IIt began as black comedy: the sight of Rishi Sunak, soaked in the rain behind the podium at Number 10, looking like a drowned rat in a sharp suit, shouting the fact that he’d been elected by sudden death, drowned out by a hostile megaphone, was vaudeville.
The race itself Hobbes’s: “Poor, mean, brutish, and short.”
And finally, after all the speeches, TV debates, photo ops, accusations, helicopter flights, vehicles full of leaflets circulating around the country, and opinion polls, what have we learned about the country and politics?
We have learnt yet more about the foolish and reckless behaviour of those who have ruled over us. Mr Sunak was calling an election for himself, his party and his faction. As he rained, he had nothing on his mind but the interests of the country and our democracy. He had no plan, other than repeating the meaningless phrase that “the plan” was working. Try telling that to a food bank volunteer or the coastguard at Dover.
He sought support from confused voters on the basis that he would achieve something fanciful that he and the crooks and screw-ups before him had clearly failed to achieve: equalisation, with 30 towns receiving £20 million each. Equalisation is the great Conservative fantasy bequeathed by Boris Johnson, and to that miserly party as elusive as the Loch Ness monster. Mr Sunak has peddled the story again, backing it up with a promise to crack down on businesses that vandalise town centres with bubble gum.
The Rwanda Plan is a failure among failures, but it will be implemented with certainty and vigor and will see a “relentless ongoing process of permanently removing illegal immigrants to Rwanda with regular monthly flights.”
It could have been more podium comedy, but it was actually presented to the public as serious reform, real policy. After 14 years and many changes of government, we have learned that the Conservatives have failed to deliver any real policy, and yet are prepared to peddle fake jewellery and quack medicines to people whose health, jobs, educations, homes and futures depend on them.
What we learned from the Labour Party actually taught us a lot about ourselves. Labour went into the election with a 20-point lead in the polls, and ultimately ended its short campaign with a huge lead over the Conservatives in the polls. There was talk among party strategists yesterday that Labour ran a good campaign. And the Ming Vase theory – that you always need to be careful and never confused – is absolutely correct.
There was nothing really to be excited about other than the fact that a Labour victory would mean the Conservatives would be thrown out the window. Many of us lamented the low-key atmosphere of the campaign and, indeed, the lack of connection with ordinary people, other progressives and even long-standing supporters within the party that has characterised Keir Starmer’s term in office.
But we must ask: why this approach? What is this political culture that rigs the game so much that the main progressive party in this country feels the only path to power is to say as little as possible? Look at our political system and the rigging of single-seat constituencies that mean winner takes all. But look at our slavish, right-leaning media, too. There is no sincerity here. We have evangelical nationalist TV and radio stations and newspapers that sold all their journalistic irrelevance to get Brexit done, and are now the mouthpieces of a right-wing cult.
If we don’t like Starmer’s approach, we might ask, couldn’t there have been another? It was a simplified approach, tailored to a raw culture. Even for those of us who genuinely wanted it to succeed, it was painful to watch and impossible to get excited about. We should think about the approach, but also about the society that needed it.
Keep in mind, too, what we have learned from local communities. Every reporter sent into the towns and villages of this country, every Guardian columnist, has encountered some degree of anger, disappointment, bewilderment and sadness. Many voters, repelled by issues like Gaza and the small boats, have declined to vote altogether.
Some looked to smaller parties for reprieve. They amused themselves watching Ed Davey bungee jump and surf in the hope that they might scrutinise Lib Dem policies. Others pointed to Nigel Farage and the far-right Reform UK as an antidote, but what was that if not poison on poison? Others vented their frustrations on the plethora of independent parties and candidates. This was new on a scale and in some ways positive. If only there was a voting system that rewarded them in some way.
Wherever the location, the story is much the same: we have volcanic material beneath our feet, the question is when and how it will erupt.
And six weeks after the incompetent Mr Sunak began this self-serving process, there is a new era and new transparency in Westminster and the centres of power, but we also need to better understand the scale of the challenge of connecting a broken and dysfunctional politics with the needs and anxieties of ordinary people.
It was indeed a “poor, mean, brutal and short” campaign, but something good must come from it.
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Hugh Muir is Opinion Editor of the Guardian.
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The Guardian newsroom: election results special
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