set in.
This one tells a simple, bald truth, which is that Labour is tonight on course for a handsome majority . With a prediction of 410 seats to the Conservatives 131, Labour has the maths it needs to vanquish the crippling self-doubt that is often at odds with the Party’s self-belief. It is a party that has often struggled to recuperate from long periods in the wilderness.
The last text I got from a campaign team member, who has been on board since Gordon Brown lost to David Cameron, read: “Can’t quite believe it will be OK.” Leaders compete psychologically with former versions of themselves – and the relationship of Starmerism to Blairism would keep an army of psychotherapists in business. If this exit poll is indeed confirmed, Starmer is predicted to win a majority of 170 seats – falling short by nine votes of the “things can only get better win” of a quarter century ago.
But this is a cavil, not a critique – reducing the mighty Conservative party to a third of Labour represen.
