Twitter was wrong...

Over breakfast yesterday morning,

durham_rambler informed me that according to Twitter, Jeremy Corbyn was now Father of the House, the largely meaningless title given to the MP with the longest continuous service. What's more, he went on, the Mother of the House was Diane Abbott. This was a delightful idea - two survivors from an earlier age of the Labour Party, parents of the House not entirely sure what their children have become - but it turns out to be too good to be true. The new Father of the House is Sir Edward Leigh (already on the record as wanting to welcome Nigel Farage into the Tory Party), who was elected at the same time as Jeremy Corbyn, but ahead of him in the queue to be sworn in. Diane Abbott really is the longest-serving woman MP, though I'm not convinced that Mother of the House means that (I thought it was just the wording they came up with to avoid calling Harriet Harman the Father of the House)...

But even without that cherry on the top, I'm pretty satisfied with the election results. The Conservatives have lost, and lost convincingly. Now we get to see what sort of Labour Party has won. There's a particular satisfaction in seeimg the LibDems rewarded for their election strategy: the serious commentators were so dismissive of the endless sequence of stunts, but it worked, didn't it? So what does that say about our electoral system? It would have been interesting to see the LibDems overtake the Tories, too: an Opposition of the left (which is what they seem to be at the moment) is just what this Government needs. Well, they can still be that, I suppose, even if they are not The Opposition with the capital letters.

Likewise the Greens; I feel vindicated for my annoyance at how little press interest the Greens were getting, to end up with four seats, compared to the constant attention paid to Reform who ended up with five. (OK, I do know that those five seats required Reform to win a ridiculous number of votes.) I'm pleased with that result, and that across the country Green candidates saved their deposits (including in my own constituency, where, as anticipated, Labour held the seat); quite often they did better than the LibDem.

And now we'll see what happens next...

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

cmcmck

That's incorrect- as you say, it's Sir Edward Leigh.

I'll feel more settled if Starmer drops all the culture wars shit he's been coming out with because the Tories were.

They do give that arse Farage way more publicity than he deserves!

shewhomust

Yes, as you say, the question is, when he says (and I quote, but the emphasis is mine): "But whether you voted Labour or not… In fact - especially if you did not - I say to you, directly… My government will serve you." is this a promise to be more inclusive, rather than to stoke division? Or is it an acknowledgement that there are votes to be won from the right? Well, these two things are not mutually exclusive. Here's hoping for the best.

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